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Meh, perhaps not. But I fail to see how I would ever believe in something without first understanding it.
I believe to the point of knowing, although I still deal with unbelief and I do not understand all of it. God is not fully understandable, that's where the faith comes in.
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As far as our definitions of worship go... I can see your point, especially in light of your response to alicenavada in that I didn't know JW's thought of it in that way.
I suppose my main point was that I thought your question in the OP was somewhat rhetorical and obvious in nature that you had an underlying point behind it. As far as worship goes, I can understand it in the sense you are talking about but I tend to think of the things you mentioned as more of a devotional aspect rather than a worshipful one. But then again, as I mentioned, perhaps it really is splitting hairs. Although, I do think that people are very quick to assign themselves to words without thinking things through. Worship, in my opinion, can have a very negative connotation and that's why I brought up the Braveheart example. Improperly placed worship can be quite damaging, no?
Anyway, I'll bow out of the conversation. I know the post wasn't really directed for people like myself...
Maybe my question was rhetorical, honestly, it was provoked by folks in other threads exalting Jesus and His work on the cross and Him being highly praised but they deny Him as God and I just wanted to see who would worship Him, even though some deny Him as God.
So if they worship God. And worship Jesus (who they believe is not God), how do they reconcile their '2 masters'?
I believe Jesus was God in the flesh. Fully God--Fully human----fully worthy of my praise, adoration, and worship (all voluntry)
On the worship thing, I think we had a thread somewhere on worship but I think it's been a while.
I believe to the point of knowing, although I still deal with unbelief and I do not understand all of it. God is not fully understandable, that's where the faith comes in.
Maybe my question was rhetorical, honestly, it was provoked by folks in other threads exalting Jesus and His work on the cross and Him being highly praised but they deny Him as God and I just wanted to see who would worship Him, even though some deny Him as God.
So if they worship God. And worship Jesus (who they believe is not God), how do they reconcile their '2 masters'?
I believe Jesus was God in the flesh. Fully God--Fully human----fully worthy of my praise, adoration, and worship (all voluntry)
On the worship thing, I think we had a thread somewhere on worship but I think it's been a while.
Man, we've been hanging around together for a long time, gang, ya know it?
OK got it! Because I have to admit, even for a non-believer the question was sort of obvious if I were to put myself in the position of a believer. "Ummmm.... Duh, you worship Christ."
But I see what you're saying.
And yes, we have been around for a while... I think a year and a half for me? And you a bit longer if I'm not mistaken?! Wow!!
Oh come let us adore Him
Oh come let us adore Him
Oh Come let us adore Him
Christ the Lord..
For He alone is worthy....
He deserves the highest praise Hallelujah..
For shedding his blood for a twisted, mixed up bunch of mean hateful , wicked ,sin sick world
I will say Yes........................................
I don't believe any other "gods" would step out that far, to do this for their people,
You'd have to have the greatest Love ...
He put up with a bunch of nonsense, when He could have cancelled everyone of them out
If I were going to worship anyone or anything it certainly be Him "Yeshua Hamaschiach"
God Bless You
I believe to the point of knowing, although I still deal with unbelief and I do not understand all of it. God is not fully understandable, that's where the faith comes in.
Maybe my question was rhetorical, honestly, it was provoked by folks in other threads exalting Jesus and His work on the cross and Him being highly praised but they deny Him as God and I just wanted to see who would worship Him, even though some deny Him as God.
So if they worship God. And worship Jesus (who they believe is not God), how do they reconcile their '2 masters'?
I believe Jesus was God in the flesh. Fully God--Fully human----fully worthy of my praise, adoration, and worship (all voluntry)
On the worship thing, I think we had a thread somewhere on worship but I think it's been a while.
Man, we've been hanging around together for a long time, gang, ya know it?
To be fully God, he would know the day and hour of His return...
To be fully God he would be good, there is only one that is good...God
To be fully God he would have the right to say who sits on His right or left.... Only the Father has that....
Regardless, We can worship the Son, because He earned it....
Jesus is worthy of worship because Jesus is God. If we worshiped Jesus and He was not God, then we'd be committing the sin of worshiping a false God, which God himself forbade. This is further support of the trinity. Because Jesus accepts our worship, He is declaring himself to be God, otherwise He would not permit us to sin by worshiping him. His acceptance of our worship shows he is God and worthy of worship.
Jesus is worthy of worship because Jesus is God. If we worshiped Jesus and He was not God, then we'd be committing the sin of worshiping a false God, which God himself forbade. This is further support of the trinity. Because Jesus accepts our worship, He is declaring himself to be God, otherwise He would not permit us to sin by worshiping him. His acceptance of our worship shows he is God and worthy of worship.
To be fully God, he would know the day and hour of His return...
To be fully God he would be good, there is only one that is good...God
To be fully God he would have the right to say who sits on His right or left.... Only the Father has that....
Regardless, We can worship the Son, because He earned it....
godspeed,
freedom
Well freedom, I finally understand my debates with you in the past over the law vs. grace. It wasn't God that hung on the cross in your viewpoint. Instead Jesus 'earned' worship.
OK got it! Because I have to admit, even for a non-believer the question was sort of obvious if I were to put myself in the position of a believer. "Ummmm.... Duh, you worship Christ."
But I see what you're saying.
And yes, we have been around for a while... I think a year and a half for me? And you a bit longer if I'm not mistaken?! Wow!!
Your defining the difference in worship and devotion is a good point. I would say that Peter and the other disciples while having an inkling on worship while with Jesus did not come to grasp with what that truly meant until post cross, resurrection and pentecost.
Peter's swinging his sword was definitely and act of devotion over worship. He did not comprehend the absolute necessity of the cross. The whole story of Jesus in the garden prior to his arrest and pleading with the disciples to stay awake with him, his sweat coming out as blood, his obedience to the father to accept the cup offered to him, all this was the culmination of all he came to do -- to go to the cross. And what did Peter do? He tried to abort the very thing Jesus came to do, and how? By trying to take on a whole army troop by himself. Not an act of worship, but of devotion.
He then proceded to deny Jesus when he had just sworn allegience unto death for him. Again, an act of devotion but not worship.
Devotion can do some big things, but it can only carry one so far.
But here is where the verse Alpha quoted earlier comes into play. The sacrifice on the cross by Jesus for Peter (and all of us) paved the way for Peter to become a new creation. His spirit became alive. When Jesus first encountered the disciples post his resurrection, according to John's gospel, he 'breathed' on them to receive the Spirit. Then just days after Jesus' ascension, on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit of God fell on the believers and Peter preached a sermon and 3,000 became believers.
This is the transforming power of the Spirit of God. A guy that just weeks prior made a grand statement that he could not keep by denying Jesus three times that very night -- then, just weeks later, preaches a sermon that sees thousands come to a saving knowledge of Jesus.
At this point Peter switched from devotion toward Jesus to worship.
I would offer that this is why devotion is easier for you to comprehend than worship. There is a little of that fear factor that does come into worship, I will not deny. But it is that fear of holiness, of supreme goodness, of coming into the presence of one without sin, of true beauty and awe, that those of us familiar with sin just get quivery and can do nothing but bow.
However, Jesus came and walked as one with us, as one who lived in the limitations of human flesh, as one tempted in every way that we are (yet without falling to that temtation), as one who became sin, becoming the totality of our sin in our stead.
So, we do not worship a God who is not familiar with our condition. He does not come to us as an alien force with technological supremecy over us. He instead came in the lowliest of fashion, lived a servant life, loved those who weren't particularly lovely, befriended the sinner.
That is why I stated in an earlier post that Jesus doesn't demand our worship, he invites it as an act of our will. However, his holiness demands our worship. He is holy. Apart from him we are far from holy.
GCS, there is nothing wrong in coming to God with your intellect. There is nothing wrong with seeking to understand God. That is why I posted to you in another thread a few weeks ago to lay aside all the petty things you see us Christians debating and just ask God himself to reveal himself to you. You did ask which God. Well, I would say that you examine this God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ and see if this Christ represents what God would be the best. I have staked my eternal claim on this Christ. Why? Because Mohammed, Buddha, Confuscious, the pantheon of Hindu deities, none of them did anything to bridge the gap between me and God. That gap is my sin.
Those other guys suggested ways that I through my own good deeds or works can somehow bridge that gulf -- by what? Acts of devotion. Deeds of devotion to others, to God, to myself. There are even Christian sects that fall short of this message, they are doing things to come to God.
Yet this Jesus went to the cross because he knew that I in my sinful state could not bridge that gap. I could not pay for my debt of sin. So he, the one person that never, ever had to pay for sin, was the one in fact that became sin in its totality for me, died on the cross and paid my debt. The wages of sin is death. I was owed death. Jesus paid it. No other has done that. No other made a way for me to come before God.
Devotion will only get you so far. When the destination is pure holiness, devotion will always fall far short. Worship is a response of one who has been brought fully before God at someone else's expense.
That is why we worship Jesus.
Last edited by Saintmarks; 10-23-2008 at 11:41 PM..
If Jesus worshiped and gave praise to God, as the bible states, wouldnt that mean that he is separate from God--he wouldnt worship and give praises to himself--that would be vanity
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