Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Up
- Up: Up is the word we use for what we worship. If we are following God’s will, God will occupy the Up position. Our life, our identity, our mission, our family on mission is all derived from Up. This is why God needs to be in our Up position.
This is an awesome chapter through which we can view the lens of
up. Any chapter in the Bible that talks
about worship and our response to God is a great chapter through which we can
view how we relate to God. The
fundamental question of this chapter and our own lives is this: how do we truly
relate to God?
Many people in this world relate to God our of a fire-insurance
mentality; they are simply afraid of Hell and judgment and want to avoid
that. Other people relate to God out of
a guilt mindset; they do things they don’t like and beat themselves up because
of it. Other people relate to God out of
an obligation mindset; they don’t really care about God, but the ritualistic
response to God has been drilled into them so much that they can’t help but go
through the motions. None of these are
the response that God desires out of us.
Rather, God desires that we genuinely worship Him. He desires that we respond to Him because we
genuinely love Him. He desires that we
recognize His grace and His wonderful provision and come to Him in response to
His greatness. He desires that we come
to Him because we voluntarily want to give up ourselves and become more like
Him because He is greater. That’s what
Up is all about. Up isn’t about guilt,
fire insurance, or obligation. Up is
about submitting to a merciful being because His character is better than ours
and we can become like Him.
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