As human beings we were designed to be worshippers. Its in us, we can’t help it. Its the God DNA that we carry. Its why we put celebrities on a pedestal and ultimately why celebrity culture exists. Its why we have countless man made religious practices.

We were designed to worship and we will all ensure that we will find something to worship.

Of course, the true object of our worship should be God. No one but Him is truly deserving of our worship. No one but God can receive our worship without it corrupting them. He is the God we must worship.

So why do we get it mixed up and worship things or people we aren’t supposed to?

I think the primary reason is that our God isn’t a God we visibly see, at least not in the traditional sense. We don’t know what He looks like. We see him in many things, we can grow in our understanding of Him, but he is not someone that we can tangibly hold and view in the way that we have become accustomed to with other people and things in our world. We struggle with that.

And so we try to make Him tangible. Throughout the generations we have sought to reduce Him into someone or something we can comprehend, hold, and therefore physically worship. The same challenge occurs in the Bible on many occasions. In fact in the book of Deuteronomy we see this problem play out amongst the children of Israel on their journey towards the promised land. Moses reflecting on the journey says this to them.

You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars —all the heavenly array —do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. Deuteronomy 4:15-19

Moses is recognising the primary reason that this was a struggle – they couldn’t see God. Moses reminds them that when God spoke to them out of the fire He chose not to show Himself and for this reason Moses tells them that they shouldn’t try to create anything else that would seek to represent God. There is a recognition that there would be a temptation to worship the incredible things that God has created but it is clear that they and we must not give into those temptations.

They are God created but not God incarnate

Even though our humanness often wants to make God visible and tangible, the real truth is that a god we can understand is not a god we can worship. A god we can see and grasp is not a god who requires faith to follow. If we partner our lives with the one true God one day we will see Him face to face and our worship will be full, not filled with questions and mystery, but with His presence.

I’m excited for that day