Dear Pastor Gallups, Here is the ultimate question! It is the one that I asked myself when I was 14 years old and then quit religion. Why does a Creator want/need to be worshipped? That sounds too human to me.” RD

Dear RD

Nowhere in the Bible does God say that he NEEDS worship. He does command us to worship Him, though. Why?

The word “worship” is an old English word used to describe the Hebrew word that means to "assign the highest value to something or someone." Sometimes people are loosely accused of "worshipping" their car, for example. What we mean is that it seems that person assigns value to their car over and above anything else.

God wants us to love and adore him and to assign the highest value to him alone, as opposed to the lies of Satan, our flesh, material things or false gods.

Because he created us as LOVING beings we have free will and the ability to chose to love and follow anyone or anything that we desire.

He wants us to LOVE him. He wants us to CHOOSE him. Just like we want our wife or children to love us and choose us and not another man or dad, because they are FREE to do so and WANT to do so, not because they are MADE to do so.

God will not make anyone LOVE (worship) him. However, he knows that if we do not assign the highest and ultimate value (worship or love) to HIM, that we WILL do it with something or someone else. He knows that anything or anyone less than Him will ultimately be to our demise.

God wants only our ultimate good and not our demise. He wants us to FREELY worship (love) Him so that he may freely pour out all the love and blessing he has for us. I hope this helps.

The Word of God clearly tells us that the ultimate way to worship Him is to surrender our lives in love and adoration to His Son, Jesus the Christ. In so doing, we truly become a part of God’s family, forever! RD, it is my prayer that you would come to Jesus with your life and truly “worship”.