Worship: Fragrant or Smelly?

 Our object of worship is, of course, God. He's the Father, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. That is the One who we worship.  The One of whom it says in the Bible that He, "dwells in light unapproachable whom no man can see or has seen or can see and live" (1 Timothy 6:16, Exodus 33:20). It says that God is holy, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent and sovereign and that He has a thousand more sovereign characteristics. Any or all of these should regularly bring us to our knees in humility and awe. When writing about this sovereignty of God, A.W. Tozer says, "I cannot accept with sympathy the ideas that we go to church to soothe ourselves and calm our spirts. We do calm our spirits and there is a soothing effect in worship, but the primary object of church attendance is not to relax - it is to offer worship, which belongs to God." 

David sees this God incarnated in Psalm 45 - a figure that is radiantly beautiful, romantic. Some of the words he used to describe God who became flesh are fair, kingly, gracious, majestic, true, meek, righteous, loving, glad and fragrant. He is not some snobbish comic book god, like Thor sitting high above on his throne. Instead, we read glad, loving, righteous, friendly - yet majestic, "dwelling in light which no man can approach (1 Timothy 6:16)," inspiring awe and bringing terror to His enemies. Here is your Lord, worship Him (Psalm 45:11). 

Worship is the only right response. In fact, worship is the test of health in our world. Every nation and culture is worshiping something. When God's creation is in tune with the worship of who He is , all is well and working together. But anywhere there is not worship given to God, there is fighting and self-exaltation, the root of evil. We can see this test at work in our world around us and in the world within us. 

Worship must be all-inclusive, meaning that our total life must worship God. Our entire personality must worship God. If it doesn't, our worship isn't perfect or whole. If there is anything in me that doesn't worship God, then there is nothing in me that worships God perfectly. Because of Jesus, of course God accepts our imperfect worship. If He didn't, we'd all be ruled out! But, the ideal that God sets before us is that we should worship with our whole selves as near perfectly as we can.

We cannot worship God and live after our own nature. It is when God's nature and our nature begin to line up that the power of the name of God begins to operate in us. You can name the name of Jesus a thousand times; but if you will not follow the nature of Jesus the name of Jesus will not mean anything to you. We cannot pray one direction and walk toward the opposite and expect that we'll be in unity with God. We cannot pray in love and live in hate and still think we're worshiping God. We cannot worship God one day a week if we aren't worshiping Him seven days a week.  It's all encompassing of who we are, not a segment of life. 

In the Old Testament, the high priest would take incense behind the veil into the Holy of Holies to offer God a sacrifice. This incense was to be completely pure in substance so that when burnt it offered up a sweet fragrance. But let's pretend that pieces of rubber (maybe the worst smelling thing when it burns??) were mixed in with that incense. Instead of a pure, white smokey fragrance filling the Holy of Holies, there was a black, rancid smell of rubber mixed with it. No priest would've allowed this to happen! Any offering given to the Lord would have been carefully prepared, inspected and made as perfect as possible.  Today, do we carefully prepare and inspect our worship just as the high priest did then? I'm speaking to myself, now! 

 David, again, in his great understanding of worship, said, "Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)"  Today my paraphrase of David's prayer is this:  "God, search me and know my heart. See if my worship is fragrant to You or smelly. Does it please Your senses or cause Your nose to shrink up in disgust? Purify my heart, Lord Jesus. Let me never treat casually bringing you a pure, sweet, fragrant offering of worship every day I have breath."