We worship. It happens. On purpose. By accident. We worship.

Worship requires something, or someone, to be the object of our affection, our interest, our desire, our obsession.

Steeple nor pew, altar nor temple are needed. Elements, rituals, equipment, rites – aids for our worship. But worship transcends the tools that assist us. Tools only serve to facilitate the deeper connection between the object of worship and the depth of the soul.

Desire links passion with purpose, no matter how right or how wrong, creating a craft of invention. Innovation through action springs forth in worship. Name it any other, it remains to be true. We worship what we want. Worship is selfish. Worship is selfless. It gives glory to its’ object and expects a favor in return. However, unadulterated worship gives glory for its’ own sake. There is no personal agenda other than honoring the beauty in the eye of the beholding worshiper. In this adoration, worship is found to be fragmented with death and yet full of life. Worship becomes a beautiful surrender.

To worship God as a way of life, it is His glory that reigns supreme. The catalyst – our surrender and His mercy. “For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all . . . in view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 11:32; 12:1)

Worship (of God) as a way of life becomes all consuming. It requires death to self in order for us to be living sacrifices. It’s easy to be a dead sacrifice. Anyone can die. There is seldom an act of worship in dying. Unless it’s death to self and alive to God. Death to self means death for my disobedience.

In light of God’s mercy on my disobedient life, my body (my life: all I am and all I have and all I can do) is sacrificed: my disobedient desires, thoughts, wants are sacrificed on the altar of spiritual worship so that I am living a holy and pleasant life to God. Worship becomes a way of life. The object of my worship: God, receives glory through the way my life is lived out on a day-to-day basis. Worship is not an event but a way of living. Spiritual acts of godliness permeate the life as the body is in full submission to the Spirit of God as a life of worship.

sometimes i feel like my identity has been stolen!

fraud has been committed.

not my social security card, credit cards, etc…

but my actual identity. not the stuff that says who i am, what i own, how much i’ve got or owe.

but me. my actual identity – who i actually am.

by whom? by what?

before you think i forgot to take my meds… hear me out… maybe this will resonate with you.

what makes up a persons identity?

think about it. it’s the persons name, family, friends, job/career, culture, history… but mostly, it’s what PEOPLE think about you and what YOU think about yourself and how much you allow those thoughts to mold you – you identify with those thoughts – thus creating your “identity.”

Wikipedia says that identity formation is the process “by which a person is recognised or known (such as the establishment of a reputation). This process defines an individual to others and themselves.”

Do you want to be “defined” by your “reputation”? The one that others think about you? The one that you think about yourself??? Which reputation, from which group of people?

It sounds like identity theft to me!

I mean, seriously, most people build up a reputation that does not accurately reflect their true self. Right? I’m not saying it always happens… but so often, we put on a face, whether for good or bad, in order to accommodate our social setting. Consciously or not, we have different faces for different places. We commit fraud — we are fake, not the real deal.

Average Joe is a different guy at church than he is at the sports bar, or when he’s at work or playing family games with the kids.

The epitome of this idea can be best understood in the life of a teenager, who is coming to terms with who they are, but cannot risk to expose all of their experimentation with individualism. How many teenagers are THE same person with their parents as they are with their friends? What’s ironic is that as teenagers, most of us made comments like, “My parents just don’t understand me,” as if we really understood ourselves!

Can we afford to have our identity come from what others think about us, or from what we think about ourselves? Is there another way?

It’s one of the existential questions — Who am I?

I guess that depends on where you find your identity?

Do you find it in your car? Your clothes? Your career? Your cash?

Or can it be found . . . in your Creator?

God says we are his sons and daughters. Do we believe him? Or will we let Visa and Versace dictate who we are or are not, by what we have or have not?

The stupid and the intelligent things we do often give us our reputation.

Is our identity in what we do, or can it be in what God has already done?

Is our identity in what we or others think about ourselves, or is it in what God thinks about us?

Maybe our true identity cannot be defined by the things of this world… but by the One who made the world and gave us life.

Besides, who knows you better than the One who made you?

You and I are both guilty of identity theft. We are frauds . . . fakes!

We have stolen our true identity by pretending to be somebody we were not created to be!

But our identity can be formed by what God thinks about us and what He has done for us by coming to this world in the life of Jesus Christ and becoming our sin, dying as our sacrifice, restoring to us our original eternal identity. In Christ, we have eternal value. He paid the infinite price for us. Our identity in Christ means we are of unmeasurable worth.

Won’t we stop stealing our God-given identities by trying to be somebody we were not created to be? and start living like sons and daughters of the Most High God? … all the time, in every situation?

I want to be the same person I am supposed to be all the time.

No faking.

Totally real… authentic… transparent… me.

By God’s grace, I am what I am. (1 Cor.15:10)

Let’s be true to our identity . . . sons and daughters of God.