Worship Fuel: Reminding Ourselves of the Gospel

 

"We must hear the Gospel every day because we forget it every day." - Martin Luther

 

"Jesus became a man, lived a perfectly righteous life, took our punishment on the cross, & then came alive again to secure for us a place with God" - this is the gospel we tell to unbelievers. But do we tell it to ourselves? 

The gospel is for us as believers, too. There are many reasons for this, but the one I want to focus on today is that remembering what God has done fuels our love & worship. When we find ourselves bored or confused in worship (I've been there, and still often am), it might be because it's been a while since we've been reminded of the gospel story.  

We can go to church every week and read the Bible every day, and still rarely hear about the gospel. Not every sermon or passage directly talks about what God has done for us in Jesus' death & resurrection; instead, the majority of the sermons & passages we consume could simply be commands - for example, reminders to love our neighbor, pray, use kind words, and be more forgiving. Don't get me wrong - - these passages & sermons are good for us - but if behavior modification messages are ALL we feed ourselves, then we might find ourselves running spiritually dry. This kind of imbalanced theology does not make God seem very appealing. It will likely not make our hearts thirsty for God Himself, but rather thirsty to simply be good because it's "right." Likely, we'll think more about God's rules than His character (this is a recent observation I've made in myself).  

God created in us hearts that want to love (not just obey) someone or something. If we reduce God to nothing more than a source of moral accountability, we may decide that idols are safer & more satisfying, as they either expect little from us or provide comfort/distraction for the legalism-inflicted wounds of fear & inadequacy.

To summarize:

• Being told, "You should worship/love God" does not fuel our love for Him. 

• Being told to behave in a godly way does not (*directly*) fuel our love for God. 

Rather, hearing about God Himself (assisted by the Holy Spirit) is what will make us love God.