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A Balanced Diet for Believers - Worship

by Jerry Ousley  
9/12/2009 / Christian Living

Worshipping God is a very important part of our balanced spiritual diet. In the Old Testament the Bible tells of some very strange situations regarding worship. First of all in the book of Exodus, when Moses went up Mount Sinai in order to receive the Law from God he was up there for forty days. While there receiving the tables of stone etched with the famous Ten Commandments, the people were left below. They had witnessed the miracles from God that had led them out of Egypt just months before this. They had been led through the wilderness by a cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night. God had taken care of them and there could be no doubt that it was His hand protecting and providing for them.

Yet, while Moses was on Sinai receiving the Law the people below had already given up.
They asked Aaron to make a god that they could worship. He did and when Moses came down from Sinai with those precious tables in his hands he found them already sinning against God and worshipping a false god. Who would have thunk it? It's beyond me.

We also read in the book of Judges how that, after God had miraculously led the people into the Promised Land and had given them rest from their enemies, they turned away from God and began to worship false gods. They would sin against God and turn from Him, God would allow those in the land they had not yet conquered to oppress them, they would cry out to God and He would send a deliverer to free them from their oppression and in a few short years they would be right back in sin serving other gods. In Judges this happened over and over again. I can't imagine how they could do this but then when the dust is all cleared on the matter it came down to the fact that they really didn't want to serve God. They wanted to have all the blessings and privileges He provided but they also wanted to do as they pleased.

I suspect that in many cases this has not changed yet today. People want the blessings, the freedoms, and the good life God provides without doing what it takes to have a spiritually balanced diet. They don't want to read the word or they would. They don't want to take God for what He has said or they would. They don't want to worship God or they would.

In Matthew 4 we've been reading about the temptation of Jesus. In the final temptation we see the devil taking Jesus to a very high mountain. As they surveyed all the kingdoms of the world, the devil told Jesus that if He would just fall down and worship him that he would give control of all these kingdoms to Him. I suspect that the devil knew that Jesus' mission was going to ultimately provide the way for this to happen anyway. But if Jesus would worship the devil then He could gain back the control of the world without having to go through all the pain and suffering that He did. It must have been a great temptation.

But Jesus ended the devil's temptations for the moment with these words: "Away with
you Satan! For it is written, 'YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND HIM ONLY YOU SHALL SERVE'" (Verse 10). Jesus would not take the easy way out. It would not have accomplished His mission.

By the same token we must be willing to experience the spiritual in the right way. We were created to worship God. It is our duty. But aside from that if we have come to Jesus Christ in true repentance worshipping God should not be an act of duty but a pleasure to fall before the One making it possible for us to escape the death penalty of our sin. In whatever way we choose to worship God it should be done freely and willingly. Worship of God is the third course of a balanced spiritual diet for believers.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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