Just in case you’ve forgotten, or never really knew, God is worthy of our worship for many, many reasons. In this post I’m going to go over some of the things (attributes) of God that give us good reason to worship Him.
What is Worship?
I suppose it’s appropriate to discuss the meaning of the word, “worship”. For starters, it isn’t the same thing as “praise”. Praise can be given to anyone: a child; an employee; an employer; a friend; a loved one; anyone can be praised for just about any reason under the sun. And yes, we can praise God too — and we should. I once read somewhere that “praise is the train that takes us to worship” (origin unknown). In this light, praise is a good place to start when we begin to worship God. And I encourage you to do so every chance you get throughout your day: Before you get out of bed; In the quiet of the morning; On the way to your main activity; During your break time; In the restroom… You get the idea; praise God at every turn of your day. It will help your attitude immensely. But worship is on another level.
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Romans 12:1-2, NLT
It’s almost like having to define “love”, isn’t it? We know that love is a verb. Love is a feeling. It’s a responsibility. It’s a state of mind, heart, and soul. Love is a commitment. And since worship is the ultimate expression of love, they share all of the same characteristics, but worship is taking it to the fullest limit. There is no love that is beyond worship. So when Jesus says, “love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength”, He is talking about worship.
To worship is to allow nothing to be higher in your heart, soul, mind, or strength than that (or whom) you worship. And for me personally, I don’t even allow myself to be higher than my God.
To worship God is to put your own feelings, desires, needs, dreams, health, safety—whatever you have or are—beneath your God. And do it in all sincerity, with every fiber and molecule of your being. In spirit and in truth. If you can arrive at this place, you have arrived at worship. If not, you need to consider your position before your Creator very carefully.
I should also mention, sometimes when we worship God we get a feeling associated with it that is very satisfying. We can actually feel a kind of rapture—overwhelming joy and fulfillment. HOWEVER, if we are worshipping just to get the feeling, then we are merely serving ourselves and our “worship” is useless. Never lose sight of the purpose and goal of worship, which should be to elevate God above all else, in all circumstances, regardless the cost.
It’s easy to worship God when everything is wonderful in your life. The real challenge is to worship Him when you are in the dark places of your life: depression; despair; loneliness; pain; sorrow; grief; anger; fear… you know what I mean. We don’t worship Him strictly because of our circumstances; we worship Him because He deserves it, regardless of our personal condition or situation.
And now, let’s look at some things about God (His attributes) that make Him worthy of our worship.
The Attributes of God
We should understand that when we are discussing God’s attributes, some of them are what we call “communicable” and some are “incommunicable”.
Communicable
When God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us”, (Genesis 1:26) what He meant (I think) was that we have certain attributes that are similar to His. A communicable attribute is one that He shares with us. He has “communicated” those to us. This sense of the word has to do with transmitting it, like a virus, an inheritance, or a gift, not merely speaking of it. He has given to us the same abilities that He has, if they are communicable.
Here are some traits that we share with our Creator:
- Existence – He exists. We exist. If He didn’t exist, we wouldn’t exist.
- Knowledge – We have the ability to know and understand because He has given us this ability.
- Wisdom – We learn and become wise because He allows it. Wisdom starts with God.
- Truthfulness – We have the knowledge of what is true. But obviously, some are better at grasping this than others.
- Goodness – As fallen as we are, we still have some redeeming qualities. If God were not good, we wouldn’t be either.
- Love – Not a feeling, but a responsibility. We learn what love is from God.He is our source of real love.
- Mercy – To be gracious and patient with each other, since none of us is perfect.
- Holiness – We can be set apart to do the work of God, as He sees fit.
- Righteousness – We can judge correctly because God has enabled us to. We do have a bit of goodness within ourselves, as God has portioned out to us.
- Jealousy – Not in a bad way, but in a protective, loving, nurturing way we strongly desire the affection and loyalty of others (and God).
- Wrath – Not a temper tantrum or selfish act of anger/rage. Rather, the strength that comes to us to do the right thing in the face of evil and cruelty.
- Will – Everyone has self worth and the aspiration to live out their heart’s desire. Fortitude helps us actually make it happen. Selfishness turns it into something dark.
- Freedom – Our greatest strength and our greatest danger. On the one hand, we can choose to love God; on the other, we can choose to not love God. The choice is freely ours. The fact that our freedom is a gift from God is one of the principles that the United States was founded upon. It is considered a gift from God that does not depend upon the governing body of our nation. The government does not gives us our freedom and it cannot take it away (by the will of the people).
- Power – We probably don’t even know the powers we possess. Be it physical, mental, or spiritual, we have power implanted, ingrained, and installed by our Creator.
- Sovereignty – Just as we have our own will, each of us has our own sovereignty. No one can take this from you, through tyranny, corruption, power, or force. You have your own sovereignty given to you by your Creator and He ensures that you keep it. I don’t think you can even give it up. I mean, who needs yours, when they have their own. In the end, God’s going to look to you to see what you’ve done with (in the name of) your own sovereignty. If sovereignty is ownership, then I guess we can give it to God. But I wouldn’t give mine to anyone else.
- Beauty – God is beauty. He puts beauty into everything He creates. Find your beauty and let it shine. It doesn’t reside on the surface of your skin or in your bone structure and muscles, it is in your heart and soul. True beauty is separate from the flesh. It is a gift of God that no one can take away from or add to. We enhance our beauty when we draw closer to God and shine with His radiance.
- Glory – Speaking of radiance, this is what glory is. It’s strength that shines from within. It’s honor, truth, kindness, grace, mercy, and love. Be glorious. Live in a way that shines God’s glory from within you out into the world around you.
- Spirituality – True spirituality is unity with God. But there are different kinds of spirit in the world. There are evil spirits (or there is an evil spirit), and there is God’s Spirit, which is good. If spirit means attitude, then you can get what I mean. But spirit is also what we see as that invisible quality of someone. It can also be related to the soul of a person. In that regard, it means life. Life is a gift of God. One that should not be wasted, abused, neglected, or tarnished. Life in the spirit should be one of kindness, unselfishness, love, hope, patience, self control, honor, gentleness and respect. To be spiritual is to be aligned with God and His Spirit. Any other kind of spirituality is not a good thing in the end.
Incommunicable
On the other hand, God has some attributes that cannot be shared with us. These are things that only God possesses and that He cannot, will not, or has not yet given to anyone else.
But it is also important to note that some of the attributes that are not yet communicable to us may be communicable to us in our next level of existence, at least to a certain degree. Currently, we are a fallen race. We are in a state of moral and physical decay. This makes it absolutely impossible for us to share in some of His abilities. Now, I’m not saying that we will be equal to God. There are always going to be things about Him that we will never have. He will always be preeminent over His creation. All I’m trying to say is that while some of the qualities of God are impossible for us to share in now, as mortals, when we reach the next level, we will be just that much more like Him. The line of separation between us and our Creator will slide further down the line, closer to Him, as we make that jump.
His incommunicable traits are:
- Independence – He is dependent upon no one outside of Himself. This cannot, and will not, be said of any other being.
- Immutability – This means that God does not ever change. He is Who He is and will always be the same. We can call this God’s unchangeableness. He is always true to Himself, even if He changes His mind (or plan) once in a while. I believe that once we attain our higher level we will also be changeless from then on.
- Eternity – God has always existed and will always continue to exist. No one created the Creator (sorry, Mormons, but there it is). He exists outside of time. He created time. He can put Himself into time and continue to remain outside of it. He can see all of time, from the beginning to the end. He can see you as you were, as you are, and as you will be — all at the same time (ignore the confusing pun). There is no moment of time when God is not there.
- Omnipresence – A big word for “always present”. God exists everywhere at once. He does not travel from place to place (just like He doesn’t travel from time to time). He is infinite in His presence. The physical universe has an ending point, a border, but God does not. He continues on throughout distance, even when we have run out of places to go. This also includes the spirit realm (what we might call “heaven”). He exists beyond that place as well. This means that God isn’t merely “big”, He is all-encompassing and never ceases to exist — even when all other things have long ended in their presence.
- Unity – Although we are looking at these attributes individually, God maintains them in compete unity (harmony) with each other. There is no division of thought, conscience, heart, intention, meaning, purpose, essence, or any other aspect of God. He is complete and unified within Himself. Even though God has revealed Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, this does not mean that God is divided. Even though we see Jesus talking to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit, God is still unified with Himself. These discussions are for our benefit, not His. All of God’s attributes work in harmony with each other because God is harmonious with Himself. THIS is one of those attributes that I believe we will be able to share with Him in our next level of existence. I believe (hope) that we will be in Him as He is in the Son (John 17:21). But even if we share in this unity, it will not be on the level that He has. And it is always by His power, not ours.
- Omnipotence – This word means “all powerful”. Even though God’s angels, apostles, and prophets have demonstrated acts of extreme power (miraculous power), such power comes from God alone. His power is absolute power. He shares this ability with no one. However, He does and will share some power with His creatures. This is another of His attributes that we will grow immensely closer to Him in when we reach the next level of humanity. But never equal to Him.
- Omniscience – “Science” means knowledge. Omniscience means that God knows everything. There is nothing for Him to learn, figure out, discover, explore, seek to understand, wonder about, etc. He does not depend on logic. He does not use deductive or inductive reasoning. He makes the wisdom of man foolishness, while He maintains His own wisdom and knowledge. Yes, when we reach the next level we will have much more knowledge than we do now, but it will never be even close to His knowledge. While knowledge is communicable, infinite knowledge is not.
- Omnibenevolence – To be benevolent is to be good. This word means that God is all-good. There is no part of Him that is anything but perfectly good. His goodness can be seen in two ways, which both make up a whole: He is righteous; and He is merciful. On the one hand, in His righteousness, He must maintain a standard of perfection in all things. Morality, ethics, and goodness are all maintained by Him in His creation to the point that those who step out of line must be punished. And on the other hand, He has mercy. He desires to pardon humanity for their wicked ways. His love for us is so intense that He will give anything to be in unity with us (as He is in unity with Himself). These two aspects, together, make up God’s omnibenevolence. We cannot think of God as cruel because He judges us, because He has also given us a pardon based on His own plan of reconciliation. God’s omnibenevolence is complete.
Closing Remarks
As amazing as God is, and definitely worthy of our worship, it isn’t just who God is that causes us to worship Him, it’s what He has done. As I mentioned earlier, He is not only our righteous Judge, but He also is our loving Savior. He made us innocent and good, but we messed it up. He allows us to defy Him and ignore Him, but one day He will judge us for this — individually. But He also gave us a lifeline. He satisfied His need to punish us by punishing Himself on the cross of Golgotha (that’s the actual crucifixion site shown above — not on top of the hill, but at the foot of it). By accepting His Son, Jesus, as our Savior, we can have perfect unity with God when Jesus returns again to the earth.
It would be impossible to list all of the things that our Creator has done in this world from the beginning until now, but we have seen enough to know that He is worthy of praise and worship for the things He has done, is doing, and will do in the future.
Initially, I intended for this post to be a multipart offering, with numerous pages having a different attribute on each page. But I think I’ll let that go for another time. As you can probably see, I could go on about the things of God that absolutely demand our worship of Him. Indeed, books and books and more books could be (and have been) written about the attributes (and works) of God and why we worship Him because of them (and Who He is).
God’s greatness is too vast, immense, and perfect for us to fully comprehend it all. That alone is enough reason to worship Him forever and ever. And remember this: although God is infinite and perfect in so many ways, He is still immediate and personal. He is right here with you. He will never leave you or forget about you or give up on you – unless you insist. His love and presence is intimate — more intimate than what anyone else can offer. He is closer to you than probably you are to yourself. He certainly understands you better than you understand yourself. And because His love is greater, He loves you more than you love yourself. Just because He is eternal, infinite and all-powerful is no reason to think that He is not right here in the mix.
Trying to force God out of the picture, out of the world, out of your life, does not make it so; it only adds to our (your) problems. Refusing to worship God brings misery; worshipping God brings blessing. Refusing His Son’s sacrifice as atonement for your fallen state will keep you from God’s love. We all have the sovereignty, the freedom to choose God or reject God. That choice is a God-given right that no one can take away from us.
But if you refuse to [worship] the Lord, then choose today whom you will [worship]… But as for me and my family, we will [worship] the Lord (see Joshua 24:15).
Be blessed, worship the One Who is worthy. In Jesus’ name.
In Him,
Gary
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