THE WORTH OF YOUR WORSHIP

"All this I will give you," he said,

"if you will bow down and worship me."

Matthew 4:9

For only one life in history was it ever approriate to worship and to be worshiped simultaneously. Have you ever considered that? Jesus as the in carnate God is worthy of our worship, yet at the same time He demostrated true worship for us in the flesh. The worshiped became the worshiper for a brief moment in time. He's our key to how worship ought to work.
His lesson in human worship begins for us in His temptation. Satan, the enemy of anything and anyone who honors God instead of him, waved his withered hand toward all the kingdoms of the world and promised them to Jesus in exchange for the Son's worship. It was a monumental request for Jesus to flip the switch of our universe so that all worship would flow in the opposite direction from its true course. If the Son had worshiped the rebel, the tide would have turned. God would have given up His place as rightful LORD. In effect, Jesus would have lied about who was worthy of true worship. All the kingdoms of the world weren't worth that.
But that's a temptation we're faced with daily. Our sinful flesh and our number one adversary try to distract us, to distort our motives and our vision, and to get us to tell a monumental lie. A corrupted world, still firmly gripped by the chief rebel, still waves its kingdoms in front of us and tells us we can have them - at least intriguing and provocative pieces of them. A little misplaced ambition here, a little greed and lust there, an dsuddenly we're lying about the worthiness of God. We're worshiping the unworthy. We've tried to flip the switch ourselves because we want the current of the universe to run in the direction of our cravings.
It won't work. Jesus is our model. He knew up front that the kingdoms of the world were pitiful reward for forsaking the true God. That thought has to permeate our thinking so that our response in temptation is always an automatic reflection of verse 10: "worship the LORD your GOD, and serve Him only."
(an extract fromWorship The King - by Chris Tiegreen)

HE WHO WITH HIS WHOLE HEART DRAWS NEAR TO GOD MUST OF NECESSITY BE PROVED BY TEMPTATION AND TRIAL - Albert The Great