Why You Exist To Worship Someone

In Battle Drill devotionals this week we examine a true mountaintop experience and consider what Jesus’ divinity means for us today.

Read Matthew 17:1-9. Until you come to understand that God created you to worship, life will not make sense. But if you look around you, and consider your own experience, you will realise that every human being has an innate need to worship someone or something. That someone or something we worship is where we discover our own worth.

If we don’t worship God, then we will find something else to worship - money, possessions, career, family, even a football team!

After nearly three years together, it seems as if Jesus’ disciples had finally understood this. When Jesus asked them who they thought he was, Peter replied, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God” (Matthew 16:16). But immediately afterwards, this declaration of Peter’s was tested, and he came up short (Matthew 16:21-23).

So a few days later, Jesus leads Peter, James and John up a high mountain, to be alone. In this place, the disciples experienced a vision, a brief glimpse of Jesus’ true glory. His face shone like the sun. His clothes became white as light.

This was a special revelation of Jesus’ divinity to them and God’s affirmation that he truly was what they had declared him to be. It was also a reminder that the only proper response to Jesus’ glory and divinity was to worship.

When we truly worship Jesus, when we focus on his glory and his divinity, then anything else that might call on our attention, anything else that might seem worthy of worship, fades into darkness. As Cathy and Wayne Perrin wrote:

When I look into your holiness,
When I gaze into your loveliness,
When all things that surround
Become shadows in the light of you;
When I’ve found the joy of reaching your heart,
When my will becomes enthroned in your love,
When all things that surround
Become shadows in the light of you:
 
I worship you, I worship you,
The reason I live is to worship you.
 
 Wayne and Cathy Perrin
© 1981 Integrity’s Hosanna! Music/Adm. by Capitol CMG Publishing excl. the UK, adm. by Integritymusic.com, a division of David C. Cook, songs@integritymusic.com Used by permission. 
 
CCL Licence No. 135015
Copied from The Song Book of The Salvation Army Song Number 402

THINK IT OVER

Think about the following:

• What are you tempted to worship instead of Jesus? What can you do to ensure you remain focused on him?