There are so many examples that we can pull from that help us gain a better perspective on worship and the reason God made us. First off, He made us to worship Him.
Lately I’ve been reading a book on worship by Tozer. He’s quite the amazing man of God. It’s encouraging to hear words from men who have had an undying pursuit of what God desires. Tozer’s example on being a mirror to reflect God’s glory just opened a whole new world for me in understanding worship.
Are you a parent? If not, maybe you’ve had this said about you, “You look just like your mom/dad.” As a parent, after each child was born, I looked intently into their face to see if there was any resemblance of me in them. As they’ve grown it’s become more noticeable that they are definitely a child of mine. There are features we share genetically that proclaim to the world that I’m their parent. It makes me proud. And I’m not sure why.
Do you think God does the same thing toward us? From the moment we’re born again through repentance and baptism, do you think God picks us up and looks intently into our newborn souls to see if there’s a resemblance? As we grow, do you think He’s still looking every so often just to see if there is more of Himself showing up in our features, in our lifestyles, in our thoughts? I think He does. I think it goes even further than simply seeing some similar features. He wants to see His own reflection.
We are so depraved, aren’t we? If God made me so He could see Himself in me, if my purpose and reason I was made was to resemble His glory and worship Him, I’ve failed miserably. So have we all. If it wasn’t for Jesus, the Christ of God, who mirrored a perfect reflection of all that He is, and went to the cross for our sins, there’d be no way to even begin living in worship to the glory of God.
God is in the business of redeeming. He’s the only One who could take such imperfect failures in purpose and miraculously recreate them to live up to it. With the perfect Man’s blood He bought the imperfect men and women to be made perfect for Him.
That requires a response for glory, His glory and not ours. And you know, God can look at us and see a reflection of Himself because of Jesus. We can’t see back yet. 1 Corinthians 13 talks about how we see in a cloudy mirror messed up by the affects of sin and death, a poor reflection of what God truly is. But soon, we’ll see face to face. Maybe we can’t see God directly, but we can reflect His glory as He looks into the little mirrors we are and sees Himself. As Christ cleans us cloudy mirrors with the cleansing soap of His blood, the reflection of God becomes clearer and clearer not only to Himself, but also to the world.
That is love at it’s deepest. God redefining our purpose from sin to glory, His glory, our original purpose. And now us loving back.
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