Through the years, I have learned that Christ-honoring Christians get out of bed, dress, go to church, sing the songs, pray the prayers and expectantly listen to the sermon each week solely because Jesus is worthy, not necessarily because they always want to do it. To them, it is Jesus who matters most. He is the one who deserves their praise. The same should be true for all of us who profess faith in Christ. He is the one who sits enthroned in the heavens. He is the one who gave himself for us. He is the one who will return to judge the living and the dead. He is the one who promised and secured our eternal destiny by his precious blood. 

I want to begin this post with a confession: I struggle with self-centeredness occasionally. Ok, you got me, I struggle with it a lot. That should come as no surprise to you or anyone else reading this post. You know that I am no different than you. You are also well aware that we both struggle with self-centeredness. Like the Apostle Paul, we fight the fleshly temptation to honor ourselves rather than God (Rom. 7:15-19). This is true for us even after our hearts have been transformed by the gospel of grace in Christ.

I don’t know about you, but my self-centeredness is periodically seen in my attitude before, during and after corporate worship. This was true before I became a pastor, and sadly it’s still true. (Shh, don’t tell anybody. Pastors are supposed to be super-spiritual.) There are times when I don’t want to get out of bed, don’t want to get dressed, don’t want be around people, don’t want to sing the selected songs, don’t want to lead the prayers, and certainly don’t want to preach the passage before me or hear it preached. Simply, on those days, I don’t want it to be about God; I want it to be about ME!

When I feel this way, I find myself drawing strength from the Spirit of God as he enables me to obey the command of God to remember the Sabbath day and to keep it holy. He provides me with the strength necessary to obey the will of God, not just the inspiration to be obedient. I believe that on those days this same Spirit also brings to my mind a biblical lesson about worship, which I learned as a young man by watching and listening to my dad (Big Rick) on Sundays.

Worship is about Jesus, not you.

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