Tag: worship

Look Up! Perspective and Purpose

You were created with purpose and that purpose was to worship through work.

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(Republished with permission from Bruce Strom, Executive Director of Administer Justice, a faith-based legal aid organization providing the help of a lawyer, the hope of God’s love and the home of the church.)

“Look up on high and thank the God of all.”

Geoffrey Chaucer

There is one God, and you are not Him!

Power of Perspective: There is a story of a man who worked at an aviary in a bird park. He was at an outdoor wedding and kept looking up. A friend finally asked him why. The man simply replied, “Sorry, I’m used to looking up to avoid falling bird poop.” If you want to avoid a lot of life’s poop – look up!

Perspective matters. Go outside and look up. You cannot see yourself, but you can see the vastness of space. Look down. You mostly see yourself and not much else. Circumstances cause us to look down and magnify our thoughts, feelings, and fears. Look up. Set your mind on things above. Don’t make you or your circumstance bigger than God.

Power of Purpose: The Westminster Catechism recites our purpose is “to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” That is true but can be misunderstood. If not careful, I think it can distort our purpose in the same way viewing Heaven as fluffy clouds where we play harps and sing praises forever can. Honestly heaven is a place of rewards given for work done on Earth. Work continues in Heaven. Work is a healthier view of worship – what it means to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

You were created with purpose and that purpose was to worship through work. The Hebrew word for work is avodah which means work, worship, and service. True worship is rooted in work that serves God and others.

God has work for you in his family business. When you come to faith in Christ you are adopted as his son or daughter and join the business of advancing God’s Kingdom. Jesus came to establish this work – the Kingdom of God on earth. Like any family business, God’s business has a vision, mission, values, guidelines, and positions.

Your job title is vassal, a servant of the King. Your job description is vessel as you allow him to fill you for your work. God’s vision is that none should perish but all should come to faith. In other words, he wants to grow the business by expanding the Kingdom. His mission is to go into all the world making disciples by demonstrating what it means to love God and love others (Great Commission and Commandments).

God has an employee manual with guidelines for living – the Bible. Don’t just skim and sign off on it – read it, memorize it. It is your guide for finding purpose. Then talk to your boss. Can you imagine taking a job and never talking to your boss? I don’t think you’d last long. You will similarly wear out in the work of the Kingdom if you are not regularly communicating with God through prayer.

Finally, live the core values of the Kingdom. He has told you what is required of you: do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with him (Mic. 6:8). You will discover and live God’s purpose for your life if you see yourself working in the family business.

Consider: What strikes you in this first key: look up through perspective and purpose?

Pray:   Lord, forgive me when I make much of my circumstance and little of you. Help me to find joy in working in your family business of advancing your kingdom of justice and righteousness. Amen.

If Creation Worships God

If creation sings Your praises so will I

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So Will I (A Hundred Million Times) by Hillsong is my inspiration today. Listen to the version by the UPPERROOM, featuring Abbie Simmons while you read the lyrics and view the photos of the wonders of God’s creation.

God of creation
There at the start
Before the beginning of time

With no point of reference
You spoke to the dark
And fleshed out the wonder of light

And as You speak
A hundred billion galaxies are born

In the vapor of Your breath the planets form

If the stars were made to worship so will I

I can see Your heart in everything You’ve made

Every burning star A signal fire of grace

If creation sings Your praises so will I

God of Your promise
You don’t speak in vain
No syllable empty or void
For once You have spoken
All nature and science
Follow the sound of Your voice

Photo credit Deb Zehyer

And as You speak

A hundred billion creatures catch Your breath

Evolving in pursuit of what You said
If it all reveals Your nature so will I

I can see Your heart in everything You say

Every painted sky
A canvas of Your grace

Photo credit Miriam Higgs

If creation still obeys You so will I
So will I
So will

If the stars were made to worship so will I

If the mountains bow in reverence so will I

If the oceans roar Your greatness so will I

For if everything exists to lift You high so will I
If the wind goes where You send it so will I

If the rocks cry out in silence so will I

Photo credit Paul Smith

If the sum of all our praises still falls shy
Then we’ll sing again a hundred billion times

God of salvation
You chased down my heart
Through all of my failure and pride

On a hill You created
The light of the world

God Is Always Doing a “New Thing”

We need to be open to hear God’s voice and the direction He wants us to go in these present times

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I think many Christians, most of them, look a bit skeptically at the charismatic element of the Church universal. We conjure up images of the prosperity Gospel and “holy rollers”. The New Testament, though, reads like a charismatic diary.

 The dispensationalists will say that God worked like that only for a time, only until the New Testament was “codified” into a cannon. Now we don’t need God to speak to people directly through prophetic words and such. We don’t need signs and wonders because we have the Bible now.

They might be right, but maybe not. God doesn’t fit into the boxes we prepare for Him.

I have come to view all the movements in the history of the Church as various times in which God emphasized specific things to His people for specific purposes. The move to get the Bible in print in plain language for the masses enabled worldwide, grassroots growth of the Gospel. The move to emphasize that salvation is by God’s grace that we receive through faith was necessary to counter error in the notion of how salvation works.

In my view, denominations formed around these movements as people put down tent stakes and tried to camp on those things God was emphasizing at particular times, but God is always doing a new thing.

Not that God changes, or that the truth changes. We change, and the flow of history changes. God is always working through it all to accomplish the ends that He has planned from the beginning.

I think we can never go wrong asking the question: What is God doing now? What does God intend for a time such as this? What is God saying in these times?

So, I am open to the possibility, which I think is a probability, that God is still “speaking” in these times through people to whom God is willing to entrust His voice. There are disparate voices, of course, even in the Church, but it’s always been like that.

I don’t believe God will say anything that contradicts what He has said in the past, but He might be saying things that contradict what we believed in the past. God might be calling us to new ways of doing things.

When God became flesh and lived among the people to whom He had intimately and directly revealed Himself, they didn’t recognize Him. The disciples on the road to Emmaus were amazed as Jesus opened the Scripture to them to reveal all the ways it spoke of Him. They didn’t see it until He opened it up to them.

In the same way, we need to have the humility to recognize that we might have wrong ideas about things. Maybe they aren’t “wrong”, but they just aren’t effective any longer in this time. The last thing that I want is to remain standing still when God is moving.

We need to be open to God showing us “new things” that we didn’t previously understand or appreciate. We have to consider the possibility that we might not recognize God when He is speaking today in the same way that God became flesh, came to His own people, and His own people didn’t recognize Him.

I say these things only as a preface to talk about an article, Continue reading “God Is Always Doing a “New Thing”” →

When God Sends Us Difficulties

Does God send us difficulties? If so, why?

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Depositphotos Image ID: 86547374 Copyright: Johan-jk

“If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people….”[1]

We like to view God as a Great Benevolent Giver in the sky. We want Him to pour out good gifts to us and make our lives easy for us. We are disappointed, disillusioned and discouraged when we don’t experience the generosity we imagine and want from God.

God is benevolent for sure, but He is much more than that. He doesn’t just want to give us good things; He wants to give us Himself. In fact, He doesn’t just want to give us Himself, He wants to pour Himself into and through us to bless others consistent with His larger plans and purposes for the world He created.

But, this ultimate desire and purpose of God to bless us takes on a different form than we would like at times. God’s activity in our lives doesn’t always feel like a blessing.

In this verse from 2 Chronicles 7, we learn that God, Himself, may cause difficult things to happen to us. Even if He simply allows them to happen, God is ultimately responsible for them. Right?

But why? And what can we do about it?

We need to read the second half of the verse and consider the context in which it was written for a more complete picture.

Continue reading “When God Sends Us Difficulties” →

Finding Balance in Worship

Are our Sunday worship services more pagan than Christian? That was the claim of a recent article.

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© Can Stock Photo Inc. / grace1221
© Can Stock Photo Inc. / grace1221

Praise the LORD! Sing to the LORD a new song, and His praise in the congregation of the godly ones. Let Israel be glad[1] in his Maker; let the sons of Zion rejoice[2] in their King. Let them praise His name with dancing; Let them sing praises to Him with timbrel and lyre. For the LORD takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation. Let the godly ones exult[3] in glory; let them sing for joy[4] on their beds. (Psalm 149:1-5)

I have been thinking about an article I read recently: Is Your Church Worship More Pagan Than Christian? by Todd Pruitt. He questions the popular Christian music and worship culture on the basis that it exalts music to a sacramental position and musicians to priestly status without biblical foundation for the emphasis. He claims it promotes feelings over doctrinal soundness and experience over preaching the Word of God. These are valid concerns.

I agree with Todd Pruitt on nearly every point, yet the article and the one that followed, (Is Your Worship Christian or Pagan? (7 Tests)), leave me scratching my head a bit. Let me explain. Continue reading “Finding Balance in Worship” →