Instinct versus Worship

Human beings have certain instincts. At birth we seek our mother’s milk. It was wired into us by our Creator. We seek to breathe, and to crawl, and reach for things. But even though we have instincts, we don’t live by them. At least we are not supposed to. Instincts are wired into people and animals to survive. To run when in danger. To sleep when tired. But humans are able to ignore their survival wiring and even risk their own survival just to test out ideas and dreams. Remember Orville and Wilbur Wright? They risked their lives trying to get that first plane in the air. Humans don’t just live in an environment – we love changing our environment – and we yearn to go beyond our environment. Like to the Moon and back! And none of that is instinct. It is what it means to be human. God made us that way – desiring to create, and do great things – greater than has been done before. But humanity, like animals have limits. We can only do so many things before our time is up on this earth. We can only handle so much stress, and try only so many times to reach beyond our environment before we have to quit and call it a day. But Christians go even beyond our human limitations. We seek to go beyond what WE may want to do. We actually enjoy doing our Creator’s will, not ours. Our life is not found in finding a life that we love or enjoy. No. It is found in losing our life for the honour and glory of the One who gave up HIS life for us! Our purpose as Christians - as Christ followers - is more than instinct. It’s more than just eating, and sleeping and reproducing - it is worshipping the God who made all of heaven and earth! Instinct only enables us to survive; desires and dreams can only help us to enjoy the struggle along the way. But true worship enables us to actually live beyond ourselves, and our struggles! True worship lives life, not like animals, and not like all other humans, but just like the Son of God did. “We … worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” (Philippians 3:3).