Two Reasons God's Love Compels Him to Demand Our Worship

Has it every puzzled you – maybe even bothered you – that God would insist that we worship Him? From one point of view, it might look as if God has a cosmically large inferiority complex. In fact, atheists have sometimes argued just that point: God must be a pitiful Deity if He had to create beings to worship Him.

But it is not His insecurity that compels Him to demand our worship; it is His love.

There are two reasons God’s love makes Him want us to worship Him.

1. God’s love compels Him to demand our worship because He knows that worship is the language of heaven.

God knows that there is a vast chasm between us and Him. We are the finite and fallen; He is the Eternal One, the Holy One of Israel. He knows that worship is the language of heaven, the tongue the angels use to speak to and of Him. He knows that the only way we can approach and address Him is in the language of worship.

He also knows that our union with Him is vital to our well-being; we need Him far more than we realize. He wants us to approach Him and be with Him. He has in fact designed and executed a Plan of epic proportions – a Plan that spanned dozens of generations – to create a path for us ruined sinners to come Home to be with Him.

It’s true that for those who are in Christ, God is our Father. And He is a good, good Father. But He is also the Almighty, the King of the Universe. And when we approach the Almighty, it is the language of worship we must use to speak to and of Him.

So, yes, God does want us to worship Him, because in His love He wants us to be near Him and commune with Him. And He knows that worship is the tongue we must employ to speak with Him.

2. God’s love compels Him to demand our worship because worship is the way the universe works.

Remember in Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when His enemies demanded He silence the praises of the people, Jesus told them that if the people didn’t praise Him, the very rocks would cry out (Luke 19:40). Jesus knew that the entire cosmos is tuned to sing the praises of its Creator. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” says the psalmist (Psa 19:1).

Worship is the way the entire universe works.

Of all the created beings in the cosmos, only Man is out of step with the way things work. We are the rebels who run against the grain of the universe by turning our worship toward created things (that is, we are idolators).

When we worship God, we are singing in harmony with the entire cosmos. When we worship God, we are joining in a mighty chorus of creation speaking the truth about the Almighty:

To describe Him is to praise Him.

To describe Him precisely is to praise Him greatly.

God wants us to worship Him because He wants to see our lives aligned with, not against, the grain of the universe, which is aflame with praise for our Creator.

So, yes, it is true that God wants us to worship Him.

But it is His great love for us, not His insecurity, that prompts Him to insist that we “enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise” (Psa 100).

Persevere, Paul Pyle Pastor of Discipleship