Implication 1- Right Worship

“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4)

King David, the author of this psalm, asks “one thing” from the Lord: to dwell in the Lord’s presence, gaze upon His beauty, and seek Him. Who can join David in honestly praying that this is the “one thing” they desire?

Psalm 73 expresses a similar longing. Its author, Asaph, says in verse 25, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.” Who can truthfully say to God, “Earth has nothing I desire besides You”?

Most people cannot. I cannot. And yet, for Christians, the greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37; compare Mark 12:30). All. Surely part of learning to love God this way is learning to share David’s “one thing” and Asaph’s consuming desire for God.

What keeps the human heart from desiring God first? From desiring God above everything else? From being content in God alone?

C.S. Lewis famously wrote, “He who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only” (Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”). Is that true? Is it possible to live from that reality and perspective?

Psalm 23:1 declares, “The Lord is my shepherd; I lack nothing.” Psalm 34:9 says, “Fear the Lord, you his holy people, for those who fear him lack nothing.” Psalm 87:7 says, in one translation, “All my springs of joy are in you.” Relationship with God is repeatedly connected with lacking nothing. All our true springs of joy ultimately come from Him. Perhaps joy’s deepest source, then, is not circumstantial at all.

Paul certainly seems to have lived this way. He wrote Philippians from imprisonment, yet the letter is filled with joy and calls to rejoice. Near the end he writes:

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:12–13)

Paul had learned something extraordinary: contentment that did not depend on whether he was free or imprisoned, full or hungry, living in plenty or in want. His circumstances could change drastically without taking away his deepest source of life. His strength and sufficiency came from God.

What do we seek after for contentment, fulfillment, identity, security, and satisfaction apart from God? That question can expose the idols hidden in all our hearts—things we may “worship” without even realizing it. Tim Keller described an idol as anything more important to us than God, anything we look to for what only God can ultimately give (Keller xvii–xix).

Every time we cling to an idol instead of God, we fall short of the Greatest Commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We fall short of what we were created for: to know, love, and worship God. We fall short of what Jesus describes as eternal life: “that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

How can we deeply know God while continually turning away from Him to created things for what only He can give? How can God be our “one thing” if something else quietly functions as our real source of worth, security, or joy?

The Westminster Shorter Catechism says that the “chief end of man” is to “glorify God, and to enjoy him forever” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 1). I also appreciate John Piper’s adaptation: to glorify God by enjoying Him forever (Piper 23). Romans 1:18–25 warns against exchanging the glory of the Creator for created things. Creation is good, but it is not worthy of the worship due its Creator. God alone is the ultimate source of satisfaction and life.

Augustine famously prayed to God that our hearts are restless until they rest in Him. May our hearts actually learn this. May our one desire—our one thing—be God, not an idol.

Jesus, Worship, and Living Water

John 4 describes Jesus traveling through Samaria and meeting a Samaritan woman at a well. Jesus is tired and asks her for a drink—an unusual interaction because of the hostility and separation between Jews and Samaritans. Jesus then tells her that if she knew who he was, she would ask him for “living water.” Whoever drinks the water he gives, he says, will never thirst in the same way again; that water will become within the person a spring welling up to eternal life.

The woman wants this water. And then Jesus does something fascinating: he tells her to call her husband. She replies that she has no husband, and Jesus reveals that he already knows her history—she has had five husbands, and the man she is presently with is not her husband. How interesting that, in the middle of a conversation about thirst and living water, Jesus suddenly brings up her relationships.

The movement of the conversation is striking: water, husbands, and then worship. John never explicitly tells us that this woman pursued relationship after relationship in an attempt to quench the deeper thirst Jesus is addressing, so I do not want to claim that as fact. But the placement is at least worth noticing. Could her story illustrate something deeply human—that we can keep returning to people, relationships, or other created things hoping, “Maybe this time I will finally be satisfied”?

The conversation then moves directly into worship. Jesus says:

“You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:22–24)

Jesus then reveals to the woman that he is the Messiah—the one promised to rescue and restore God’s people.

The woman’s response is beautiful: she leaves her water jar (John 4:28) and runs back to her town to tell everyone about Jesus. What a transformation. She came to the well for literal water, but in her excitement over discovering the Messiah, she leaves the very jar she came to fill. Her encounter with Jesus has become more urgent than the reason she came to the well in the first place.

That does not prove that John intended every detail of her marital history as an allegory of spiritual thirst. But the whole scene still presses an uncomfortable question on us: what do we keep returning to, hoping it will finally satisfy us? What are our “five husbands”—the things we keep asking to give us what only God can?

It is completely normal to grieve when a relationship ends, or to desire marriage and feel real disappointment when that desire remains unmet. The issue is not whether we have human desires. The deeper question is what our hearts expect another person to do for us. Do we look to God as the ultimate source of fulfillment, satisfaction, identity, and joy—or do we quietly ask another human being to fill a God-sized place?

No human person can be the ultimate source that quenches the deepest spiritual thirst of another. God is that source. Psalm 87:7 says, “All my springs of joy are in you.” When we look to created things to give us what belongs ultimately to God, envy, dependence, fear, and idolatry can easily take root.

Are we envious when we see people who have things we do not have—whether a relationship, family, career, ministry, success, or something else? Or are we grateful for what God has given and learning contentment in Him? If our hearts are not increasingly satisfied in God, it becomes difficult to obey the Greatest Commandment. How can we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength while expecting something else to be our deepest source of life?

Marriage does not remove this danger. Married people can idolize their spouses just as single people can idolize the hope of marriage. In fact, we will love another person better if we are satisfied in God first and do not demand that he or she fulfill us completely. What a weight to put on another person! No human being was created to carry it.

Jesus offers a better way: come to him and receive living water. Importantly, John later explains what Jesus means by this imagery. John 7:37–39 says:

“On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

John could hardly be clearer about the imagery: the “living water” is the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the one through whom this gift comes to us; the Spirit is the living water given. That distinction matters.

Jesus Worship

Through Jesus and his sacrifice, humanity is reconciled to God and receives access to the living water of the Holy Spirit, who wells up within believers to eternal life. Jesus tells people to come to him and drink, but John explains that what believers receive is the Spirit.

This distinction matters deeply to me because I do not believe Jesus is God. For most of my life, I did. Beginning in 2022, however, continual prayer and Bible study forced me to reconsider something I had assumed was settled. I began with a desire to understand Jesus more fully. I began with questions I could no longer ignore, as Bible study led me to questions concerning Jesus' identity that seemed to point to him not being God.

And the implication is enormous. If Jesus is not God, then worshiping Jesus as God is idolatry—even when that worship is sincere, inherited, loving, and completely unintentional. I do not say that standing outside the problem and pointing at everyone else. I worshiped Jesus as God for most of my life. When my mind changed regarding Jesus' divinity, I needed to repent of treating a created man as God - and I did. Whether Jesus is God or not is not a small theological disagreement.

My mind did not change regarding the Holy Spirit. I believe the Holy Spirit is God and can quench human spiritual thirst in a way no human being ever can. And John 4 contains another remarkable detail: Jesus explicitly places himself among the worshipers. He says, “we worship what we do know” (John 4:22), speaking as a Jew, and then says that true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth.

That creates a question I do not think Christians should rush past: if Jesus worships God, how can Jesus himself be that God? God is the One ultimately worshiped; Jesus presents himself as a worshiper of God. This fits the enormous biblical pattern in which God calls His people away from idols and back to the right worship of Himself—for our good and for His glory.

When Jesus returns, people should not expect him to function as though he is the ultimate source of everything as God. Jesus is amazing—Messiah, Savior, Lord, King, the one through whom God reconciles and saves the world—but I believe he is still a human being. What he does is lead people to the One who can finally quench their thirst and give them the Spirit. Jesus brings us to God; he does not replace God.

So may God be the one thing we look to for ultimate fulfillment, satisfaction, identity, and everlasting joy—not a romantic partner, not success, not ministry, not family, and not even Jesus himself in the place that belongs to God alone. May Jesus be the unique one we go through to be reconciled to God and receive the living water of the Holy Spirit, just as he said:

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

And may that living water overflow from us in love for God with all our heart and in genuine love for our neighbors, without asking them to meet needs only God can meet.

Jesus should not be our “one thing” in the same sense that God should be our “one thing.” That does not make Jesus unimportant. It puts Jesus in the place Scripture gives him—and God in the place Jesus himself gives God.

If what I am arguing is true, then the present situation in the Church is not merely “concerning.” It is deeply sobering. Much Christian worship throughout the world is directed to Jesus as God. I no longer believe that is right. But I also cannot speak as though I now worship God perfectly. I do not. Although I no longer worship Jesus as God, I still sin. I still need grace.

Scripture distinguishes between intentional, high-handed rebellion and sins committed unintentionally (see Leviticus 4–5; Numbers 15:22–31). That distinction matters enormously here. I grew up in the Church; the Church has been my primary community for most of my life. I have no doubt that, if worshiping Jesus as God is wrong, the overwhelming majority of Christians doing it are committing unintentional sin. They are not trying to dishonor God. I certainly was not.

But Scripture teaches that unintentional sin is still serious. God provided atonement for it in the Torah. Something can disobey God, dishonor Him, and hurt others even when no harm was intended. When I came to believe I had worshiped Jesus wrongly, sincerity did not change the fact that I believed I needed to repent and ask God for forgiveness.

And yet—what hope there is. God reveals Himself as “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6). The Old Testament repeatedly shows God responding with mercy and restoration when His people turn back to Him. Repentance is not the end of the story. Repentance is often where renewal begins.

If the Church were to discover that it has been wrong about Jesus’ deity and humbly repent, what might God do? He could move in ways we have scarcely imagined. The world would see Christians willing to admit error rather than protect tradition at all costs. Jews and Muslims might become more willing to reconsider Christianity if following Jesus no longer required identifying Jesus as God. And Christians themselves might rediscover something breathtaking about the gospel: that Jesus truly is our brother, and we may see in a fresh way how possible it is to become like Christ. How can Christians ever really become genuinely like a God-man? But we can become like a man who became perfected and sinless. We can follow that man.

And Christians themselves could gain a renewed understanding of what Scripture says they are becoming. First John 3:2 says:

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”

I believe the promise that believers will truly become like Christ fits naturally with Jesus being genuinely human. Christians will never become God. But Scripture really does say that we will be conformed to Christ’s image. If Jesus is fully God in a way we can never share, then there is always a fundamental sense in which we can never truly be like him. But if Jesus is the glorified human Son of God—the firstborn among many brothers and sisters (Romans 8:29)—then his life becomes not merely something to admire from an infinite distance, but the human destiny God is actually bringing His children toward. What an empowering hope!

Yet if Christians are to worship God rightly, much would need to change. One obvious place is our worship music. Songs shape theology, often more deeply than sermons do. And if Jesus is not God, some beloved Christian lyrics put Jesus into language or roles that Scripture reserves for God.

Consider the lyrics of the popular worship song “Worthy of It All”:

All the saints and angels/Bow before Your throne/All the elders cast their crowns/Before the Lamb of God and sing

In Revelation, however, the elders cast their crowns before the One seated on the throne in Revelation 4:9–11—before the Lamb is introduced in chapter 5. The song then says:

You are worthy of it all/You are worthy of it all/For from You are all things/And to You are all things/You deserve the glory

If these words are addressed specifically to Jesus, we should ask the question plainly: is Jesus “worthy of it all" in the same sense God is? Revelation 4 and 5 praise both God and the Lamb, but they do not erase the distinction between them. Revelation 5 says the Lamb is worthy because he was slain and purchased people for God. Romans 11:36 says of God, “For from him and through him and for him are all things.” First Corinthians 8:6 is even more precise: there is “one God, the Father, from whom are all things” and “one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.” Those are not identical descriptions.

Jesus absolutely deserves glory and honor. I do not want to take any rightful honor away from him. But our words matter. If Scripture never describes our crowns as being laid before the Lamb, should our worship songs say that? If Scripture distinguishes what is from God from what is through Christ, should our worship songs collapse that distinction? If Jesus is not God, would Jesus himself want us to?

Consider another example: Hillsong United’s “One Thing.” The song makes Jesus the believer’s “one thing”—the one ultimately needed, desired, known, followed, and worshiped. I understand why Christians sing that. I once would have sung it without hesitation. But now I have to ask: what would Jesus himself think of this song?

The song describes Jesus as the “well that never runs dry.” But according to John’s Gospel, what is the well that never runs dry? Jesus tells people to come to him and drink, yes—but John immediately explains that the living water is the Spirit whom believers would receive (John 7:37–39). Jesus gives the water. John does not simply identify Jesus himself as the water.

And notice what comes next: rivers of living water will flow from believers too (John 7:38). Does that make believers God? Of course not. The Spirit can flow through a person without that person being the ultimate source of the Spirit. The source is God. That distinction applies to us—and it matters when we think about Jesus too.

Jeremiah 2:13 gives even stronger language:

“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

Here the Lord God Himself calls Himself the fountain of living water. That is striking. It fits my understanding that the Father and the Holy Spirit are one God: God is the source, and the Spirit is the living water given to us. Jesus does not possess an independent fountain of deity alongside God. He receives from God and gives what God has given him.

This is also true of Christians. Because believers receive the Holy Spirit, rivers of living water can flow from them too (John 7:38–39). That does not make Christians God. Likewise, Jesus’ ability to give the Spirit does not establish that he is God. Jesus is uniquely the Messiah through whom God gives this gift.

Jesus is, I believe, a man filled with God, not a God-man. And that matters not only for how we understand him but for how we understand ourselves. Christians too are called to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that God’s life and love can flow through us. Hebrews 2:11 describes Jesus and those he sanctifies as being “all from one.” Jesus’ source and our source are the same: God.

Apart from God, Jesus himself says he can do nothing. John 5:19 records him saying, “The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing.” He repeats in John 5:30, “By myself I can do nothing.”

This is why the common Christian phrase “Jesus is everything I need” deserves more thought than we often give it. In one sense, yes—we desperately need Jesus, because through him we are reconciled to God. But Jesus was certainly not “everything Jesus needed.” Jesus needed the Father. Jesus depended upon God. If we are following Jesus, why would our ultimate dependence be different from his?

Jesus never said, “I am everything you need.” He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). What is the destination of the Way? The Father. Jesus opens the way back to God. He is indispensable precisely because he reconciles us to the One who is our ultimate life.

So yes—we absolutely need Jesus. I am not arguing otherwise. But we need Jesus because he brings us to God. Ultimately, God is the One we need.

What, then, should we make of Paul’s words in Philippians 3:8?

“I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

This is extraordinarily strong language about knowing Christ. Paul treasures Christ. Christians should treasure Christ too. First John also teaches that love for God cannot be separated from love for the people who bear His image. Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), and John 14:9 says that seeing Jesus is, in an important sense, seeing the Father because Jesus perfectly reveals Him.

John 17:3 gives us the balance:

“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

Eternal life involves knowing both: the only true God and the Christ whom He sent. Both—not Christ instead of God, and not God while ignoring Christ.

That is why the word only matters so much to me in worship language such as “if only to know You,” when “You” means Jesus alone. Jesus himself used the word “only” in John 17:3—but he used it of God: “the only true God.” Then, in the very same sentence, he distinguished himself as the Christ whom that God sent. That is not a small wording difference.

Our words matter deeply to God. Worship is not a place where truth suddenly becomes unimportant because our intentions are loving. God cares that what we sing, pray, and confess about Him is actually true.

The songwriter presumably believes Jesus is God and therefore sees no conflict in such language. I am not questioning the writer’s sincerity. I once used similar language sincerely myself. But if Jesus is not God, then some common Christian worship language unintentionally assigns to Jesus what belongs uniquely to God.

Jesus worshiped God the Father. He repeatedly called the Father his God. So I think Christians should be willing to sit with these questions instead of answering them automatically: Would Jesus approve of being worshiped as God? Did he ever command his followers to worship him as God?

When asked for the greatest commandment, Jesus said:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30)

Jesus does not say, “Love me with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” He says, love GOD. Scripture calls Jesus our brother (Hebrews 2:11; Romans 8:29), while Jesus calls the Father his God. If we are going to follow Jesus, should we not take seriously the distinction Jesus himself makes?

Jesus also came to glorify God. In John 17:1 he prays, “Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” Why does Jesus want to be glorified? So that God will be glorified. Jesus’ glorification does not end with Jesus. He asks to be glorified so that he may glorify the One whom, only two verses later, he calls “the only true God.”

So the problem is not glorifying Jesus. Glorify Jesus! Scripture does. Treasure Jesus. Love Jesus. Know Jesus. Count everything loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. None of that is the problem.

The question is much more specific: are we glorifying Jesus as God when Jesus himself glorified and worshiped God?

What would Jesus think of being worshiped as equal to God—and, in some prayers, songs, and ordinary Christian speech, sometimes as though he alone were God? He asked to be glorified so that God would be glorified (John 17:1). That is astonishing humility. If Christians are striving to imitate Christ, may we imitate him here too: whatever glory comes to us should point beyond us to God.

Revelation 21:23 offers a beautiful picture of this:

“The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.”

The imagery is beautiful: God is the glory; the Lamb is the lamp. The lamp does not compete with the light—it carries it. I believe this captures Jesus’ ministry extraordinarily well. He reveals God, reflects God, and brings God’s light to the world without being the God whose glory he reveals.

Another worship song says:

Jesus at the center of it all/Jesus at the center of it all/From beginning to the end/It will always be, it’s always been You, Jesus, Jesus/Nothing else matters/Nothing in this world will do/Jesus, You’re the center...

Even if the Trinity were true, I think these words should give Christians pause. If God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, how can one person of the Trinity be described as though “nothing else matters”? What about the Father? What about the Holy Spirit? If “everything revolves around Jesus,” where does that leave the God Jesus himself worshiped?

Jesus consistently pointed people to the Father. Scripture repeatedly places him at the right hand of God. Even that image is worth thinking about. If Jesus is at God’s right hand, God is not at Jesus’ right hand. Jesus is exalted beside God. The picture itself distinguishes them.

Jesus never told his followers, “Put me at the center of everything.” He said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. He claimed to be God’s Son and Messiah. What would Jesus think of Christians moving the center from the God he worshiped to himself?

If Jesus is not God, then some of this language is not merely imprecise. It is profoundly misplaced. Jesus is central to God’s saving work—Savior, Messiah, Lord, Head of the Church, the one through whom the world is reconciled. But Jesus is not the ultimate source of Jesus. God is. God is therefore the ultimate center.

Jesus says in John 5:19:

“The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing.”

Jesus’ source is God. The source of his authority, his strength, his mission, his words, his miracles, and his life is God. If Jesus himself lived from God as his source, why would Christians make Jesus the ultimate source instead?

As Savior of the world, Head of the Church, Messiah, King, and Lord, Jesus should be praised, honored, loved, obeyed, and exalted. He deserves enormous honor. But if Jesus is not God, he should not be worshiped as God. I believe doing that unintentionally dishonors both God and Jesus: God, because His unique place is given to another; and Jesus, because we give him an identity he himself did not claim.

Jesus does receive proskyneō in the Gospels, often translated “worship.” But, as explained in my fuller article on Jesus worship, proskyneō can also describe homage or reverence directed toward human beings. Revelation 3:9 even uses the word for people bowing before believers. Therefore, those passages do not automatically mean that Jesus was accepting worship as God.

See: 5. Jesus Is Worthy: Honoring Christ, Worshiping God

“One Thing” = God

So every person’s ultimate one thing should be God: knowing God, loving God, worshiping God, seeking God, enjoying God, and longing for His presence above everything else. God is the prize.

Even Jesus should not be a Christian’s “one thing” in the sense in which God alone is the ultimate object of worship and desire, although much Christian language can make him sound that way. Scripture—not inherited Christian speech—must determine how we understand Jesus.

Does Scripture teach that Jesus should be worshiped as God? Does it teach that Jesus, rather than God, is the ultimate focus of Christian existence? If not, then even while Christians rightly exalt and praise Jesus for who he is and what he has done, our worship should ultimately be directed to God.

John 4:22–23 gives us an extraordinarily simple picture: Jesus says “we worship” and then identifies the Father as the One true worshipers worship. If we are followers of Jesus, then perhaps the most Jesus-like thing we can do in worship is exactly what Jesus did: worship God with him.

So God should be everyone’s “one thing”—the One ultimately desired, sought, trusted, and worshiped:

“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4)

But what does this practically mean? If God is our “one thing,” will all eternity simply be one never-ending church service—singing forever while everything else disappears?

Scripture gives a much richer picture. Eternity is lived in God’s renewed creation, where God is loved, enjoyed, sought, and worshiped in everything His people do. Worship is not limited to singing or formal services.

First Corinthians 10:31 says:

“Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

Colossians 3:23–24 similarly teaches believers to do their work wholeheartedly for the Lord. Eating, drinking, work, relationships, creativity, service, celebration—all of life can become worship when lived in love and gratitude toward God.

First John 4:7–8 says:

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

What an amazing revelation: God literally IS Love. And John refuses to let love for an invisible God remain abstract. Whether we know and love God is revealed, in part, by how we treat the visible people around us.

So what does it mean to make God our “one thing”? It certainly means loving God first. But because God is Love, it also means loving people. The second commandment is not a distraction from the first; Jesus says it is like it. Loving the images of God around us is one of the clearest ways our love for God becomes visible.

John continues:

“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.... Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.... God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 John 4:9–16)

God’s love was made visible through Jesus, and that same love is now meant to become visible through Jesus’ followers. God is invisible, yet His image and love are displayed in human lives. Imperfectly now—but Scripture promises that believers will ultimately be conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).

Therefore, making God our “one thing” is not withdrawal from people. It is loving and worshiping God in such a way that we become free to love people rightly.

If our identity, satisfaction, and worth depend on a romantic relationship, family, friends, career, children, ministry, success, the Church, or even Jesus in a way that displaces God, then we will grasp at those things. We will need them to behave in ways that make us okay. But contentment in God frees us to love instead of grasp.

God, may You truly be our one thing. May Love be our one thing.

What is love?

First Corinthians 13:4–8 says:

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

Jesus showed us what this Love looks like by laying down his life so that humanity could be reconciled to God. And if God Himself is the greatest gift, then love sometimes requires the courage to point people toward Him even when that message is uncomfortable. First Corinthians 13 does not say love ignores truth. It says love “rejoices with the truth.”

If God is truly a Christian’s “one thing,” then he or she should have the courage to love without compromising what God has said is true—and also the humility to keep asking, “Is what I am calling truth really God’s truth, or merely something I inherited?”

Thank You, Lord, for the freedom and courage that come from You being our one thing.

“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” (Galatians 5:6)

Or, in the language of this article: the one thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

May Your Kingdom, God—the Kingdom of Love—come.

Amen.

Conclusion

But one final question remains—and I think it is essential. If God is our ultimate treasure, does that mean Jesus should not be treasured?

Absolutely not.

Even if Jesus is not God and therefore should not be worshiped as God, Philippians 3:8 uses breathtaking language about treasuring and knowing him:

“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”

Paul does not speak of Christ casually. He treasures him. He considers knowing Christ worth losing everything else. And John 17:3 says eternal life is not only knowing God—whom Jesus calls “the only true God”—but also knowing “Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” So any theology that corrects Jesus-worship by making Jesus emotionally peripheral has overcorrected.

God being our “one thing” therefore cannot mean becoming indifferent to Christ—or to people. In fact, the closer we move toward God, the more deeply we should learn to treasure what God treasures.

Psalm 27:4 itself may help us see why:

“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”

How do we “gaze upon the beauty of the Lord” when God is invisible? That is a remarkable question.

Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). To see Jesus is to see a human life in which God is revealed with extraordinary clarity. Jesus tells Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9)—not, I believe, because Jesus is literally the Father or God Himself, but because he perfectly images and reveals Him.

And how can we “dwell in the house of the Lord” continually when God is no longer approached through one physical temple in Jerusalem?

First Corinthians 3:16 says:

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”

The Church is now God’s temple. Think about what that means. To live among God’s people is, in a real sense, to live among people in whom His Spirit dwells. God has made His people a place where His presence is encountered in a unique and special way.

And Scripture promises something even more astonishing for the future. Jesus will not forever be the only human being perfectly conformed to God’s image. Christians themselves are destined to be conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29), and 1 John 3:2 says, “we shall be like him.” Really like him. That promise should change how we look at one another.

Could part of “gazing upon the beauty of the Lord,” then, include learning to gaze with wonder at God’s image in the people around us—not worshiping them as God, of course, but seeing in them something of the beauty of the God who made them?

Psalm 139:13–14 says:

“You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful.”

Wow. Fearfully and wonderfully made—now, in our broken and unfinished state. What, then, will humanity be like when God has finished His work and His children are glorified?

C.S. Lewis famously reflected that an ordinary person beside us may one day become a creature of such glory that, if we saw that person now as he or she will eventually be, we might be strongly tempted to worship (Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”). His point was not that humans become God. His point was that we will be amazed at how glorious God intends redeemed humanity to become.

And amazingly, Scripture does not only call God our inheritance; it also speaks of God’s people as His inheritance. Deuteronomy 4:20 says God brought Israel out of Egypt “to be the people of his inheritance.” Ephesians 1:18 speaks of “the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.” God treasures His people.

There is some interpretive debate over whether Ephesians 1:18 means God’s inheritance in His people or the inheritance He gives to His people (Lincoln; Barth), but the broader biblical theme is clear: God treasures His people as His own possession.

Could Paul’s prayer therefore include a desire that Christians increasingly grasp how precious God’s people are to Him? If God considers people His treasure, how can we treat them as disposable? If God treasures His saints, should we not learn to treasure them too?

God’s Church is also precious to Jesus. Jesus gave everything—even his life—to reconcile people to God. Hebrews 12:2 says he endured the cross “for the joy set before him.” What greater joy than reconciling people with God? He suffered to bring people home to God.

Matthew 25 makes the relationship even more personal. Jesus identifies himself with “the least of these” so closely that acts of love toward them are treated as acts of love toward him:

“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40)

To love them is, in a profound sense, to love Christ. Jesus will not let us separate our devotion to him from the way we treat people.

So after all of this, what should be a Christian’s “one thing”?

God. Absolutely. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. God is the ultimate source, goal, and object of worship.

But Jesus immediately says, “The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” Like it! The commandments are distinct, but Jesus himself ties them together. First John then goes even further: if we say we love God while refusing to love people, our claim to love God is false.

So yes, God is the ultimate prize. But Christ is a treasure too, and so are people. Every person we encounter bears God’s image. Christ considered people worth dying for. God desires people to turn back to Him (2 Peter 3:9). God treasures all people and commands us to treasure them with Him. Making God our one thing should enlarge our love for people, not shrink it.

The entire Bible points to God as the ultimate goal and prize of His people: knowing God, loving God, enjoying God, worshiping God. But biblical love for God never ends in isolation. How could we treasure God while despising the people He made? How could we adore the Creator while treating His images as though they have little value? How could we claim to love Christ while ignoring those with whom Christ identifies?

The Westminster Shorter Catechism says that humanity’s chief end is to “glorify God, and to enjoy him forever” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 1). Piper famously reframes this as glorifying God by enjoying Him forever (Piper 23).

I would add something—not to replace the Catechism’s God-centeredness, but because I think Scripture shows what genuine God-centeredness inevitably produces:

A Christian’s chief end is to glorify God by loving and enjoying Him forever: and this is best expressed by loving Christ and all people.

I do not think this competes with God being our “one thing.” I think this is what God being our one thing practically means: loving God first teaches us how to love everything else rightly.

Therefore, God, Christ, and people are all treasures: God alone is worshiped and treated as God. Christ is loved, treasured, honored, obeyed, and exalted as God’s Son, Messiah, Lord, Savior, and King. And all people are loved as those made in God’s image and deeply treasured by God.

True worship is enjoying and loving God first—and then, as God is Love, learning to enjoy and love what He loves most: all people.