fixing our eyes on

From something for tomorrow morning:

Thirdly, worship is God-centered. Worship doesn’t exist without a being who is worshiped. And God is the center of Christian worship. It is no wonder, then, that God takes the first two commandments to establish the importance of worship.

What’s the very first commandment? "You shall have no other gods before me." And what’s the second? "You shall not make for yourself a graven image or an idol." But that commandment continues. It’s not just the making of the idol that is forbidden. Exodus 20:5 says "You shall not worship them or serve them."

God knows that worship is actually a natural human activity. We are wired for worship. We are wired to give our focus and our attention and our priorities over to something or someone. And God wants that focus and that attention and those priorities given over to Him – not on our careers, not on our families, not on our own talents or skills. God wants our worship to be focused on Him.

Have you ever watched a sporting event on television and your wife came into the room and started talking to you, and you either didn’t hear what she said or you pretended to hear what she said but really didn’t hear? Our focus in those moments was on the game and not on our wives. In the same way, everything that we say and do will reflect the object of our focus – and either that focus is God, or that focus is something other than God. Only the former is pleasing to God.