Wednesday, January 31, 2024

EmmDev 2024-01-31 [Reasons to Worship God] We were lovingly created

We were lovingly created

Greetings after a much longer gap than I expected!! I wanted to resume devotions when the schools started, but the year accelerated very quickly and here we are at the end of January already! My apologies!
I hope you are well - that you had a good and blessed Christmas and a good break that January madness hasn't reduced into too much of a distant memory!

I'm going to do a short series entitled "Reasons to Worship God" which will take us to Lent which is early this year. Enjoy!

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.' (Acts17:26-28)

Why do we worship God?
Is it because we are grateful? Is it because He is awesome? Is it because He saved us? The answer is "Yes, yes and yes and (using impressario voice) Wait... there's more!"
There are many reasons for us to worship God and I think you and I will be blessed as we explore a couple of them...

We start with the obvious one. We worship Him because He created us.

Gen 1 tells us we were created male and female and were "Very Good".
Gen 2 tells us that God breathed into to us to make us. No other creature is breathed into by Almighty God.
Psa 8 tells us that we are just a little lower than angels and that we are crowned with glory and honour.
Psa 139 tells us we are intimately known and are fearfully and wonderfully made
Eph 2 tells us that we were created for good works

Acts 17 tells us that God loving created a world and universe to wow us. That He thoughtfully placed you and me in time and space in such a way that His providence would point us toward Him. Furthermore it tells us that we were created to be in relationship with Him and that He is never far from us.

Our life, our breath, the wonder of our fingerprints, DNA and unique character, the awesome confluence of our circumstances and the wonder-full history of our journey is all part of His gift to us. He gives us life abundantly - and this abundance includes forgiveness, grace and peace through Christ.
When we come to worship this God, we find that He, like the Prodigal Father, is running toward us.

Eugene Peterson with his lovely poetic gift puts our verse so beautifully: "Starting from scratch, he made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find him. He doesn't play hide-and-seek with us. He's not remote; he's near. We live and move in him, can't get away from him! One of your poets said it well: 'We're the God-created.'"

Let's worship the God who gave us life!