Give Me 24 Hours
By Nathan Smith
I was listening to a song last week that was really convicting. It said “Give me twenty-four hours and I promise to give them all back to You.” And I have to wonder if I’ve ever done that – 24 straight hours given back. Spending no time selfishly, none idly. Giving all of myself to the Lord. Actually I’m sure I haven’t. I’ve never lived up to that short line of the song. (I have to wonder about the song-writer, but that’s not the point.)
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10 that, whether you eat or drink, you should do everything to the glory of God. Everything we do should be to his glory. When we do things to the glory of God, that is worship. It isn’t limited to singing a song or preaching a sermon or praying a prayer. All life is worship – “whatever you do.”
All life is worship. And life can be lived out to the glory of God. It can be the worship of God. Or it can be lived out to the glory of something else (grades, jobs, families, friendships). Some of the things we can give our lives to are evil (pride, envy, materialism) and some of them (family and relationships) are not at all bad things. But when we elevate something above God, when we give our allegiance to something beside God, then we are suddenly worshipping something else. We are idolaters and we are giving glory to things that aren’t even close to being worthy of the worship of one who is made in the image of God. When we take God’s image and give it over to the worship of something else, then we misuse and despise his image. We insult it and we insult God.
Jesus said that true worshippers will worship in spirit and in truth. In spirit because worship is a spiritual process; it is to the glory of God who is spirit it is from we who are spiritual creatures. In truth because it is when we see the truth of God – that he alone is to be worshipped – that we can truly worship in spirit.
There are so many things about God that should inspire this worship. So many truths. That He is Holy. That He is Merciful. That He is Righteous. That He is Creator. And there are many out-flowings of this worship. He did not say to worship in song and in verse. Singing is worship, certainly, but only if it is a response in spirit and truth. But singing is not all of worship. We worship with our conversations, with our money, with our thoughts. We worship when we value Christ, supremely, above everything else in life. We worship with every breath we breathe to his glory and he is certainly worth no less than every breath we breathe.
24 hours. All of them ready to be filled with worship, with absolute unbridled, exulting in the one who is most worthy of all of our attention. 24 hours. I wonder: how much of that can we give back to him?
