my satanic worship

This morning as worship was just beginning, during the first moments of the very first song, I sensed, “What else have you been worshiping besides Me?” Whoa, what does this mean? I had been down this week, discouraged by my sins and their consequences not only for me, but also for those I love. I despaired of my lack of effectiveness, my lack of ability, my lack of talent, and my overall pathetic lack of progress in the so-called sanctification process. Oh yeah, the absence of any significant positive fruit in my life also bummed me out.

Have you ever felt like this? Have you ever over indulged in regret and despaired of sin?

Please stay with me here. This may not be easy to get across, so you really will have to pay attention.

I realized that I had been worshiping my sin, my failures, and my abundant lackings. In my despair, I had been bowing down before the works of sin. I had been worshiping what Satan had placed before me. They were very real things, but my despair over these things was really the equivalent of falling on my knees and bowing down to them.

In fact, I had been partaking in a form of satanic worship.

The Lord is a jealous God and does not want me worshiping anything or anyone else. He does not want me to worship Him on Sunday when I spent Friday and Saturday, and may well spend Monday, reciting my satanic verses of praise for the works of another. The Lord does not want to share my worship. He will not settle for some of it.

It is only by His grace that I can come boldly before His throne. Yet I was denying His grace, the grace in which I live, by exalting, and thereby worshipping, sin and a dead man. Grace has covered my sin; grace has made me dead to sin. That I am a child of God in right standing before God is a fact, a completed work, and a permanent condition: a result only, and completely, due to grace.

What I thought was regret, my despair transformed into idolatry. What I thought was contrition, became in despair my satanic worship.

It makes no sense to worship the God of grace while exalting what grace has already destroyed.

If you ever have trouble worshipping the great I AM, just sing a few lines of Amazing Grace. Worship gets very easy after that.

Be blessed!
RB