Me Worship?
There’s nothing quite like taking a child through the check-out line at the grocery store. After spending a long time walking along or sitting in the shopping cart, marketers know that a well-placed chocolate bar, pack of gum, or a colourful candy wrapper will grab the child’s attention as they wait for the clerk to scan each item. And that eye-catching item becomes more than appealing - it becomes a must have. And every adult has had to address this challenge of wants. “But I neeeeed it!” the child will cry.
As adults, we think that we learn to be self-controlled. But in many cases, we just mask this child-like impulse of having everything now with more sophistication. “Buy now, pay later!” Credit cards, rewards programs, even drive-thru restaurants tell us that we can have instant gratification: “Have it your way, right away!!!”
But the cross work of Christ points us in a different direction. Christ teaches us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him to the place of crucifixion, the place of denying our wants and wanting what our Father wants (Luke 9:23). And for the rest of our lives, we battle against self-fulfillment. It’s a daily battle. It’s killing sin before sin kills your soul (Romans 8:12-17).
We wrestle with our desires on a daily basis, and we want to desire what our Father longs for. We are called to wrestle with these questions from Monday to Saturday. What about Sunday? When it comes to the church gathered, do we come on Sundays so that our needs might be met? Do we judge Sunday on what I get out of it? Do we seek fellowship where there are the programs that I want or what make my kids happy and include the kind of people I like? Are we teaching our children and teens that church is about them? Or i, or s Sunday another day of daily denial, taking up the cross, and following Christ? In other words, have we made the church all about me, or is it all about God?
We gather each Sunday to remember that we have been united to Christ in his death and resurrection. Old desires crucified, new desires given by God.
So as you come on Sunday, what’s it all about?
