Reasons ...

Amos 4:13 NLT
"For the LORD is the one who shaped the mountains, stirs up the winds, and reveals his thoughts to mankind. He turns the light of dawn into darkness and treads on the heights of the earth. The LORD God of Heaven’s Armies is his name!"

I recently typed the word worship into my computer browser, just out of curiosity to see the definitions that would come up. Among the the blurbs that appeared representing the definitions that I could potentially select was this one:

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Worship | Definition of Worship by Merriam-Webster
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/worship
Merriam‑Webster
Simple Definition of worship. : to honor or respect (someone or something) as a god. : to show respect and love for God or for a god especially by praying, having religious services, etc. : to love or honor (someone or something) very much or too much.
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Hmmm ... "too much" I mused. That's not even possible when it comes to the only person worthy of being the target of such an act of reverent respect, honor and adoration. Only in the fictionally self sustaining and self rationalized perspective of a secular society could that even become a possible assumption. But those of God's children who're aware and in touch with the truth of reality know that it's an impossibility for anyone to worship the Sovereign Lord "too much".

In reality, the heavens move and the earth shakes at the sound of our Father God's voice. The Lord's angels stand at attention and those cast down from heaven quiver in the fear of His wrath. He alone is all powerful, knowing and ever present. He's the author of true wisdom, the source of all that is truly good and holy and the creator of everything that we could have knowledge of in the universe - including each and every one of us. All of creation heeds His direction instinctively ... except for man. The sun, the moon, the wind, the rain, the ground that we walk on and every living thing obeys His faintest whisper in an instant, ... except for man. Man for a short time, is given a moment of choice.

The angels once had an opportunity for a moment of choice. Lucifer, the angel once powerful and beautiful became caught up in his own vanity and adopted an agenda of his own - one that focused on himself and his own selfish reasoning, desires and glory. He became infected with his own rationalized wisdom and reasoned that he deserved greater stature and something more than what God had given him. So he and like minded others with him made a choice to rebel against God ... and so predictably, lost everything. In the aftermath, those who remained loyal to God still stand in honorable faithfulness, but those defeated and fallen from God's grace by the fallacy of their own reasoning and subsequent choice were cast out to await the reward of the choice that they made at that moment.

With great hope in His heart, Father God who is continually desiring to be loved by choice, created a new class of creatures that He chose to call man in the hope that they would choose to adore Him.  It was His desire that these creatures would be so drawn to love Him, creatures that would be more than friends, but ones that He would adopt as His own precious children ... so He began to create. He created an entire universe especially for their amazement and pleasure and gave them dominion over everything living thing that He lovingly created in a planet that He carefully designed especially for them.  And almost immediately, the first representatives of this new group of beings demonstrated their unfaithfulness to Father God and abused His heart, also acting in rebellion. That initial act of sin brought to the spiritual atmosphere of mankind with it, all of the attributable benefits of sin. Death, disease, envy, strife and all manner and stench of wickedness were now unleashed on mankind because sin had arrived in all of its repugnant glory.

But this first act of defiance didn't take place without some seasoned and persuasive reasoning first coming into play ...

Genesis 3:1-6 (NLT)
1 The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the LORD God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” 2 “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. 3 “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’” 4 “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. 5 “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” 6 The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it.

Anticipated by Father God, whose plan and grace had not yet been fully revealed. Lucifer now defeated, disgraced and renamed satan, has determined in vile spite to become a spoiler during our moment to choose. Among the things that he's become since his fall from a once glorious position, satan's now the prime minister of corruption and deception on the earth ... And with that, the threshing floor of the Lord was established among the family of man just as the Lord had planned.

Matthew 3:12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

So now, here we stand in our own moment of decision as the descendants of Adam ... without any divine power of our own and having God's instructions to succeed, but frail and wholly dependent on His grace to sustain us on the earth that He created for us. It's our moment to make a powerful choice while worldly men reason and the host of heaven looks on. But moments wane and as a holy and righteous God has declared, the earned penalty for sin is death. So we know sin must die.

In Moses day, the Lord made provision for mankind to transfer their sin to an unblemished animal by placing their hands upon the head of the sacrificial animal in the presence of the priest before the alter of the Lord. By placing their hands on the head of the animal their sin was conferred to the animal and they in return received the unblemished innocence of the sacrificial animal. The animal was then killed to pay the penalty of the sin conferred on it. But this method of atonement was only as temporary as man's ability to remain sinless. As God's law became burdened with the preponderance of man's reasonings, interpretations and additions to the law, the task of avoiding sin became even more impossible in a sin infected world and man's plight became ever more clear. It was hopeless.

But Father God wasn't done yet. He knew it would come to this and He'd planned from before the creation of man just how He'd deal with it. He planned to make a way to remove the penalty of sin from those who would choose Him and to prove the almost unbelievable depth of His great love for mankind at the same time. But doing so would cost Him exquisitely ... and that cost would speak to the hearts of many in terms that could not be denied or "reasoned" away ...

The only possible measure that we can use that even comes close to understanding the cost that God Himself paid to make provision to save us is heartbreaking and gut wrenching to a good heart. It's an uncomfortable comparison, but one that has to be considered if one is ever to begin to understand the depth of God's love for us. Possibly the most staggering loss that we as human beings with good hearts could suffer is the loss of the life of the person closest to us. Wife, husband, mother, father, daughter, son ...? What does that thought provoke in you? The thought alone is sobering and no doubt potentially devastating. So what was Father God thinking when He knowingly sent His Son not just to die, but to die the most excruciatingly painful death required to cover the cost of all of our sin ... and why did He do it? What did He feel as He watched? Is there really any question as to why He looked away while His only son, beaten almost to death waited agonizingly for what life remained to leave him? Father God, as terrible and painful to Him as it was ... had a reason that made it all worth it to Him and also to His willing Son.

Unlike us, God has no reason to need for anything. He could create anything He wants. But, there's something He that He allows Himself to desire. It's something that's pure, highly treasured and has an extremely high value but it comes free. Or I guess I should say it's freely given and something only you and I can give Him - it's our earnest love given by choice. He's made what He desires from us rather obvious and if you considered everything that He's done to court us from before He even made us, you really begin to understand what this life is all about - His reason. He decided in His own great heart that we are worth it.

And as I'm considering these things, I'm once again struck by a familiar thought. Could sacrifice on behalf of another, even one unworthy be considered weakness or the sacrifice too much? Because didn't the God of Heaven possessing terrible power reach humbly down to sacrifice the absolute  best of all that He had for someone as unworthy ... as me? And is it really possible to worship Him too much? Reason to ponder ...

So when it comes to making a decision as to whether I compromise to listen to the world's intellectual reasoning or daily make a conscious decision to honor my Heavenly Father's reason and stick to what He's already said for my benefit, my ears and my heart only know one master ...