Hallowing God in Life – VOTD.09.27.16
But in your hearts hallow Christ as Lord. 1 Peter 3:15 Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name… Matthew 6:9 When we got up this morning what thought was on…
The Majesty of God in Worship – VOTD.09.26.16
“Then another servant came and said, ‘Sir, here is your (money); I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.’ Luke 19:20-21
Today we’ll look at a second change that affects our Scriptural basis of worship…our view of God changes from a wrath-filled, exacting God to a majesty-filled Father God. In today’s verses, the third and worthless servant explains why he has not done what the king asked. He was afraid of the wrath of the King—if he risked the money he might lose some or all of it and he was scared stiff. The other two servants were just the opposite. They saw the majesty of the king and went out and used the king’s money to create more money.
In recent time: the character of God has shifted in Christian thought. God didn’t change, but how the church views Him has. We have moved from a focus on the wrath of God to the majesty of God. A good thing. A holy fear of God is not a cringing fear, but a reverential awe (and yes, even an un-reverential camaraderie with the Holy One. Jesus wants friends, too –Jn 15:15.).
This has powerful implications for worship. We might grovel before a wrathful God, but we can’t worship Him. We can’t really even follow Him. But the more the majesty of God moves to the forefront the more we will desire to worship Him and follow where He leads.
So what is the majesty of God? To try describe God’s majesty is kind of like describing the splendor of the Grand Canyon. Words can’t do it justice. Even pictures don’t really provide the full impact. You just need to see it! (more…)
The Scriptural Basis for Worship – VOTD.09.20.16
Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. John 4:20
I had spent much of a Saturday morning on the platform of an evangelical church’s sanctuary worshipping my heart out. It was a glorious time, where those who wanted to, came and joined together with voices and instruments and anyone could call out the next worship song from a sheaf of about 500 chord/lyric sheets provided (the only real limitation to what you could choose). People came and went as they needed to, something like a pick-up volleyball game, but mostly people stayed.
Of course, stalwart worshipers had an awesome time worshiping with fewer fetters than a typical church service would allow. And many of them enjoyed having my gang there because we came with fewer fetters than they were used to. On the music stand underneath the sheaf of chord/lyric sheets I found a detailed blueprint of the service which was scheduled for the next day…right down to the minute, exactly how long each song, prayer and spoken words would take to fit into the package called ‘Sunday Worship Service’.
I was there the next day and marveled at how well the worship leader feigned spontaneity and freedom while meticulously following the schedule I’d seen. Nothing wrong with this, mind you; he did a good job; it was practically a work of art. But it reminded me of the worship struggle that has emerged in churches over the past few decades between format and freedom. (more…)
Worship and Our Experience with God – VOTD.09.13.16
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God… For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. Romans 11:33, 36
Where there’s a problem with worship there’s a problem with our experience of Jesus and the good news He conceived. That is why our worship is often hollow: our experience of Jesus has become hollow. As the eyes of our hearts are lowered from the greatness of God to our own failures, accomplishments and problems our worship quickly follows.
A robust experience of Jesus, however, is like pouring gas on the fire of worship. The more powerful our experience Jesus, the more we adore Him for who He is and for what He has done for us. This is because all worship, in the end, is personal worship—it’s about what happening to you. It’s about what happening to me.
Then, together, we can adore Him in a collective setting; where groups of other worshipers come together to proclaim God’s glory together. And in that setting worship is like a wild-fire consuming the hearts of others who are adding their personal worship to the group experience. (more…)
Lighting the Fire of Worship – VOTD.09.12.16
When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the Lord above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave thanks to the Lord, saying, “He is good; his love endures forever.” 2 Chronicles 7:2
Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.” Hebrews 12:28-29
Metaphorically, worship is often likened to fire, biblically and traditionally. We’ve seen that the spirit of worship is fire within us, and the fuel that causes the fire to burn is our wonder and awe of Jesus. The more fuel, the hotter the fire. The more we seek God—the more we focus relentlessly on Jesus, the hotter our worship.
Problem is, it’s sometimes hard to get that fire started. For some Christians it’s just about impossible (without the Holy Spirit working in us). So how do we seek God? Today we’ll look at 3 ways we see in the Bible: (more…)
Worshiping in Spirit – VOTD.09.05.16
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly give thanks his name. Hebrews 13:15
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth. John 4:24
Jesus taught that true worship involves both spirit and truth. In these two ingredients lie the center of what God desires for us in what we call ‘worship’. Today I want to look at worshiping in spirit. What’s that?
We have to assume that when Jesus said these words, at least two people understood what He meant: First, the woman He was speaking to understood Him; Second, Jesus’ disciple John, who wrote down this quote, understood Him. The woman immediately associated His words with the coming of the Messiah. Exactly how she made that leap we can only guess.
But we don’t have to guess about what John made of Jesus’ words because He wrote a whole Gospel from which we can gather his thinking. He uses the same word “spirit” to refer to feelings and emotions. He says in John 13:21: “After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit.” Clearly an emotional response to the fact that He would be arrested, tried and convicted that night. (more…)
Uniting Teaching and Worship – VOTD.08.30.16
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and advising one another in all wisdom and singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Colossians 3:16
Today’s verse comes right in the middle of Paul describing what it looks like to follow Jesus in the midst of a non-Christian society. So the entire passage is important to understanding how to get through each day. But, interestingly, right in the middle of it, he mentions two keys: teaching and worship. And while there’s many ways to express our love and awe to our God, the specific form of worship he talks about here is “singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”.
Paul does something similar in Ephesians 5 where he uses singing out our thanksgiving as an introduction to his teaching on marriage and family relationships. In today’s church culture, where worship and teaching are firmly separate activities (with announcements and offering in between <grin>), why would Paul see teaching our Christian faith and worshiping our awesome God in such an integrated way?
Why is worship so important? For that matter, with all the ways we might worship God, why is singing our worship so important to Him? Why would God give music and song such a prominent place, not only in official “worship services”, but in all of life? (more…)
Ooooh… Aaaah…Woooww! – VOTD.08.29.16
To this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away… But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 2 Corinthians 3:14-16
This summer I had the opportunity to spend significant time hiking in the spectacular Southern Cascade Mountains. The vistas were the “Ooooh… Aaaah…Woooww!” kind. During that time, we saw many. For view-junkies like my family, it was perfect.
Our final days were spent hiking in and around Mt. Hood. Its signature pointed peak is one of the most beautiful in the Cascade Range. The views on our first day were gorgeous, though clouds rolled in in the afternoon and obscured the peak at times. The next day provided a few good views but most of the time the peak was in the clouds.
As we gained elevation the third day we found ourselves literally in the clouds, themselves. So much so that we could barely see twenty meters in front of us; just thick, gray, soupy fog. We had reached McNeil Point, the place of spectacular vistas. They were right in front of us. We knew about beauty. We could imagine the grandeur, but…we couldn’t see it for ourselves. No “Oooohing and Aaaahing and Wowing!” for us that day. (more…)
Growing in the Image of Jesus – VOTD.08.22.16
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. Romans 8:29
There are a lot of reasons why Christians listen to one teacher or another. Some Christian authors appeal to some groups of people better than others. Some of us like humor, others want exciting stories or erudite language.
But by-and-large, the purpose of our reading or listening to Christian teaching is so that our eyes will be opened—that we’ll discover the truth more clearly—that we’ll be changed by the information imparted. God’s truth never changes, but our understanding of it does change and should change as we grow closer to Him, and the Spirit conforms us more and more to His image.
As the Holy Spirit enlarges us as Christians to receive more of what God has for us, we become ready for deeper teaching. Truths that might have just passed over us with a nod five years ago now go off like fireworks in our spirits. The eyes of our hearts are further opened and we see spiritual things more clearly. (more…)
Seeing Clearly – VOTD.08.16.16
“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light you think you have is darkness, how great is that darkness!” Matthew 6:22,23
Last time we talked about casting down and defeating every imagination that exalts itself against the true knowledge of God (2 Cor 10:5). That means that our beliefs and views can and do fall short of the truth and God is out to change that. In fact, God has every intention of tossing out what is wrong and refining the seedlings of real truth that He’s planted in us.
It could be our interpretation of a Bible passage, or our view of What He is like which can cause us to remain a prisoner of our past untruth. When this happens we only hear God in line with our upbringing and what we’ve been taught, what we’ve picked up on TV…
So God comes along and introduces something from outside of our understanding of the truth and right away we want to shut Him down and say, “This is what I’m comfortable with; this is what I believe; this is what my tradition is.” (more…)