I have been thinking about worship lately. \u00a0If you lump it all together and define it as love \/ devotion \/ adoration, then it just might be the only thing we can give to God that he cannot take or get without us. \u00a0Everything else is under God’s sovereign control. \u00a0He owns everything. \u00a0He even ultimately owns me. \u00a0He can take my life whenever he pleases. \u00a0But one thing he can not take is my worship of him. \u00a0Because he gave us free will, my love, devotion, and adoration are the only real thing I can bring to the relationship. \u00a0Everything else, he can get himself.<\/p>\n
All of this reminds me a little bit of the new puppy we have at home. \u00a0Gracie is a 12 week old German Shepherd and she has firmly established a relationship with our family. \u00a0She depends on us to provide for her needs. \u00a0She causes trouble, pees on the floor, doesn’t buy her own food, chews things she shouldn’t, tracks mud on the floor. . . \u00a0She really doesn’t bring much at all to the relationship except trouble . . . and love, devotion, and adoration.<\/p>\n
When I come home from work, she greets me at the door like I am some long lost friend. \u00a0She jumps, licks, nips, whines, and generally makes a big scene until I reach down and give her some love. \u00a0When we are home together, she is happy. \u00a0When we are apart, she is sad. \u00a0When I praise her, she wags her tail. \u00a0When I rebuke her sternly, she grovels, licking my hand and begging for forgiveness, which I can’t help but willingly give.<\/p>\n
I won’t say she worships me, but it does remind me a whole lot of what worship might be. \u00a0So, I decided to look up worship in the Bible. \u00a0I was reminded of the scripture where Jesus said we must worship God in spirit and in truth. \u00a0I\u00a0read the scripture then looked\u00a0up the definition of the Greek word for worship that was used there. \u00a0Wouldn’t you know, it’s probably derived from another word which means “. . . to kiss, like a dog licking his master’s hand.”<\/p>\n
So, maybe there is a little bit of a picture of worship in a puppy’s relationship to his master. \u00a0If so, then I suppose I’m the puppy and God is the master. \u00a0But that’s OK with me, because I know how much this master loves his puppy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have been thinking about worship lately. \u00a0If you lump it all together and define it as love \/ devotion \/ adoration, then it just might be the only thing we can give to God that he cannot take or get without us. \u00a0Everything else is under God’s sovereign control. \u00a0He owns everything. \u00a0He even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2555"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2557,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555\/revisions\/2557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}