The Lust for Worship- By Caleb R Humme

Dostoyevsky wrote:
“So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and painfully as to find someone or something to worship.”

Is this a true statement? I think it has to be. People have a craving…a longing…a lust to have something they can look to for meaning. We search for something greater than ourselves to give us purpose

People have a craving…a longing…a lust to have something they can look to for meaning. We search for something greater than ourselves to give us purpose. We are wired to find this meaning through authentic worship of God, yet too often we try to fulfill this craving with something other than true worship for God.

I would argue that this is because God has hardwired us to search for Him. Yet too often our wires get crossed and we look for someone or something else to fill that lust.

I think that today we see this most clearly in the way that people ravenously consume endless information about celebrities. They buy magazine after magazine and faithfully watch a multitude of entertainment programs on TV. (Don’t even get me started on reality TV!)

The same example could be made of sports as well. We sacrifice time with our family to play a quick eighteen holes or to catch the game of the day. We can turn on dozens of channels to find twenty-four hour coverage of Ocho-Cinco’s latest touchdown celebration or Kobe’s weekly tantrum. We call ourselves “die-hard” fans and get emotionally disturbed after our favorite team loses.

Fine tuning our physical appearance is another way we fill this lust for worship. Hours are spent at the gym, and an inordinate amount of money is spent on the right clothes or the right procedures to help us look the right way, all in an effort to provide ourselves with meaning.

This list can go on and on. I haven't even mentioned relationships, money, material possessions, drugs, alcohol, food, work…

Perhaps the most destructive way we try to satisfy this striving is by inundating ourselves with religion. I’m talking about the institutionalized religion that gets in the way of a real and honest relationship with God. This is destructive because we think that we’re doing the right thing by filling our time with church activities, but in all of those activities we seldom demonstrate true worship. We end up fooling ourselves and others into thinking we are “really spiritual” because it’s “God’s work”.

As youth workers we have a major impact on how our students fill their “incessantly and painfully” desire “to find someone or something to worship.” Perhaps the greatest influence comes from the way we model worship for them. By demonstrating the utter fruitlessness of filling out lust for worship with anything other than authentic worship of God, we teach our students more about what worship truly is than any number of messages we give. Now is a good time to reflect on the picture of worship you are presenting to the students in your ministry. Are you demonstrating authentic worship of God or worship of pop culture?

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote at the end of a long quote about worship: “…what we are worshipping we are becoming.” What are you becoming? Are you becoming the best golfer in your town, or the community fashion expert? Not that you can’t enjoy these things, but if you are becoming anything less than Christ-like, perhaps you are filling your lust for worship with the wrong things. Worship is not about the songs we sing, it's about the life we lead. If you aren't leading a life that is striving to worship God, then perhaps it's time to re-evaluate.

The Worship God Seeks

Many of us have different styles of worship. There are those who raise their hands, wave their hands, dance in the isles, clap, beat their chests, fold their hands to pray, sit in silence, etc.... There are others who make a spectacle out of worship and there are those who are so reverent, they won't let any excitement seep out of the sides of their mouths

How many of us would take our trash cans and empty them on the church altar on Sunday? None of us, right!! I mean if we were asked that question, we would laugh and maybe even get insulted that someone would even suggest the thought. Then why do we take our spiritual trashcans and our hollow words and empty those on God's alter every Sunday and Wednesday?

In our lives, many of us worship through volunteering our time for free while others give generously and anonymously through many organizations. Some of us worship by doing random acts of kindness to others while others of us let our actions and examples lead the way in our worship. However you choose to worship God, there are 2 things that must happen, either through music on a Sunday/Wednesday Service or through the actions we perform in our daily lives. Let's look at what these are;

John 4:23-24 says this, "yet a time is coming and has now come when the TRUE worshipers will worship the Father in SPIRIT and TRUTH, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit and His worshipers must worship in SPIRIT and in TRUTH."

OK, so what does all of this mean? Let’s break it down. In "Spirit", how do you worship this way? This means, when we sing and lift our hands or if we are directed to do something in our daily lives, like give money to the Tsunami relief fund, we do so with one goal in mind, TO PLEASE GOD!!! It is not something we go around "screaming" to other people about. It is not for a show. It is not for others to look at us and be proud of what we did. If we do get that attention for what we have done, then that attention should have happened upon us by accident. In Spirit, means nothing else other than pleasing God. Not what is going on around us like doodling notes back and forth on a church bulletin, watching Grandma Moses fall in and out of sleep in the row next to you, not being distracted by what happened to you or to some friends over the weekend? It is a single-minded reaction to who God is in your life. You get swept away by God's mercy and love in your life and are taken to a higher plain in expression. If our minds are on anything else, like how bad the music is or wondering if anyone is watching us, we have missed the first of these because we can't be worshiping in spirit and have our minds in the natural at the same time. It is impossible. God wants all of our attention, not just half of it.

“In Truth,” what does that mean to worship in truth? It means that you believe in Christ. Well DUH!!!! Jesus said in John 14:6, "I am the way the TRUTH and the Life." John uses the word truth to describe Jesus 25 times in this book, as to be making a huge point. Too many of us go about worship for ourselves, our needs, our desire to sing songs we know, etc. We miss the boat that we are worshiping the truth of Jesus in our lives. Did you know that by the way we worship, proves what we believe God to be in our lives. It doesn't matter what you say with your lips about Jesus. If your actions don't back up your words, it is obvious you don't believe it or worse, even care!!!! When we enter into worship, we are proclaiming the joy of Jesus in our lives. His saving grace, his unconditional love, his support and strength in our lives, his justice and mighty correction, His raising from the dead to take our sins on, etc.....

Can you honestly say that these things are on your mind when you enter the time of worship? Are you worshiping God from spirit or from a physical nature? Are you focused on the truth of Jesus or on where you are going to eat afterwards? Are you single minded in your intentions to sing to God a sweet and pleasing song or are you just making sure you sound good in your harmonies?

It states right here that God seeks worshipers who worship from spirit and truth. So, anything less than that is phony and fake! OUCH!!!! He desires us to move into a realm where worship is not about us and all about Him!!!!!!! If this is what God seeks and worship is the act of "pleasing God", how many times have we "pleased God" over the last month? How many of us have really offered up to God the pleasing aroma He desires from our lips and hearts? How many of us have offered up garbage and empty words?

How many of us would take our trash cans and empty them on the church altar on Sunday? None of us, right!! I mean if we were asked that question, we would laugh and maybe even get insulted that someone would even suggest the thought. Then why do we take our spiritual trashcans and our hollow words and empty those on God's alter every Sunday and Wednesday?

It's time to offer up what God seeks and not what we decide to give!!! If you lack that connection with God, it may be because of the trash that we offer up in worship. Take an inventory of what you bring to God during worship. Is it saturated in truth and directed by the spirit or is it a bunch of garbage?