Why do you worship God? That may seem like a simple question, but I believe that how we answer it reveals a lot about our motives and attitudes.

Simply put, we should worship and fear God because of who He is. 

As the our loving Father and the Creator of the universe, we should naturally revere the Lord and give Him the respect He deserves.

However, we may be guilty of worshiping God out of selfish motives.

We should ask ourselves if we honor and worship God because of His awesome, loving nature, or because we hope to get on His good side and perhaps receive more blessings?

I know that I have been guilty of falling into that trap of selfishness. 

Many times, the enemy has planted the thought in my mind that if I just give God His due, then He will cause my life to be better and more fulfilling. 

It’s like I was playing a game with God, thinking that I could somehow buy His favor if I “worshiped” Him more or better. 

This approach sounds like how we might look at our job, trying to win brownie points with the boss by buttering him up and being a “yes” man or woman.

By giving the boss praise and compliments—and getting on their good side—we might score a raise or promotion sooner.

However, God isn’t our boss. He’s our loving Father, and he wants us to love Him and worship Him out of this love as well as a healthy, reverential fear.

This isn’t the fear that he will hurt us, but fear that recognizes He is the Ruler of the universe and that all power is in His hands. 

So, if we’re worshiping Him for any other reason, it’s wrong, and we need to rethink our motives.

God is not some sort of cosmic genie who will give us more stuff and a better life if we pull the right strings. 

True, there are many verses in the Bible that tell us God gives favor to those who love and fear Him:

Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways!

Ps. 126:1

What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.

1 Cor. 2:9

The Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive.

Deut. 6:24

We can find many more such verses in scripture, but these are enough to give you the overall picture that God rewards and blesses us when we fear, love, and honor Him as He so fittingly deserves.

However, He doesn’t want us to worship Him just out of a motivation for reward. 

God desires a mature, intimate relationship with us, one that is built on love, not just His love for us, but our love for Him.

He gave us free will so that we could freely choose to love, respect, and worship Him. 

That’s the way God made us. He didn’t want robots that simply worshiped Him because that’s the way they were programmed. 

He made human beings in His image, with a free will who will either choose or refuse to worship their Creator out of love and reverence.

So, the next time you’re praying or singing praises to God, think about why you’re doing it. 

Is it because you love Him or because you hope to get something from Him?