"So do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you. Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger. But am I the one they are provoking? declares the LORD. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame?
Jeremiah 7:16-19 (NIV)
God said, “You are not hurting Me, but you are hurting yourselves.” How were they hurting themselves?
There are two principles about worship that help us understand.
The first principle is this: We become like what we worship. We actually begin to resemble what we idolize.
The second principle is: We can never rise above what we worship. We cannot lift ourselves higher than the object of our worship. The object of our worship becomes a goal. But the best we can ever hope to be is deficient copy of the original.
This is why idolatry is so heinous: it does serious damage to the idolater. If we worship an idol the best we can ever hope to be is a poor facsimile of a deficient god. If man worships himself or that which he has made he will spiral downward into spiritual oblivion. If he ever hopes to rise to something higher then he must worship something higher than himself.
This leaves us with only one viable option: to worship God.
I urge you to spend some time worshipping Him today.
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