Why Should We Worship God? He is Omniscient

I love the LORD, because He has heard My voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, Therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live. (Psa 116:1-2 NKJ)

The Bible everywhere proclaims the truth that God is omniscient, meaning that He knows everything. He knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). He knows the number of hairs on your head (Luke 12:7). He sees you whether you are in heaven, hell, or the bottom of the sea (Psalm 139).

This leads to worship from a number of different angles. First, of course, there is fear. There is no place to hide from this God. In Ezekiel 9:9 the wicked of Judah, engaged in every kind of false worship and lawlessness, say that God does not see and has forsaken the land. They mistook God’s patience for impotence. But He does see what we do, in the dark or in the light, as the men of Judah were about to discover.

There is also awe, really just a different aspect of true godly fear. We are naturally drawn to worship that which is greater than ourselves, to acknowledge what is great and good, and God is the greatest and best of all. His perfect knowledge is one facet of that greatness.

But the highest and most perfect motivation is love, as the psalmist expresses above. God’s knowledge, to the psalmist, means that God knows exactly what is going on with the psalmist and has heard the psalmist’s cry. He has total confidence that God hears his prayers and requests, and will always act with the psalmist’s good in mind. The perfect comprehensive knowledge of God is a source of great comfort for the writer and drives him to great love. That love prompts worship, expressions of that love, and he says he will call upon God as long as he lives.

We are weak and frail and often drawn aside in our minds. Worship often becomes a chore, a duty we fulfill out of the expectation of reward or the avoidance of punishment. God is gracious and forgiving, and covers our inadequacies with the blood of Christ. But this shows us an ideal to which we can aspire, that our worship be motivated by love of our Father in heaven who always sees perfectly what we need, what we desire, what we fear. He knows perfectly what is best for us and what could hurt and destroy us. He often does not give us what we think we need or want, just as a good parent does not give his child everything the child asks for. But He always acts for our perfect good. All things work together for good to those that love God, to those He has called according to His purposes (Romans 8:28).

How can we not worship Him, then? Basic manners tell us to thank someone for a gift that they have given us, and God has given us the very best gifts imaginable. Above all else, He has given us the gift of His own Son, Jesus Christ. In His perfect knowledge and wisdom He knew how best to reveal Himself to His children and to bless us with His fellowship and presence, through the sacrificial gift of His Son.

Such a perfect gift demands, as its rightful response, perfect worship and praise, a goal to which we can only aspire in this life. It is our joy and honor to strive to reach that goal through our worship and praise of the God we serve- not primarily out of duty or fear, but love.