It was the best muffin I had ever tasted. In fact, it stopped me in my tracks. We were shopping at the Orange Grove markets when I stopped at the Sonoma stall and bought a mixed berry muffin. It only took me a couple of bites before I turned to my mother-in-law and told her, “You need to taste this, this muffin is amazing.” A woman who was walking past stopped and asked me, “Where did you get your muffin from?” As soon as I explained, she was off to buy one for herself.
The Bible calls it worship. It could be a muffin, or it could be God. Worship is to declare praise for something or someone. It is to proclaim its worthiness. In the first eleven chapters of his letter to the Romans, Paul systematically explains how God has brought salvation to any who crowns Jesus as king. Then in chapter 12, he writes:
1Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
When I realised how good my muffin was, my natural inclination was worship, to declare its praise. Likewise, even a cursory understanding of what God has done for us through Jesus should also result in worship. However, this worship is much more than words of praise. Paul exhorts us to offer our whole lives as living sacrifices to God. Our whole life should be a gesture of wholehearted devotion to God. When someone observes your life they should see a declaration of God’s glory in your actions, thoughts and words, in your plans for the future, and the things that you devote your time to.
If someone observed my life, I wonder what they would say I worship. Does my life declare that success, image, and competency are the things I truly worship? I know my words declare God’s praise but what do my actions reveal?
Paul astutely observes in chapter 1, that the big problem for mankind is that we have “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator”. I know that I have fallen into that trap and have tried to find satisfaction in all sorts of things rather than in God. I have sometimes foolishly exchanged God for a lie. A lie that promises everything but never delivers.
However, everything changes when we understand what type of God has us in His hands. Everything changes as we grasp the beauty of Jesus, as our hearts fall more in love with Him. Only then will our idols be replaced by God and our lives with becoming living sacrifices, the true and proper worship of God.