Is Jesus God? Part 15: 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, only asks “one thing” from the Lord: to be in the Lord’s presence, to worship Him, and to seek Him. Who can join King David in honestly praying to God that this is the “one thing” they desire? In Psalm 73, David writes in verse 25, “Whom have in heaven but you [God]? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.” Who can say to God truthfully, “the 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, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Matthew 22:37).  Surely part of doing this is emulating King David,

whose “one thing”, whose “one desire”, was God.

What keeps the human heart from desiring God first? From desiring God only? From being content with God alone? The famous theologian C.S. Lewis said, “He who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only.” Is Lewis’ quote true? Is it possible to live in that reality with that perspective?  Psalm 23:1, another Psalm of David, 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.” Relationship with God is equated with lacking nothing. Psalm 87:7 says, “…’All my springs of joy are in You [God].” So, all true joy is found only in God; joy’s source is God. Perhaps joy’s source, then, is not circumstantial?

Paul, the writer of much of the New Testament, certainly seemed to think so. He wrote the book of Philippians from prison and yet peppers the book with mentions of joy and encouraging the Philippians to rejoice always. He concludes the book in part by talking about contentment. Philippians 4:12 says, “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.” Paul, even in prison, can be content in God through the strength God provides.

What do we seek after to find contentment, fulfillment, and satisfaction in apart from God? The answer to that question reveals the idols that are in all our hearts: things that we, even without realizing, “worship” other than God. Theologian Tim Keller said, “an idol is anything that is more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God gave, such as meaning, value, significance, security, etc.”  Every time we cling to idols instead of God, we fall short of obeying the Greatest Commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We fall short of what we were created for: to worship and know God. We fall short of that which is eternal life: to, in the words of Jesus, “know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). How can we know God if we turn to idols instead of Him?

Westminster Catechism states the “chief end of man” is to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”  I like John Piper’s adaptation of Westminster’s Catechism: “to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.” God longs for our eyes to be opened to see that His creation is not worthy of our worship: only He is (Romans 1:18-25). He is the only One who will satisfy us, and we will only truly be content in Him. St. Augustine said about God, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” May our one desire, our “one thing”, be God alone and not an idol.

Jesus, Worship, and Living Water

John 4 describes Jesus going through the region of Samaria and meeting a Samaritan woman at a well. He is tired and asks her for a drink, something unorthodox to do as Samaritans and Jews did not get along. When she hesitates, Jesus says if she knew who he was, she would ask him for the living water that he has.  Jesus claims that if anyone drinks of the water he has they will never thirst. Instead, the water will become a spring in them that leads to eternal life.

She decides she wants the living water Jesus offers, but Jesus responds by telling her to call her husband. When she replies that she has no husband, Jesus reveals that he knows that, and he also knows that she has had five husbands. How interesting that in a conversation about water Jesus immediately starts talking about husbands with this woman… what could the correlation be? Jesus apparently thinks there is one.

The conversation then goes from water to husbands to worship. Jesus states that while the “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 worshippers 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). Then Jesus reveals to the woman that he is the Messiah, the one who was prophesied about in the Old Testament to rescue and redeem God’s people.

The woman’s response is striking: she immediately leaves her water jar (verse 28) and goes back to her town to tell the people about Jesus. What a transformation: she came to the well for literal water, but her encounter with Jesus made her forget the reason she came in her excitement and amazement at Jesus being the Messiah – the one who offers true living water. The woman’s response is a literal example of Jesus’ claim that he offers living water that will quench thirst eternally.  The woman disregarded her physical thirst as she realized the spiritual water the Messiah, Jesus, provided.

Sandwiched in between a conversation about water Jesus asks the woman about her 5 husbands. Could it be that she was looking for them to quench her thirst, and with each one she realized they could not? Sometimes people who are desperate to be in a relationship are called “thirsty”. They struggle to be content without a romantic relationship.

While it is normal to feel disappointed if a relationship ends or if you want to be in a relationship and are not, our heart’s response is an indication of if we look to God for fulfillment, satisfaction, and joy, or if we look to another person to fill that void. Perhaps this woman felt the same way. After all, she had had FIVE husbands. Why didn’t the relationships work out? And now she was not even married but living with another man.

The Bible teaches that no human person can quench our thirst. Only God, the well of living water, can do that. As Psalm 87:7 says, ALL our springs of joy are found in Him: God. When we look to other things besides God to satisfy, it is very easy for sins like envy and idolatry to creep into our hearts.

Are we envious when we observe people that have things we do not, whether it is a relationship or not, or are we grateful to God for what we do have and content in Him? If our hearts are not fully satisfied in God, it is very difficult to follow the Greatest Commandment, to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. How can we when we love something else above God, and look to that thing to satisfy and fulfill?

People who are in relationships and are married are not immune to struggling with this. People will love their partner best if they are satisfied in God first and do not look to their partner to fulfill and satisfy them. What a weight to put on another person!

Jesus offers a better way: to come to him for the living water. Notice Jesus does not say that HE is the living water, he says that he will give people the living water. John 7:37-39 reveals that the living water is the Holy Spirit: ^“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.”

Jesus Worship

Through Jesus and his sacrifice, all people have access to the living water, the Holy Spirit, which in a person wells up to eternal life. Jesus does not say that he, as a human person, quenches a person’s thirst. He specifically says that the living water, the Holy Spirit, does. This is because, I believe, Jesus is not God, he is a human. As previously explained, I have thought for most of my life that Jesus was God, but starting in 2022 my mind began to change due to prayer and Bible study. If Jesus is not God, Jesus is a massive idol in the Church today. If Jesus is not God, anyone who believes Jesus is God is needs to repent as I did and not worship Jesus as God.

However, in contrast to Jesus, the Holy Spirit IS God and can completely quench any human’s (spiritual) thirst in a way that no human ever can. In this chapter in John, Jesus specifically categorizes himself as a worshiper. He says in John 4:22 about the Jews (including himself), “we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews”. Jesus worships God, so how can he be God? God is by definition not a worshiper; He is the one worshiped. This synchs with the entire Bible, where one of, if not the, major theme throughout is God commanding and leading people to right worship of Himself – for our good and His glory.

When Jesus returns, people should not expect Jesus to function as God. He is amazing, but he as one human man cannot quench the thirst of any person. What he can do – what he did do – is point and lead all people to the One who can quench everyone’s thirst: the Holy Spirit, who is God. And he calls all Christians to do the same: to lead people to himself, who reconciles all people with God, and who are then given the gift of living water, the Holy Spirit.

So, may God be the one thing we look to for fulfillment, satisfaction, and everlasting joy: not a romantic partner like the woman at the well or Jesus himself, who is not God. May Jesus be the only one we go to to find reconciliation with God and the living water of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).  May this living water overflow out of our hearts to love with God with all our heart and truly love our neighbors as ourselves without looking for them to meet needs only God can. Further, Jesus should not be our “one thing”. Only God deserves that position.

The current situation is very bleak. If what I write is true, no one in the entire world is worshipping God correctly or completely, of course including myself, because although I no longer worship Jesus as God, which no one should do if he is not God, I have other idols and sins I struggle with. 2 Corinthians 4:4 says, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Tragically, I believe Satan, the god of this age, has also blinded the minds of believers to some degree, if Jesus is not God, and if so the Church needs to repent. Leviticus 4-5 and Numbers 15:22-31 talk about “unintentional sin” and “intentional sin”, the former being considerably less serious. I have grown up in the Church, and the Church has been my primary community my entire life. I have no doubt that this worship of Jesus is unintentional sin, not intentional, as I consider all the amazing people I am blessed to know who love God. I know for me personally the sin of worshipping Jesus as God was unintentional. But when I realized my error, I needed to repent and ask God for forgiveness. The Bible shows that unintentional sin is still very serious and God requires atonement for it, as seen in Leviticus 4-5 and Numbers 15:22-31. Unintentional sin disobeys and dishonors God and hurts others, even though the sin is unintentional.

But in the midst of this sobering situation where everyone in the world is committing idolatry against God in some way, there is so much hope. God is “merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6-7). If the whole Church repents of idolizing Jesus, God may move in incredible ways unparalleled in human history. The Old Testament shows that when God’s people repent, He responds with great blessing (Deuteronomy 30:1-6). Further, if the Church humbly repents, this could greatly and positively impact the world. Unbelievers would see that Christians are humble enough to admit and repent when wrong. Muslims and Jews may be more willing to consider Christianity if Christians believe Jesus is not God. If Jesus is not God, Christians have more commonality with other religions, particularly the other Abrahamic ones, and this could be very positive for evangelism. Finally, Christians will, Lord willing, be empowered to be who God has made them to be as never before, because we will realize we can be just like Jesus. 1 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.” Being like Jesus is not unattainable as it would be if Jesus was fully God and fully man – someone we could never truly be like as we will never be God.

Yet in order to for God to be rightly worshipped by Christians, much would need to shift. For example, many worship songs put Jesus in the place of God, and that is wrong if Jesus is not God. Consider the lyrics of a 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 the Bible, the elders do not cast their crowns before the Lamb of God. They cast their crowns before God the Father (Revelation 4:9-11). The song continues,

You [Jesus] 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 Jesus is not God, is he still worthy of it all? “All” if he is not God? What about Revelation 4 and 5 when the Father is also worthy? Are “all” things from Jesus, the Lamb of God, or also from God too? Are not some things uniquely from God the Father, not the Son? Jesus does deserve the glory, but the Father does too, right? According to Romans 11:36 and 1 Corinthians 8:6, “from all things” is referring to God (the Father), not Jesus.  Would Jesus affirm this type of worship of him that contradicts Scripture?

Hillsong United’s song “One Thing” says, “I tasted the world/seen more than enough/It’s promise is fleeting/Of water and wine/I emptied the cup/And found myself wanting/But there is a well that never runs dry/The water of life/The blood of the vine/’Cause all I know is/Everything I have means nothings/Jesus if You’re not my one thing/Everything I need right now/All I need is You right now/Just one thing I ask/And this I will seek/If only to know You/To be where You are/to go where You lead/ My God I will follow/…And with everything within me/I will worship You my God/…I want nothing but to know You/And to be with You my God.” What would Jesus have thought of this song? Is Jesus the well that never runs dry? According to the gospels, the well that never runs dry is the Holy Spirit (John 4:10-14), which Jesus gives to people (John 7:37-39) who believe in him. Jesus did say in John 7:37 “Come to me and drink”, but how can that make him God? When believers receive the Holy Spirit, people can also come to them and drink, as the next verse says, “Out of his heart [too] will flow rivers of living water.” Verse 39 then clearly says, “Not this he said about the SPIRIT, whom those who believed in him were to receive.” Jesus is, based on John 7, not the water of life. He is not the well that never runs dry. The Spirit of God is, who is one with God the Father.

In addition to the Church changing many of the worship song lyrics to accurately reflect who God is, which God cares about as truth matters, if Jesus is not God, a significant perspective shift is needed as to how the Church views Jesus. Jeremiah 2:13 says, “For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Jesus is not the fountain of living waters that will satisfy us, though much Christian worship music and Christian speech indicate he is. Jesus is a man who was filled with God, not fully God. The Lord God is speaking in this verse, calling Himself “living water”. This makes sense, as God and the Holy Spirit are one – they – the (potentially) two-person God – are one (Deuteronomy 6:4), and God is the living water. Jesus never claimed to be the living water, though he did tell people to come to him and drink of the Holy Spirit that filled him. This is a reality for Christians as well: people can come to us to “drink” as given we have the Holy Spirit (John 7:37-39). Just like Christ, the goal for Christians is to be filled with the Holy Spirit so we can love and reach out to others. Just like Christ, our source is the same: God (Hebrews 2:11). Apart from God, Jesus would have no living water to offer.

What is more, Jesus is not everything we need, as Christians sometimes state. God is. Jesus was certainly not everything Jesus needed. Jesus depended on the Father. He even said he could not do anything apart from the Father (John 15:19-20). If Christians are following Jesus and imitating his example, we would say with Jesus that we are dependent ultimately on the Father. In a sense, yes, Jesus is “all we need” because he reconciles us to the Father, and God is everything we need. Jesus never claimed he was everything his followers needed. He claimed to be God’s Son. He claimed to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). But why? Because in being this he opened the way back to the Father for all people to be reconciled with Him (Ephesians 2:16). So, yes, biblically, we definitely need Jesus. But he is not everything we need – ultimately, God is.

Should the one thing we ask be to know Jesus as this song, “One Thing”, states? Philippians 3:8 says of Paul, “What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.” 1 John 4:20 says, “If a man says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother who he has not seen, how can he love God who he has not seen?” In knowing and loving Christ, we know and love God. The two cannot be separated. Jesus is the “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), and those who have seen Jesus have seen the Father (John 14:9). Jesus is our brother (Hebrews 2:11, Romans 8:29). John 17:3 says [Jesus says], “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Christ, whom you have sent.” The issue with the lyrics in this song is not that Christ should not be lifted up. It is not that he should not be desired to be known and loved. Paul lifts up knowing Christ as having “surpassing worth”, worth “losing all things”.

The issue is in the word “only”: if “only to know you [Jesus]”. This is in direct conflict with John 17:3, where Jesus, who also uses the word “only”, says that eternal life is to know not just him, Jesus, but also the only God. Both, not only Christ. Our words matter deeply to God, and He cares that our words, in prayer and in worship, are true and line up with His Word.

Now, the writer of this song believes that Jesus is God, as stated clearly in the lyrics, so he or she does not see any inconsistency in the lyrics. But if Jesus is not God, some of these lyrics are wrong, and again, our words matter to God, even though the writer is of course not intentionally trying to dishonor God. Jesus worshiped God the Father. He called him his God several times in Scripture, as mentioned previously. Would he condone worship of himself as God? Did he command it? When asked what the greatest commandment is, he explicitly said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30). Which category does Jesus put himself in? He is called our brother in Scripture (Hebrews 2:11, Romans 8:29). He does not say in this passage “Love ME with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength” – he says love GOD. What is more, Jesus came to glorify God. He asked in John 17:1 of God that He would “glorify [him]”. Why? So that Jesus could glorify GOD. There was purpose in Jesus being glorified – Jesus’ glorification did not end with himself. At least, Jesus did not want his glorification to end with himself – he wanted it to point to God. He wanted to be glorified so that he could glorify God, who he says two verses later is the only God.

The problem is not with glorifying Jesus or desiring to know him or losing all things to know him. The New Testament is full of, especially in 1 John, references to loving people as equated with loving God. The two cannot be separated.

But what would Jesus think of being worshiped as equal to God – and even in some cases as the only God in the way people pray, worship, and talk of Jesus? He asked to be glorified so that God would be glorified (John 17:1). Given that all Christians are striving to imitate Christ, may we follow Jesus’ example here, to be glorified so that God may be glorified. Revelation 21:23 emphasizes this as well, stating that the city of Jerusalem in the new heaven and the new earth will be lit by the glory of God, with the lamp being the Lamb. The glory of God here is clearly separate from the lamp, the Lamb. The Lamb, again, is not God.

The song “Jesus be the Center” says, “Jesus at the center of it all/Jesus as 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/And everything revolves around You/Jesus be the center of  Your church/Jesus be the center of Your church/And every knee will bow/And every tongue shall confess You Jesus, Jesus.” Even if the Trinity is true, is this correct theology? Nothing else matters but Jesus? What about God the Father and the Holy Spirit? Does everything revolve around Jesus? Jesus consistently pointed people to the Father. Jesus is now sitting at the right hand of God the Father. Presumably the throne of God, not Jesus, is at the center of Heaven. If someone is at the right of something, that other thing is centered, not what is to the right of it. What would Jesus think about him being at the center? He did not tell his followers to put him at the center. He said the greatest commandment was to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength”, and as discussed earlier, Jesus never claimed to be God – he claimed to be God’s Son. Even Trinitarians should see issues with this song, as Jesus is only one person of the Trinity. Further, yes, Jesus is head of the Church, but the church is also God’s (the Father’s church) (1 Corinthians 1:2, 1 Corinthians 15:9), which this song does not acknowledge.

If Jesus is not God, parts of this song are blasphemous and dishonoring to God. Jesus is certainly near the center as the center is God, and he is near God at the right hand of God. But Jesus is not the center. How could he be when everything he did, he did because of God and His power, because of the Holy Spirit within him? Jesus said in John 5:19 that, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.” Jesus’ source, the source of his strength, is God, who should be the center of worship.

As Savior of the world, Head of the Church, and Lord, Jesus should be praised and exalted for what he has done. But if Jesus is not God, he should not be worshipped as God. This dishonors both God and Jesus, albeit unintentionally, who, if he really is not God, would be extremely uncomfortable with being worshipped as such. Yes, Jesus never refused “worship” in the gospels, but understood in context, as explained previously, Jesus is not accepting worship as God, but as God’s Son. This type of “worship” is also offered to Christians in Revelation 3:9. Again, in today’s context, “worship” is not the best translation of “proskuneo”, the Greek word used to describe Jesus worship in the gospels, as worship connotates something only due God. Unfortunately, given our context, when Christians read those passages that use the word “worship” they (understandably) conclude Jesus must be God, as only God is worthy of worship. See this post for an explanation on "Jesus worship": Is Jesus God? Part 6: Scripture in Context- Matthew, Mark, and Luke .

“One Thing” = God

So, every person’s one thing should be God – worshiping God, knowing God, praising God, and seeking His presence above all else. Even Jesus should not be a Christian’s “one thing” though much of Christendom teaches him to be as such. But the Word of God, the Bible, should dictate correct action, not people’s opinions about who Jesus is. Does the Word of God teach that Jesus should be worshiped as God? That he should be the main focus, every Christian’s “one thing”? If not, even as Jesus is rightly exalted and praised for what he has done, Christians should turn their eyes to God, to worship only God as God, imitating Christ, as God is the one Christ joins us in worshiping (John 4:22-23). According to John 4:22-23 Jesus is also a worshiper, one of the true worshipers who worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Let’s follow Christ and worship God with him as our “one thing”.

 So: God should be everyone’s “one thing” – the one thing to be desired, sought after, and worshiped, per Psalm 27:4, “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.” But what does this practically mean? Will all of eternity be one long church service of singing to God?

The Bible teaches otherwise. Eternity will be lived out on a new heaven and new earth where God will be desired, sought after, and worshiped, but not simply in the context of a church service. Everything we do can and should be worship. Paul says in Colossians 3:23-24, “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” We can glorify God in everything we do, in or out of an official service or time spent in prayer – even through eating and drinking!

Further, 1 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 that God literally IS love – and knowing and loving God is directly related to how we treat other people. So what does it mean to make God our “one thing”? In addition to loving God, making loving people our one thing – which, of course, shows our love for God.

John continues in verse 9-17, “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. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us… God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also we in this world.” God’s love is made manifest through Jesus, and now through us as Jesus’ followers. Even though God is invisible, we are in the world as visible images of God – of Love. Yes, imperfectly now, but one day we will be like Christ, each Christian a perfect expression of God’s Love as we are conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).

Therefore, God being someone’s “one thing” is about loving and worshiping God, which is best displayed in loving others according to 1 John 4, as God is Love. And it is only by worshiping God and finding our satisfaction, worth, and identity in God that it is truly possible to love others. How can we truly love God and others if we are looking for romantic relationships, family, friends, other people, a job, a life plan, children, success, the Church, or Jesus to fulfill us other than God? If our eyes are set on those things, grasping for them, we are not freed up to live in the freedom that comes from true contentment, satisfaction and identity in the One who created us to glorify Him through the greatest commandment: loving Him and – the second is like it – loving others.

God, may you truly be our one thing! May Love be our one thing.

What is love? 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 says, ^“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.⁸ Love never ends.” All of this is certainly love, but is there more? Jesus showed us what love is by laying down his life for us, for us to be reconciled with God. The greatest gift of all is God Himself, so pointing others toward God is what Love mandates – and this may not seem like Love to some – because all people are called to humble themselves, love God, and follow His ways. This may not look or seem like love to the one who wants to live their life outside of God’s way.

But it is, and if God is a Christian’s “one thing”, he or she will have the courage to love without compromising the truth found in God’s Word.

Thank you, Lord, for the freedom and courage that comes from You being our one thing!

“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Galatians 5:6 Or, the one thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

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

Amen.

Conclusion

Just as we treasure God, should we not treasure Jesus? Even if Jesus is not God and therefore should not be worshipped as God, Philippians 3:8 has very strong language about treasuring Jesus and knowing him above all else. It says, “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.” This certainly sounds like Paul considers Jesus to be a prize – knowing him and, compared to him, thinking everything else is a loss. What is more, eternal life is not just about knowing God, whom in John 17:3 Jesus says is the only God – it is also about knowing Christ (John 17:3).

An analysis of Psalm 27:4 offers further evidence that loving and treasuring God is directly connected with loving and treasuring others. “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 can we gaze upon the beauty of the Lord if He is invisible? Yet Jesus is the image of the invisible God – we can gaze on him. How in Jesus’ kingdom can we dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our lives? God is no longer only found in one specific temple in Jerusalem. 1 Corinthians 3:16 says, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.” So how do Christians “dwell in the house of the Lord” for all our days? By being a part of God’s Church – the new temple of God – by enjoying and communing with other believers.

Further, at the end of time, Jesus will not be the only person who bears the exact image of the Father – all Christians will be the image of God, conformed to His image as Scripture teaches. Could gazing upon the beauty of the Lord mean treasuring, valuing, and being amazed at the images of God around us? Psalm 139:13-14 says, “For 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, I know that full well.” Wow! Fearfully and wonderfully made! Fearfully. Surely in every Christian’s glorified state looking at each other we will be gazing on the beauty of the Lord. C.S. Lewis wrote, “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship…” If in our sinful state David said we are fearfully and wonderfully made, think of humanity in their glorified state…!

After all, Christians are literally God’s inheritance – amazingly, He considers us His prize! This concept began even from Deuteronomy 4:20, which says, “The Lord took you and brought you… out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are.” Now Christians inherit that promise of God to Israel. Ephesians 1:18 says, “having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints…”  His glorious inheritance is literally in His saints. Paul is praying in these verses that Christians would grow in our understanding of the riches of God’s inheritance in the saints. Could this be a prayer that people value, love, and treasure each other more? People – God’s Church – are His prize.          

God's Church is also Jesus' prize. Jesus counted everything as loss and suffered the loss of all things, even dying on a cross, to reconcile people – God’s inheritance – back with God. He did this in order that he might gain me, you, and every other person he died for.  Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus endured the cross for the “joy set before him” – what was that joy set before him that helped him endure the cross? The reason that he died – to win people back to God! We are joy embodied. Further, in Matthew 25, Jesus literally equates loving the least of these with loving him. If Jesus is the treasure – so are they. He wants them to be loved and treated like a Christian would treat him, which is confirmed in the judgment of the sheep and goats (Matthew 25:31-46). Loving others IS loving him.

So, what should be a Christian’s “one thing”? Certainly, God in all His greatness and goodness. And, Jesus. And amazingly – also, us! God and Jesus both consider people to be their prize, worth treasuring and worth dying for. Should we not treasure and love each other in the same way? God is the prize – love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, as Jesus said. But the second IS LIKE IT: love your neighbor as yourself. 1 John is full of reminders that we only truly love – truly treasure – God if we love the people around us. So, yes, God is the prize – but so is Jesus, and so is every person we encounter. Each person is a treasure that Christ died for and God longs to turn back to Him (2 Peter 3:9). He considers the Church – and of course, His beloved Son – to be His prize.

God ALSO leads us to consider the lost, those who don’t know Him, to be our prize – to fight for them, to win them for Him – to love them. Making God our one thing means treasuring and loving the images of God around us.

The entire Bible points to God being the goal and prize of the Christian: knowing God, loving God. But it does not end there. How can we treasure God without treasuring each other, the people God made and the people Christ valued so highly that he died for? A Christian’s chief end is to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever” – or John Piper’s take, “glorify God by enjoying Him forever.” This Catechism is incomplete if it does not also include: a Christian’s chief end is to “glorify God by enjoying and loving Him, Christ, and His people forever – striving, believing, hoping, and praying that His people will include, at the end, every person who ever lived.”

Nothing in the Bible indicates otherwise.

Therefore, God, Christ, and people are the prizes that Christians, with Jesus, will enjoy and love for all of eternity.

True worship is enjoying and loving God first, and then people, which of course includes the Lord Jesus.