Worship Because...

Read Psalm 100
(No Bible near? Click the Scripture reference to read any number of translations online at BibleGateway.com.)

This past Sunday, the pastor gave four reasons to worship God:

Because God made us.
Because God loves us.
Because we belong to God.
Because He is all around.

How do you feel about each of these reasons?Do they stir your heart to worship?

God made you. Just the way you are with your specific looks, gifts, talents and abilities. Do you find reason to worship God because He made you?

God loves you. He loves you just as you are. You cannot do anything to earn His love or make Him love you more. He loved you first. While you were still His enemy. He loves you so much, He died for you. How does this make you feel? Any desire for worship stirred?

You belong to God. God made you, therefore you are His. To place wherever He chooses. To care for however He thinks best. How is God treating you as one of His possessions? Feeling a Hallelujah! rising from your depths?

God is all around. He has hemmed you in before and behind. There is no running from Him. No hiding from Him. He sees all and knows all. Your interior and exterior. How does that make you feel?

Our spirit may squirm at the responses our flesh wants to give to these questions.

Criticism may rise about how we were made, question His love for us, be resentful of how we perceive His treatment of us, and with no where to hide... that's quite an invasion of privacy.

Depending on whether we know God as God, will color our response to the questions, as well as determine the depth of our worship.

To receive God as God, is to accept His will as perfect, His way as perfect, His plan and purpose as perfect.

To receive God as God begins by giving Him thanks
because He made you,
because He loves you,
because you belong to Him,
because He is all around,
no matter how you feel about it, but just because He is God.

I dare you. Give thanks now. Because He is God and there is no other.

Thank Him specifically. For everything. Whether you feel it's bad or good. Whether you like what He's allowed in your life or not.

Thank Him. Because He is God. And there is no other.

I believe He will honor your faith...
and fill your heart...
with a joyful noise of praise...

I know He did mine...

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!

Psalm 100:1 ESV

Just some thoughts from Sunday...