1. Mormons do not focus on (worship) God or Jesus in their personal testimonies and beliefs.
Go to a Mormon sacrament meeting on the first Sunday of the month, the fast and testimony meeting. Listen to the testimonies. Usually it will go something like this: "Hello, for those of you who don't know me, by name is _______ and I know this church is true. I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and that Thomas S. Monson is our living prophet today..." and so on. Somewhere in there they might throw in something like, "I know Jesus Christ atoned for our sins," but there usually are few references to God and Jesus, if any, and most are directly related to the church ("I know that this is the restored church of Jesus Christ"). Even children are taught to say they "know" these things before they even understand them. The belief of most Mormons is all too obviously rooted on the church, its teachings, and its leaders. While they believe it is the work of God and the church of Jesus Christ, it is the church and its teachers that truly matter and its leaders that they truly follow.
2. Mormons to not usually focus on (worship) God or Jesus throughout church meetings.
Sit through the whole three hour bloc of meetings sometime, and keep tally of what they say. How many times are "God" and "Jesus" mentioned outside of prayers and hymns? While hymns are certainly worship (singing praises of a person or thing...yes, done in church for a religious purpose, that would usually be worship), how much do you think people are really getting into the hymns about God or Jesus most of the time? On the other hand, how many times do you hear "Joseph Smith," "the Church (or a variation)," or some other very specifically Mormon thing pertaining to the church or its leadership mentioned? For that matter, is a hymn like "Spirit of God," "Praise to the Man," or "We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet" sung in praise of the church and its leadership?
Psalm 29: 2 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness.
I and many other ex-Mormons (and any Mormon who is truly honest with themselves) will say that they don't really worship in church, except perhaps when singing hymns. Singing songs like "I Stand All Amazed" was probably the closest I got to really worshiping God. I learned plenty about the church. I learned plenty about things I should and should not do. I learned a lot about Mormon teachings and the Book of Mormon and prophets. But there's a lot I didn't know about the Bible, and the Bible is about God and Jesus. I didn't know a whole lot about God and Jesus personally.
Psalm 100:2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.
3. Mormons do not worship God in their daily lives.
The Bible commands us to worship God alone, and to do so constantly.
Exodus 20:1-4 And God spoke
all these words: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt,
out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in
heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall
not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your
God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents
to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing
love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my
commandments.
1 Corinthians 10: 31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory [worship] of God.
We
are worshipers. The question is not whether we worship, but what.
Worship doesn't begin and end on Sunday, it continues constantly. People
who don't worshiping God are just worshiping things that aren't God.
Even if it is a good thing that we worship, if it is not God, it is an
idol. According to the New Testament, many false things we worship are
actually demons.
Romans 1:25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped
and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever
praised. Amen.
1 Timothy 4:1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
Most
devout Mormons I know worship things such as marriage/family, success,
their own righteousness (read, pride and self-righteousness), and the
church. Now, these things aren't necessarily bad in and of themselves,
but since Mormons place these things above God, they have become idols.
Family is a blessing, but it is not as important as God; God should be
above family for a family to truly be Godly. Marriage is wonderful, but a
marriage should be secondary to and guided by God, actively and daily,
not just in name. Success isn't bad, especially for a husband and father
trying to provide for his family, but if it is placed above God, it is
an idol. Righteousness is good, but true righteousness only comes from
God. The legalistic righteousness of faithful Mormons is self-righteous
and becomes prideful very quickly, since Mormons see it as their road to
their own Godhood, place their own false glory and exaltation above
God's true and perfect glory and exaltation.
Isaiah 29: 13 The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their
mouth and honor
me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of
me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.
If
you are a Mormon, think about your daily life outside of Sunday or
other meetings at church. Do you read scriptures? Pray? Spend time with
family? How much of this do you do to glorify God, in complete honesty?
Think about each thing you do carefully. Do you do it because you know
you're supposed to? Because it makes you feel good about yourself,
maybe? Any reason less than joyfully giving glory and love and time and
attention to God is not worshiping him. And in the daily,
"non-spiritual" things...do you clean your home, raise your children, go
to work, etc., for the glory of God? I doubt it. I don't think I've
met a Mormon who can honestly, truly say they do.
Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to
offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this
is your true and proper worship.
Not
that we usually can perfectly worship all the time. We are human. But
Mormons don't really do it even when its easy, more or less through the
daily grind.
4. Mormons do not worship Jesus.
I
know what a Mormon is going to think here, roughly. "Of course we don't
worship Jesus! We're only supposed to worship Heavenly Father!" Well,
here's a surprise for you. We are SUPPOSED to worship Jesus! He accepted worship! And it is well recorded that Christians were worshiping Jesus as God before the apostles died!
Matthew
2:2, 11 ...and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the
Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” On
coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they
bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and
presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Matthew 4:10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’ ”
Matthew 14:43 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
Matthew 28: 9 Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him.
John 9:38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.
Hebrews 1:6 And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.”
Jesus
was God. I've got other blog entries on the Trinity to support it.
Jesus certainly recognized that only God should be worshiped, and
recognized himself as the incarnation of God, and therefore accepted
worship. That means we should worship Jesus! It makes sense. If he is
divine, why should he not be recognized as such? Does he not deserve
praise and adoration? Love and extreme gratitude? Does his sacrifice not
inspire joy and awe? Is that not worship? Yet Mormon leaders say that
we aren't supposed to worship him!
I
remember how hard it was to just talk about Jesus when I was Mormon.
Saying the name "Jesus," especially in excited conversation about him,
was foreign. I said "Jesus Christ" pretty comfortably and familiarly,
but just talking about "Jesus" was more than a little awkward. Its not
anymore, but that's because I've learned to worship Jesus.
I love this article!
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