Wired to Worship

Wired to Worship
by Christian R. Herring

When I was two years old my family made a trip from North Carolina to California, where we would live for the next two years. At some point during our journey we stopped to see the Grand Canyon. I am told, though I don’t remember, that after gazing upon the massive expanse of the canyon I exclaimed, “That’s a BIG hole!” More recently I’ve had the experience of standing on the top of Table Rock Mountain in the Linville Gorge.

Every time I go there I stand in awe of the vast landscape that stretches before me. On one side of the mountain you look out on the relatively flat plain of piedmont North Carolina. On the other side you look down into the depth of one of the deepest, most rugged gorges in the eastern United States. It is absolutely breathtaking. I tell you these things because I believe that we, as human beings, are wired to worship. I believe that God created us in such a way that we are geared to worship something, we are wired to stand in awe of things that we see as great.

Just take a quick look around the world and you will see that this is true. We lift up great singers, great athletes, great speakers, beautiful models, movie stars, celebrities and the list goes on. Even those who say they don’t believe in God find themselves at the altar of some kind of deity. Think about the people who trumpet the supremacy of science. To them there is nothing greater or truer than scientific “fact.” The problem is we find a thousand other things to worship in place of the only thing that is truly worthy of it, God Himself. Sadly, this is just another perversion of the way that God created us to be. We know this has been true throughout history, because even in the Bible we find other nations worshipping gods before the Israelites show up. Why? Because they were wired to, of course.

I think there are two major reasons why we fail to worship God the way we should or why we find other things to hold in awe. The first, I believe, is that Satan has deceived us. There is no doubt about that fact, and I’m not going to dance around it and act like he isn’t at least partially to blame for this mess. However, we are to blame as well. I think we fail to worship God completely because we have lost a sense of awe when it comes to God. Sometimes we even get locked into looking for God or seeing God in church, or in doing church-related activities. I’m here to tell you that if we only associate the glory and majesty of God with a building or a congregation we are missing it big time!

If we consider Psalm 97 for a moment, we begin to see what kind of God it is that we worship. The description includes things like, “clouds and thick darkness surround Him,” in verse 2. Then, “³Fire goes before Him and burns up His adversaries round about. ⁴His lightning lit up the world; the earth saw and trembled. ⁵The mountains melted like wax at the presence of the Lord. (NASB)” This is not the image of God as a bearded grandfather sitting quietly in a rocking chair that we may have in our minds. On the contrary this is a mighty God who created the entire world, a God who should be feared and a God who created us to worship Him.

If we continue in this Psalm we get down to verse 7 which says, “Let all those be ashamed who serve graven images, Who boast themselves of idols; Worship Him, all you gods. (NASB, italics mine).” We should be ashamed that we find a thousand other things to worship besides the one, true God. We should be ashamed because God is the only one worthy of our worship and everything else falls hopelessly short as verse 9 tells us, “You are exalted far above all gods.”

Perhaps the most amazing thing of all is that this is not the only aspect of God that we are offered; there is more to the story, and it comes in the person of Jesus Christ. For this point I would like to take us to Hebrews chapters 1 and 2. First I would like to point out that according to Hebrews 1:3 Jesus is the “exact representation of His [God’s] nature (brackets mine).” This is important because that means that everything you can say about God the Father can be applied to Christ. The glory and radiance of God can be seen in Jesus Christ according to verse 3a. The rest of this chapter is dedicated to showing the absolute supremacy of Christ above the angels and the prophets. Then we get into chapter 2.

If we go on to Hebrews 2:14-18 we see what, I believe, truly makes this God worthy of our worship. We find that this God shared in our flesh and blood as well as the death that we are all going to die (v.14). We also see that He overcame this death and rendered the devil powerless in order to free us from that slavery (v.15). Then we find that all of this took place so that Christ might be our perfect and compassionate high priest forever and bring atonement for us. That word atonement is particularly meaningful because it means exactly what it says “at-one-ment.” Christ became one with us as humans so that we might become one with God despite our sins. That is a God worthy of worship and praise and exaltation.

Every time I return to Tablerock Mountain I am inspired all over again by the beauty of God’s creation. When I stand up there, high above the world around me feeling the wind on my face, I am thankful for what God has made for us. It is easy for me to worship Him on the mountaintop because that is the way I was made, that is the way He wired me. The real challenge for us is finding the courage to worship God every day of our lives. We have to stand firm against our selfish desires and all the things that the world wants us to worship and stand in awe of a great, mighty and powerful God, One who became one of us so that we might be one with Him. That is the God that we have been wired to worship.

Shout joyfully to God, all the earth; Sing the glory of His name; Make His praise glorious. Say to God, “How awesome are Your works! Because of the greatness of Your power Your enemies will give feigned obedience to You. All the earth will worship You, And will sing praises to You; they will sing praises to Your name. — Psalm 66:1-4

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christian R. Herring is a freelance writer who works as Director of Evangelism and Youth at Chandler’s Grove UMC in North Carolina.

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