"Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King." Anticipation of the moving of God is extremely important to corporate worship. There was anticipation by Israel of the coming Savior. There was anticipation and joy today as our church came together to give more than $500,000.00 in one day for world missions. We came together in worship, knowing that we were joining the Lord on mission to a world who needs to hear about the one we worship.
When we come to worship every week there should be joy . . . the anticipation that God is moving among us to accomplish His will in our individual lives, and our lives together as His body. Chuck Swindoll says, "When His joy invades our lives, it spills over into everything we do and on to everyone we touch." It spilled into our worship as a church and who knows how many thousands of people we touched today with the offering we gave sacrificially for His glory and the world's joy! Celebration and joy with all passion within us should always be characteristic of our worship as we gather together week after week and remember and "repeat the sounding joy" of His coming into our lives to give us life in a way we could have never known apart from the Word, come to dwell with us! mjm
