What do I reflect? Who do they see?

I haven't been blogging as often as I'd like and I'm actually pretty convicted about it. I know my blog isn't incredibly popular, but the fact that someone, somewhere reads everyday is reason enough to update. I also can't spend as much time with some of my girls from the summer as I'd like and this is one important way of keeping the passion alive from summer camp. Though miles may separate us, God's word brings us together.

Lately I've run across the idea of worship more than once. I think I've mentioned before that it always excites me when something I am reading or learning about in my private study time or my reading shows up in church or bible studies, etc. The typical misconception about worship is that it is a 30 minute music segment in a church service. That grossly misrepresents what worship is and should be.

To take things back to the basics, we were made to glorify God. That is our sole purpose in life.

Revelation 4:11 - Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.

In order to glorify Him, everything we do and say must be to the glory of His name. We glorify Him through worship. "What is worship" you may ask. It is a lifestyle. It is not a 30 minute music segment in a church service. Most often, worship has nothing to do with music. Your highest form of praise and worship should be the way you live life everyday. If you live for the sole purpose of glorifying Him and spreading His name around the world, you are worshipping with your life. 

Isaiah 29:13 - The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men."

One of the hardest things for Christians is to remember to go back to the Bible and what Jesus says about certain issues. More often than not, we rely on spiritual figures in our lives to give us instruction, without looking at what the Bible says for ourselves. In Isaiah 29:13, the Lord is clearly agonized by the false worship of His people. While they are engaging in the "acceptable" means of worship (such as music in a church service), their hearts are not worshiping Him on a daily basis. Their lives are not being directed by the sole purpose of glorifying and worshiping Him. They may sing the words, but their hearts are far from Him. In short, they are only going through the motions.

But why should we worship? Why live our lives for God? Because of the second part in Revelation 4:11 that says: "for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created." And not only for His creation of us, but because He sent His son Jesus to die on the cross so we wouldn't go to hell for the sins we've committed. Think about that.. God created human beings to bring glory to Himself. Adam and Eve sinned against Him, causing humankind to be stained with a sinful nature. As we sat around sinful and dying, He sent His only Son to be the payment for our sins. Without Jesus' blood we were doomed to eternal damnation.

Why would the God who CREATED us for His glory, give up His son to save people who consciously reject Him on a regular basis?
Love.
Because He loves us.

And we don't deserve it. We will never deserve it. But He has offered eternal life, why would we be stupid enough to reject it? And once we accept it and begin to grow in Him and learn about what an amazing God He really is, how could we not DESIRE to worship with our lives? In fact, how can we even call them our lives? He gave His life to save ours. Our lives were bought with His blood. So we can't really call them our own.

So when people look at you, what do they see? Genesis 1:27 says "God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." Because we were created in the image of God, and now that we understand we were bought by His blood and our sole purpose is to live for Him, we should be a direct image of Jesus. That is how you worship with your life. When you live every moment for Him, you glorify Him with your actions, and you are literally a walking representation of Him; a mirror image. Of course you're not perfect - that's not expected. But a daily relationship and constant desire to live for God is expected.

And when you represent a mirror image of Him, you're showing people Jesus without even trying. You're spreading the good news without ever opening your mouth. Your life and your actions show the unsaved who He is.

So really think about it... When people look at you, who do they see?