"Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him" (Matthew 2:2, NLT).

This scripture can be found in the story of the Wise Men when they are trying to locate Jesus after being born. They make this amazing statement to King Herod which makes the king a little upset. The thought that may have ran through King Herod’s mind is "who is this guy to be called king" or "what has he done to be called king over me?"

The truth of the matter is this; Jesus "technically" had not done anything yet. He was simply a new born baby. The reason that this statement by the Wise Men is so amazing is that they desired to worship Jesus for who He was and not for His works. Surely it was a miraculous birth, but Jesus had not healed the sick, caused the blind to see, fed the 5,000, turned water into wine, or raised Lazarus from the dead. Jesus was a newborn baby who had not done anything yet, but the wise men still desired to worship Him.

This is the approach that we Christians should take. We should find it more fulfilling to worship Jesus for who He is and not for His works. We tend to put conditions on our love and worship for Jesus. We might be waiting on Jesus to move on our behalf and find it hard to praise and worship Jesus.

We spend a lot of time thinking about the good things that Jesus does or we get excited about what we anticipate for Him to do for us. However, we should be ready to worship Jesus for just being good all by Himself. If we really want to show our love for Jesus, we ought to worship Him for just being Jesus.

This can be a tough time of year for many people, but take the Wise Men approach to worship. Just be ready to worship Jesus in spite of the works He has yet to do. In spite of the ways others may be treating you. In spite of the way you may be feeling right now. Worship God for just being God.

This holiday season, I want to encourage all to take the "Wise Worship" approach. We should forget about all that we want from Jesus, what we want Him to do, and even what we want out of people. We should put aside all the things that are worrying us. Let’s just worship Jesus for being Jesus.

Harper is a member of Baconton M.B.C. and the United Ministerial Alliance of Liberty County.