A look back

I was looking back at some of the first posts I ever made, trying to see how long I've been blogging (almost 18 years) and ran across an interesting early post. I'll save you the trouble of clicking through by reposting the relevant part here:

As a matter of fact, the purest worship—like the purest gift—has little or nothing to do with the satisfaction fo the worshiper or the giver, but with the satisfaction fo the recipient. We seem to have a good deal of misunderstanding at this point. So frequently we judge worship by the pleasure or fulfillment it gives us. There could hardly be a more dramatic perversion. Worship is not about me; it's about God. When I become absorbed with how much worship benefits my person, I make myself the object of worship rather than the God I profess to adore. If in my worship of God I happen also to be blessed it is a happy coincidence, and I can indeed see it is a blessing, because it isn't the point of worship and I am fortunate therefore to receive it. But God is the issue of worship, not I or my pleasure.—J. Ellsworth Kalas, Grace in a Tree Stump: Old Testament Stories of God's Love, 17

Good words that need to be heard even more today than when they were penned eighteen years ago!