I’ve been studying Luke 4:8 and related texts and I’ve learned some important things about what it means to worship God, and what it means to be a human being and offer God true worship.
“Thou shalt Worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve.”
A similar text is found here: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33
We pray first “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” before we pray “give us this day our daily bread.”
Matthew 6:10
In the story of Elijah and the widow during the famine, she was asked to take her last little loaf that she had planned to eat and die and give it to the prophet who was doing God’s work. 1 Kings 17:12-13 And she was then was participating in God’s work and carrying out his work by feeding the prophet. Really this was an offering to God she was giving, an act of worship.
God did a miracle and caused the flour to never run out and both she, her son, and Elijah ate every day despite there being a famine in the land.
In putting God before herself, the woman secured for herself a spiritual blessing – she was now living for a higher purpose than just survival – and God took care of her physical needs as well. The woman could have chosen to live for survival only, and let the compelling drive to survive choke out her love for God. She could have refused God’s command given through his prophet to make Elijah something to eat.
This story illustrates the rule of life. No matter how bad our present situation or our sufferings, we never have to be overwhelmed by them. We can always live for something deeply important. The glory of God – and we can always have a relationship with Him. Worship to Him can always and must always come first. It must always be our purpose and reason for our existence in our minds.
This story isn’t saying Christians will never die of hunger, That God will always take care of their material needs as he did for the widow.While God does take care of us, He does so in reference to His kingdom and to our eternal welfare, not just our temporal lives in this world. There is a goal for our lives in this world. It is to glorify Him and spread the gospel. Once our ministry is complete God does allow us to die, and Christians can die of hunger just as any human being can, and we’re subject to disease and mental illness and every other physical human condition that non-Christians are.
But it is important to remember that there would be no death in the first place without Adam and Eve’s sin, and Satan rebelling against God. God isn’t the One who brought death into existence. We die in this world due to the situation created by sin. But God defeats sin and then gives us eternal life. God ensures no one has to be dead forever. He will raise the dead and give them eternal life. The sacrifice of Christ turned something that should have been eternal – our death – and turned it into only a temporary condition. Amazing!
Christ has saved us from sin, saved us from the hard burden and meaninglessness of serving self, to give us the purpose of giving Him glory. He’s promised us not just eternal life of surviving, but a relationship with Himself through all eternity that is closer than a husband and wife share. The opportunity of knowing God Himself.
Jesus tells his followers not to worry about food or clothing, for the birds of the air are fed by God even though they do not toil for food nor store it in barns. (Matthew 6:26) Some have misinterpreted this verse to mean the Christian will never experience lack or want in temporal things and an incorrect understanding of Bible doctrine on this subject has caused many to lose their faith. Take heart! God is not a liar; He always fulfills His promises. But this verse does not promise a Christian will never experience want or need or die from an illness or from lack of food. Other similar passages about birds and God’s providence explain that not a sparrow falls to the ground without the Father’s notice, that the hairs of our head are all numbered, and not to be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul (Matthew 10:28-29). Sometimes birds do fall to the ground and sometimes Christian die too but this doesn’t mean God doesn’t love us or that He’s apathetic and indifferent. These passages make it clear that God takes care of what is truly important – our salvation, and that He sympathizes with our pain and our death in this world. He is depicted as being near to us and acquainted with all the details of our suffering, even numbering the hairs of our head at all times. He notices any change that happens to us. And He’s present beside His children who die or are killed for their faith.
All such suffering is temporary, but the eternal things that matter the most and aren’t temporary, God upholds and defends for His Name and for us. Our eternity. Our forgiveness. His law. His Name. All the things that truly matter Jesus has guarded by His own life and death on Calvary. No one who decides to believe in Christ and follow Him will be denied heaven or fail to attain everlasting life. There is a time and place for each step of our Christian walk. We may be asked to lay down our lives for His cause. If this is the case, He hasn’t forsaken us in allowing us to die. He’s clear to explain that our Heavenly Father cares deeply and precious in His sight are the death of the saints (Psalm 116:15).
Indeed if one were to accuse God of lack of love for a fatal illness or from starvation, they would also have to accuse him of lack of love because all people die in this world. Carried all the way down to its least common denominator, this belief promotes the idea that death shows God isn’t a God of love. And of course we know this to be false, because we die due to sin, not God, and Jesus died so we can live! God isn’t responsible for our death in this life. And He is responsible for the promise of eternal life through Him. He’s solved the death problem; He’s provided the solution to all temporal pain with an eternal answer, so don’t let anyone steal your faith by lies about how God doesn’t care.
We were created to live for God’s glory first and foremost. If we’re living for survival first and foremost and our primary concern is food and water and shelter (yes even the cares of this life can redirect our worship to worries and fears and choke out our love of God), Or if we’re living in abundance and are concerned with fashion and looking nice, food and filling up the senses and meeting the demands of an appetite that isn’t healthy, building a nice home, making a nice life for ourselves – if this is what we’re doing then we’re placing self first and the kingdom of God second. We’re serving self and Not serving God.
As children of God our whole life is to build up his cause. Our whole purpose is to live for him, engage in his work, and give him glory. We have a higher purpose than the wording who lives for pleasure and comfort. We have objective meaning that satisfies, a reason to live even when everything is going wrong, a purpose in the midst of even our greatest pain that far outweighs our pain. Our afflictions are momentary and light compared with the excellency that is to be revealed in us. Even our deepest pain can’t compare to the glory and the joy of bringing God’s name glory in our character and life, and being a part of his cause on the earth, the results of which will be fully seen and experienced and rewarded when Jesus comes again.
If that’s not our primary focus, then we aren’t children of God. We can’t worship self (serving is worshiping) and worship God at the same time; this cancels out our worship of God and negates it.
We start out life worshiping self and this is what comes natural to our fallen nature. Because America saw many years of prosperity and prosperity tends to cause people to forget God, many of the people in my generation and some of the generations before mine too grew up without ever really understanding the gospel. Churches preached the prosperity gospel rather than the true gospel, and it was common for people to call themselves a Christian and primarily serve self.
But that’s never been what Christianity is. Christianity is the worship of God and the love of people (including yourself). Not worshiping self and loving God as a friend but not The Lord of your life.
Many people have grown up thinking they’re Christians but never making Jesus Lord. The result of this is they’ve never experienced the peace of having their sins forgiven. They’ve never repented for placing self on the throne and dethroned self to allow Jesus to sit there. And so they’ve never known the peace that passes understanding or the infilling of the Holy Spirit.
Satan then leads people to think they’ve tried Christianity and it didn’t work; it didn’t satisfy, and to look elsewhere for fulfillment. Christianity fully satisfies and brings true joy, but many don’t believe this because they’ve never experienced true Christianity and have been fed lies.
I’m continually praying for all the people out there who have had this false experience that they would fully surrender their lives to God and experience forgiveness and peace, and true satisfying objective meaning. Please join me in praying for this.
It’s interesting that Jesus equates the yoke with rest. At first these concepts seem almost paradoxical. But working for him does actually provide spiritual rest for the soul.
“Come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest…take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls.”
Matthew 11:28-29
It’s in taking his yoke on us that we find rest. Why is this? Because the yoke of living for his glory is the true purpose of man, and it’s what we need to be fulfilled and happy. Our relationship with God is closer than a wife’s relationship with her husband and the fact that we can give God glory with our lives (or dishonor if we reject him and live for self), shows the intimacy of our relationship with Him, as well as the honor that it’s possible for man to have when he worships the true God and not self. Could God take this element away and make our actions mean nothing with no ability to glorify or dishonor God, this takes away the entire purpose of man, his great joy, and his objective meaning in life. It also takes away the intimacy man can share with his Creator and makes worship empty and from a distance.
This is why God makes the condition of being in Christ, of being his child, taking on ourselves the yoke of his work. Refusal to take on the yoke is a rejection of Christ himself. To forfeit living for his glory forfeits the forgiveness. One cannot be justified and forgiven of sin if they will not agree to live for God and serve him alone.