By Nick Roen – An article from The Camp Connection Volume I, Issue 3
I was out in Breckenridge, Colorado last March as a leader for my churches youth ski trip. While we were there, we decided to grab a video camera and ask some people on the mountain about God and then show some of the answers to our students. One guy in particular stands out in my mind. We asked him, “Do you believe in God?” He said, “Absolutely! The mountain is my God and I go to worship everyday.” At first we just chuckled to ourselves and dismissed him as sort of freaky. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this guy had hit onto something big!
So often we associate worship with something that only Christians do when we sing to God. But every person on this planet worships, including non-Christians. The truth is that whatever takes our time, our affection, our devotion, whatever has the most important place in our lives…that is what we are worshiping. There are so many people that are worshiping money, fame, friends, pleasure, entertainment without even realizing it.
There are even people who claim to worship God but in reality He is nothing more than an afterthought. My favorite quote of all time is from C.S. Lewis, who has this to say:
“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far to easily pleased.”
How often do we put things in front of Christ in our lives? How often are we far to easily pleased? Our priorities can get out of whack so easily and sometimes we don’t even realize it. So we need to continually ask our selves this question; “Is Christ more valuable to me than ______?” Insert whatever; sports, money, status, popularity, friends, family, whatever is competing for your affections. Is Christ more valuable to you than that? Because everyone worships, and sometimes we don’t even fully realize what it is we are worshiping.
This article is so true.
Nick, you’re probably too young to remember an old song that says something similar…”you gotta serve somebody…it may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna hafta serve somebody.”
Our lives always reveal more about our worship than our words.
I think that this is a critical concept to understand. I know that for myself I must always examine in my life that which provides joy–or rather happiness in many cases– for myself and make sure it is dominantly and exclusively found in Christ. If my joy comes from other means–as you mentioned–whether skiing, cycling, possessions, friends, other relationships, or achievements, then I am worshiping these rather than God; they have become idols. Indeed, this is pitiful; we are far too easily pleased. Only God deserves our worship, and even then it is nothing less than a privilege to be able to worship God.
Funny how people don’t have to be taught to worship, right? The trick is to worship the right thing! Another thought:
“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”
-John Piper