The Real Thing

Human beings are created with a ‘hardwired’ instinct to worship. No other creature is made that way. Because of that, every human being worships something. Specifically, we worship whatever we perceive to be the real god – even if we give it some other name. If we believe the God of Jacob exists, we will worship Him. If we believe the material world (God’s creation) is more real and appears to be more powerful, we will worship it. Etc. I suspect the latter is the situation in many parts of the world today. Yet, I recall the Sunday after 9/11 when the World Trade Center in New York was destroyed, the church I was attending had many, many more attendees than the Sunday before. Why was that? I imagine most of those extra folks were people who had been in church before, but had drifted away. Perhaps the trust for their their new materialist god-thing was shaken. So when things began to look a bit dicey, they reverted to the real thing. That’s what I think happened.

My question is “Why didn’t they stay with the real thing in the first place – or even in the second place?”

I offer this as a possible answer to my own question. Perhaps when they did attend a church they never really felt like they were a part of it – they watched other people worship and sort of allowed themselves to go along. They never had the opportunity to understand what it is like to actually approach and worship the real God.

For people to want to attend church, they have to be involved in it. I’m not talking about activities – most people have lots of those already – but involved in the actual function of worship itself. Worshiping God is NOT a spectator sport. The human instinct for worship has to be exercised. Participation is required in order to experience any real level of worship.

Each of us is a unique being. Unlike any other creature, our consciousness exists in two modes – flesh and spirit. See John 4:23-24 and Romans 8:8. Each of us is born individually, stands before God every moment of our lives as individuals and eventually we each die individually. No matter how large a group we are in, our relationship with God is always one on one. Therefore our worship and each of our styles of worship must be accordingly unique. That concept is developed and expanded in the book “Worshiping Alone” available on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. It’s also available in local bookstores. If it isn’t in yours, ask for it – it’s available. If you haven’t read the book, please consider doing so.

The book, “Worshiping Alone” is not intended to draw you away from church, rather it is just the opposite. It is meant to bring you into direct, daily confrontation with the Creator of the Universe. Of course you can worship as a solitary human being and the book addresses that. But its true point is to get you involved in actually worshiping the real God and not some false idol. Once you have that experience you will most likely want to express it every day. Even more, you’ll want to express it with others in a church setting.

Are you taking advantage of the great gift God has given you and experiencing Him first-hand? You can do that. You were created to do that.

Copyright © 2022 Sam Dronebarger

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