The God of Me?

  After watching a video regarding "Wrong Worship"  I have a few thoughts.  The YouTube video entitled "Wrong Worship" which was a pre-sermon illustration, while funny, hits the nail squarely on the head.  It is a commentary on many of us during worship.   After watching it several times, it seems that the attitudes the skit was portraying was one that is common to all of us.  It is focused on "ME."  If we were able to get into the thoughts of people as they worship on Sunday morning, night, or whenever we worship, the thoughts that would be heard would often times have a self-centeredness about them. Such as, thinking about lunch, or the horrid voice behind us, or the way the new clothes  or haircut we are wearing and wondering if others are noticing us.  Now before you get to critical of this, we have all done it.  Yes, even I have.  I catch myself all the time thinking about me, how am I sounding?  Is someone noticing that I am raising my hands or seem to know the songs well?   Oops I hope no one heard that terrible note I just sang.  Does that person in front of me think I sound great? 
     Where does this come from? Why is it all too common?  If we look at history, even Adam and Eve where guilty of this.  Eve, when tempted with the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, was thinking about herself, and what she could get out of it if she ate the fruit and what would the snake think if she didn't?  Adam thought of himself and blamed Eve for thinking of himself.  Now I know the Bible does not say this specifically, but isn't that what all of us would do?  Then we read a little further in Genesis and we find Cain and Abel offering their sacrifices.  Cain was angry at God and his brother because he did not do what was asked of God.  (Genesis 4 implies that God had given them specific instructions for bringing offerings to Him).  God even warned Cain but his thoughts remained on himself and so he killed his brother out of anger.  When God pronounced punishment on him, he said "It is too much for ME to bear."  King David looked at Bathsheba and wanted her for himself, not thinking of his other wives or of Uriah, Bathsheba's husband.  Peter was thinking about himself when he denied Jesus.  I can imagine him thinking "What would these people think if I say I know Jesus and say I am his follower?"  What is it that made Lucifer fall from heaven?  It was thinking about himself and trying to get ahead by becoming like God or trying to surpass Him.
     Don't we all fall in that trap now and then?  Look around you.  That car just cut you off at the light or who sped around you not caring.  Someone grabbed that last package off the shelf from behind you as you were reaching for it.  You watch as someone at the restaurant complains that their food is not just perfect for them.  You over hear someone say they earned it so why not?
     Jesus asked us to die to ourselves.  Luke 9:23 says “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me."  This means that we cannot put ourselves in front.  We must think about what God wants from of and how we can serve and honor Him.  That is what we are made for.  But it is that free will, given to us by God that does not make it easy to do so.
     So back to worship.  God wants our worship and even craves our worship.  But when we sing a song that is worshipful and our hearts are not in it, we are not truly worshipping, but just singing a song.  As Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well, "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23-24).  This verse is a not so subtle reminder that only true worship is that which is not about me.  Easy to do?  From my own personal experience, not always, and most of the time, not at all.  Hebrews 13:15 says" Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name."  It is through Jesus that I can truly offer praise and our worship to God. And it is truly a sacrifice on my part most of the time.  When I do offer that sacrifice of praise, I get more than I expect and God comes near.  It is when God comes near that I am truly blessed and fulfilled, and it had nothing to do with me at all.  It has been and always will be all about the God of the universe who made me.