Best Celtic Christian-Themed Artists
Courtesy papagnoc from Pixabay.com I love Celtic music. I fell in love with it years ago, but I recently had a resurgence after my older sister presented me with my…
Practice Makes Perfect
Courtesy Free-Photos from Pixabay.com I started my career as a novelist when I was thirteen. That’s right – thirteen. One January afternoon, I sat down at the computer, opened a…
Amazing Jesus – VOTD.07.02.18
Everyone was awestruck. They were stunned seeing the power and majesty of God flow through Jesus. Luke 9:43
My desire is that all I write brings glory to God. But in this meditation, I’m focusing on Jesus specifically. In reality, Jesus is too amazing for words. But the writers of the Bible inspired by the Holy Spirit did their best with words to help us understand just how amazing Jesus is.
Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Every knee will bow to him both in heaven and on earth. He is the most glorious One in both places. Highly exalted above all powers and principalities, much more powerful than anything that exists. Jesus Christ rules over everything that we think is in charge. He is the Lord over everyone who thinks they are in charge. His authority is perfect, complete, and forever.
He is life in eternity. Nothing and no one can measure up with Jesus, because He is perfect by every measure. The host of heaven rejoice and worship Him in total awe and rapturous esteem. Jesus is the ultimate joy of God the Father. He is the joy of humanity and all the beings of heaven. He is from eternity to eternity and is higher exalted than anybody else.
Jesus is too beautiful for words and the bringer of happiness to the people who love him. He is perfect Victor. He gives us His victory and fills us with hope. He makes our future beautiful instead of frightening.
Jesus is the light of the world. His radiance is brighter than the sun. His light is so magnificent that it banishes the deepest darkness. The light of His face is overwhelming and devastating to evil. Demons retreat in fear of His brilliant appearance. He is righteous and pure in everything He does, says and thinks. (more…)
Free to Delight in Him – VOTD.06.05.18
How precious is Your loving kindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings. They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house, And You give them drink from the river of Your delight. Psalms 36:7-8
When we’re full of ourselves, full of other things, other programs and events and people, it’s hard to ‘be still and know that I am God’ (Ps 46:10). And sometimes our lives are like that—where the best we do is carve out time to spend in meditating on what God is saying and communing with Him. Sometimes it’s hard to turn our eyes, our focus, our attention, from the things of this life and spend time gazing on Jesus.
But this isn’t abundant life…this is what Jesus set us free from when He came. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me TO PROCLAIM FREEDOM for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, TO SET THE OPPRESSED FREE, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:16-19)
The “thing from which you derive the most pleasure is the very thing you worship. For some people it is Prozac, or the NFL… It could be a wicked or a mundane thing. But ask yourself: where do you find the most irresistible pleasure? That is what you worship.
“We must worship and serve God for one reason alone: because we can’t help ourselves. We are entranced. God is that delightful to us.
“Worship is basically adoration, and we adore only what delights us. There is no such thing as sad adoration or unhappy praise. We have a name for those who try to praise when they have no pleasure in the object. We call them hypocrites.”–John Piper (more…)
The Breadth of God – VOTD.05.14.2018
When Paul says, “Praise the Lord all you nations, and let all the peoples extol him” Rom 15:11, he’s saying that there is something about our God that is so universally praiseworthy and so profoundly stunning and so precisely worthy and so deeply satisfying that God will find passionate lovers in all sorts of different people.
Jesus’ true greatness is demonstrated in the breadth of people who identify themselves with Him and cherish Him. His glory is shown to be higher and deeper than if He was only found awesome by a narrow, insulated group of people who see everything the same way.
But instead of attracting only a single kind people, His appeal is to the deepest, highest, largest capacities of our souls. It all testifies to His incomparable glory.
And it all challenges the smallness of our personal image of God. And that’s important because our image of God drives every single part of our life and determines how we live out our lives. (more…)
Nothing I Desire But… – VOTD.01.08.18
(Paul prays that) you will be given the full riches of complete understanding, in order that you may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the riches of wisdom and knowledge. Colossians 2:2-3
Stretching back into the achieves of Christian worship music, there was a song that was hugely popular in its day. It’s one of the early vertical worship songs I ever knew, and it went like this:
Lord, You are more precious than silver;
Lord, You are more costly than gold;
Lord, You are more beautiful than diamonds;
And nothing I desire compares with You. (Lynn DeShazzo-1982)
Playing off of Proverbs 8:10-11, the song compares God to a number of things that are considered of great value—silver, gold, diamonds—Even 2500 years ago, these were seen as valuable in and of themselves. “Choose my instruction instead of silver, my knowledge rather than choice gold, for (God’s) wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with it.”
That song’s popularity was probably, in part, due to the fact that in its day there was little competition for worship songs that spoke adoration directly to God. Something in our souls was crying out to express to Jesus how much we loved and valued Him. He was always doing such great things for us and we simply wanted to tell Him how grateful we were and how wonderful He was.
Which brings up a point: How much do we desire Jesus? Does our desire for Him surpass all other desires? Or does our preoccupation with currently unmet desires overshadow our gratitude and joy for all He’s already done for us? (more…)
In Search of a Thankful Heart pt 1 – VOTD.08.07.17
Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe. Hebrews 12:28
According to today’s verse we are receiving the kingdom of God… the very presence of the King is being received by us… not just once, a long time ago at an altar, but continuously, right now… It’s not some day in the future in heaven, either. It’s continuously, right now…
Since we are receiving the presence and majesty of Jesus on a continual basis, “Let us be thankful”. What an understatement! You would think that since we’re receiving a Kingdom we’d be overwhelmed with gratitude, but apparently Hebrews has to remind us to be. I wonder why?
Why do we have so much trouble being thankful in the NOW? Today’s verse suggests it’s because we aren’t satisfied with the Kingdom we’re receiving. I suspect that’s because we have trouble being satisfied with Jesus in the now.
There are some seemingly innocent emotions that can be gratitude-breakers in our lives. Fore example, how can we be thankful and be Angry, Depressed, Discouraged, Jealous, or Full of self-pity? These things are incompatible with genuine gratitude. Here’s why: (more…)
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…)