Do You Worship Your True Creator?

Tuesday, September 22

Acts 17:26-28 (NIV)
“From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’”

Devotion

The men of Athens to whom the Apostle Paul preached thought they were worshiping their creator in the form of their idols in the Greek pantheon. This distressed Paul greatly, so he preached to them the true Creator, whom they had only worshiped as “an unknown God.” Since the rise of Christianity in the West, most nominal “Christians” presume we are worshiping the “right” God and only debate minor matters about his character and theology. We ought to examine ourselves often about whether we worship our Creator in spirit and in truth, or whether we have put our Creator’s name on a false god we have remade in our own image, who is just as much an idol as the gods of metal and stone worshiped by the men of Athens.

The true Creator tells us to “Count it as pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds.” The true Creator tells us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. The true Creator tells us to love our neighbor as ourself, and then defines our neighbor as the people we are looking for an excuse not to love. If we have deleted these imperatives from our Creator’s commands to us, we have probably remade our Creator as an idol in some preferred image.

It’s easy to enjoy the music and lift our hands and sing to whatever image we have in our mind of our Creator. Real worship includes music and praise, but real worship also includes offering our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, as our “true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1). If you think your Creator is not calling you to separation from willful sin, or that God’s grace makes repeatedly falling back into the same sins acceptable, you have created a false god in an image different from what Jesus reveals in Scripture. The name may be right, but beware of worshiping a false Jesus.

The Creator Paul preached is a holy God who inspires a holy fear. “For God has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31).

Today's Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father,

Search our hearts and reveal anything that has taken Your place. Help us worship You in spirit and in truth, not according to our own preferences or desires, but according to who You have revealed Yourself to be. Give us grace to obey Your Word, turn away from sin, and honor You with every part of our lives. You are the Most High God, besides You, there is none. In the Name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Apply It Today

Ask yourself: Am I worshiping God as He has revealed Himself in Scripture, or have I created an image of God that is more comfortable for me? Surrender any area where your preferences have taken priority over His Word, and choose to worship Him through both praise and obedience.

Resources

• Worship is more than a song—it’s a lifestyle, a priority, and a response to who God is. Watch “Worship Is A Big Deal To Me,” and be encouraged to make worship a bigger part of your everyday life.

• Read John 4:23–24 and reflect on what Jesus teaches about genuine worship.