Within the Triune nature of God exists an unending, self-perpetuating, sacrificially loving, perfect community. The Father continually loving the Son and the Spirit, the Son continually loving the Spirit and the Father and the Spirit continually loving the Father and the Son. It’s been said that if you put a cupcake in the middle of the Trinity it would never get eaten because each member of the Godhead would defer to the others for the enjoyment of that sweet treat. In other words, this God who exists as 3 persons is constantly giving of Himself, pouring Himself out for the sake of Himself. The Trinity is a perfect community centered on the worship and glory of God/Himself. He is, by His very nature, eternally outpouring His glory for the sake of HIs glory and for our ultimate joy.

Because we are made in the image and likeness of this Triune God then we too are hardwired for community and worship. We have this insatiable need to belong to someone and to give ourselves to something. It is in our DNA. We cannot escape it. We can pervert it or twist it, but we cannot escape the fact that we need to belong to someone and give ourselves to something. This is community and worship. Therefore, we, like the Triune God, are continually pouring ourselves out in the worship of things. That is why we want to feel significant. That is why we make really stupid decisions sometimes. We are looking for someone or something to ascribe ultimate worth to in our lives. It could be money, relationships, sex, drugs, alcohol, religion, morality, the opinions of others, etc. It could be any number of things, and many times it is good things that are not inherently evil. But, we cannot resist the temptation to take a good thing and turn it into a god thing, an object of worship, and in doing so it becomes a bad thing. It becomes idolatry.

For something to have glory, or weight, in your life means it is the most significant thing in your life. It is the thing that takes center stage. It is the thing that “outweighs” everything else. You can know that it is because it is the thing you dedicate your life to and sacrifice for the sake of. Just take a look at your calendar, your bank statement, your Facebook profile or your Twitter and it will give you a good indication as to what that thing is.

For Christ to occupy that place of glory is the very heart of worship. It would mean that He outweighs every other relationship, decision, desire or opportunity. It means that the first question you ask when presented with a choice is not, “what most benefits me?” But, “what most glorifies God?” When Christ is at the center then we ask ourselves how can I love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, and how can love others as myself? For Christ to be at the center is to seek every opportunity to reflect the image of God to the world around us and to represent His kingdom that is to come on earth as it is in heaven.

Here’s how it typically works. Whatever we fear the most becomes our idea of hell on earth, the place we don’t want to go. It could be poverty. It could be obesity. It could be loneliness. It could be celibacy. To avoid going to this “hell” we look for the thing that we think will “save” us. We look to money, diet or exercise, relationships or sex to keep us from experiencing our greatest fear. And, because those things “save” us we then dedicate our lives to possessing them and keeping them and embracing them, and we sacrifice other things for the sake of making that happen. Why? Because, as Paul says in Romans 12, it is what we worship. So, our fears dictate who or what our “savior” will be, and therefore who or what we will worship. If our fear is separation from God then Jesus is our savior and the object of our worship, not out of fear but because of love for what He has done for us. If our fear is anything else then we will find ourselves worshipping creation rather than Creator.

[box type=”note” icon=”none”]Leader note: the point of Scripture is to reveal to us who God is, who we are, and what God has done and is doing in His Son, Jesus the Messiah, in establishing His Kingdom on the earth. Within each of these focuses lies the revelation of our need for redemption and salvation.  As such, Jesus is the Hero of the story. He is the culmination of all that God is doing in and through His people. So when we read Scripture we ought to be looking for Jesus in every passage. We should be seeking to understand the Gospel and it’s implications on our lives in every chapter. If we are seeing the pages of the Bible correctly then it should be moving us to a place of repentance and faith, love and obedience, sacrifice and joy. It ought to be forming in us a heart of worship.

Prayer is not just a religious activity. It’s not meant to be the mindless repetition of formulaic phrases in an attempt to manipulate or convince God to do something for us. Prayer is communion with God. It is the acknowledgement that we are utterly dependent on Him for all things. It is the mingling of Heaven and earth in our very hearts. It is like a child enjoying a conversation with his father, with no other agenda than to know and be known. Prayer produces a conditioning in our hearts to a posture of humility and worship because it continually puts us in the place where we are humbled and Christ is exalted.

prayer doesn’t always have to be a kneeling down and a folding of the hands, it is simply the ongoing acknowledgement of our need for God and the continual open line of communication with Him. Prayer also does not have to be you saying something. Prayer is a conversation, so many times it simply means keeping your ears open to hearing God’s voice and what He might say to you or ask of you in any certain circumstance.

We all have blind spots, those areas in our lives that we feel are going well when in reality everything is about to fall apart. That is why we need other people in our lives teaching us, correcting us, helping us, bearing our burdens and us bearing theirs, to keep our hearts moving in the direction of God’s glory. The more we worship Jesus the more we ought to look like Him, and if there are areas where we don’t look like Him then God, by the Holy Spirit and through other human beings, lovingly engages us and calls us to repentance and faith in those areas. Plus, as mentioned before, we are made in the image of a Triune God and therefore cannot fully glorify Him unless we are in relationship with others.