Worship Joy

Where does joy come into worship?  When we come before the Lord broken and humbled before Him, and willingly take up our cross, ironically this becomes the path to true joy. Psalm 40:16 says, "But may all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You."  The scripture is full of passages that refer to the glorious joy of the Lord.  It is made obvious in God's Word that we can be humble and broken and yet joy in Him at the same time.  

Pleasing God in worship by the humbling of ourselves before Him leads us into joy that passes all human understanding.  In 2 Corinthians 6:10 Paul refers to this, "Our hearts ache, but we always have joy." When we sacrifice ourselves before Him, He is continually recreating us in His image. When it is our desire to please Him, He will respond by fulfilling the needs of our hearts.  "Delight thyself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4).  The very pursuit of God's pleasure results in a deep abiding joy in us.  In fact this joy can be so deeply abiding in us that we are able to rejoice even in the midst of difficult, bad, or hard circumstances because we know that He is working out His plan.  True abiding joy can't be touched by circumstances.

When we join together for worship, the real question is:  Have I come for the pursuit of my own self gratification or is my focus on pursuing Him?  Are we focused on being pleased, or are we focused on pleasing Him?  How we approach worship will determine our worship joy! And, because all of our life should be worship, then our lives will be full of abiding joy! mjm

Walking and Worshipping in His Name

As we approach the celebration of our nations's birth I have been giving some thought to our worship this coming Sunday, and our approach to that particular celebration this year.  

I have been reading through the Old Testament again this year and it struck me the other day how the nation of Israel kept straying from the Lord God to the worship of other gods or idols.  America has strayed from its original founders' intention as to the guidance and worship of the one true God.  In fact in Micah 4:5 it states, "For all the peoples walk each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever." Our nation needs to come again to the place of saying, "But we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever."

Gathering in worship and in prayer is certainly appropriate as we look at celebrating our nation's birth...because the need of prayer is evident all around us.  We need to seek the Lord as never before and plead with Him to heal our nation and bring us to a place where we again put our full faith in Him and ask that our nation would bring glory to His name.  "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways, I will forgive their sin and heal their land."  Our nation must turn from worshipping other gods or idols and walk with and worship the one true God.  If not, our freedom to worship Him hangs in the balance.  mjm

The Knowing in our Worship

Our Pastor has been preaching for some time through I John.  The word "know" is a key word in the little book.  Our "knowing" truth creates an environment for worship.  One has said that worship is simply revelation and response.  God reveals, we respond.  Worship is a response to truth, not what we think is truth.  

• "We know that we have come to know" God (2:3)
• "We know we are in Him" (2:5)
• "We know that when He appears, we shall be like Him" (3:2)
• "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers" (3:14)
• "We know that we belong to the truth" (3:19)
• "We know that [God] lives in us" (3:24)
• "We know that we live in" God (4:13)
• "I write these things to you . . . so that you may know that you have eternal life" (5:13)
• "We know that [God] hears us" (5:15)
• "We know that we are children of God" (5:19)

When we acknowledge the truth of God's Word and diligently seek it, our choosing to know the truth puts us in position to respond to His truth, which therefore puts us into a lifestyle of worship. In a real sense God's Word will either change our lives or will leave us without excuse.  That's heavy! Our worship is our response.  Are you seeking truth and responding to His truth? The "knowing" has much to do with our true worship.  mjm

Wholehearted Worship

The Great Commandment says we are to . . . "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength".  This leaves no room for anything less than wholehearted worship.  An authentic worshipper uses the totality of his being in worship. God is not looking for a partial expression of our worship but a total expression - spirit, mind, soul, and body.  We are reminded in Revelation 3 that halfheartedness is actually repulsive to Him.  

God thinks differently than us. We tend to believe that a little bit of fervor is better than none, but God indicates in more than one place in Scripture that halfheartedness is worse than coldheartedness. Wholehearted worship reflects wholehearted devotion and love, and halfhearted worship reflects halfhearted devotion.  

Greek and Hebrew scholars referring to Romans 12:1 have asked, "Why did God, in describing worship, say to present our 'bodies'?  Why didn't He say to present our souls or spirits?"  It is because the Hebrews see the body as the container of the soul and spirit.  When you give your body, you give your soul and spirit.  God wants the whole of us in worship - intellectually, spiritually, emotionally and physically.  Can we get carried away?  Of course. Emotion and emotionalism are worlds apart in meaning.  Our thoughts must be His thoughts - redeemed thought. May we pray that our church will be filled with worshippers who engage with all they are in worship for His glory and His honor pointing always to Him - not to us! mjm

Desperate to Know Him

"That I may know Him" . . . is an objective Paul lays out.  Paul was not only converted but completely captivated when he saw the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus.  One passion reigned; one motive dominated from that point on:  that the Lord, in love, devotion, and service would be his all in all.  Everything else became subservient, counted as refuse that he might know this one objective of being altogether His!  Nothing of earth is comparable or desired besides Him.  

After Paul caught a vision of his risen, exalted Lord, and being captivated by his grace and glory, he is consumed with the passion to take possession of all that was his glorious inheritance in Christ Jesus.  He was desperate to know Him in His fullness and glory.  

What is the objective of our Bible study?  Is it just to have knowledge, satisfy intellectual curiosity, a selfish desire to enrich our lives?  Or do we come every day to the written Word of God so we can better know the eternal, incarnate, risen, living Word of God as He is revealed in the pages?  

What is the objective of our worship?  Is it to make us "feel" good?  Is it to fulfill some sort of obligation?  Is it mostly to fellowship with others and be a part of a group?  Or do we come together in worship to seek to know Him, seeking His glory, seeking His face,  seeking to bless Him in divine response to His love?  

2 Corinthians 4:6 states, "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."  In our worship are we desperate to see the "hand" of God or the "face" of God?  Are we desperate to know Him?  mjm

More about Authenticity in Worship

Someone has said that to be authentic you have to strip it down to bare bones and take away all the fluff and the hype.  Everything we do in worship should get down to one basic element - a gathered group of people desperate to experience God in His power, presence and glory! Do you come to worship desperate to experience God in all of His fullness? It all begins with how we approach it.  Many want to say it is an issue of spontaneity versus formality or an issue of style of worship.  But, authenticity in worship is more than those things.  

You are always going to have people, according to their own personal taste, who think that the best worship is laid-back to the point of sloppy or scruffy. Others are at the opposite end of the spectrum who think polished and slick is the best.  However, in our day and time many see the polished and slick as fake, but we can go too far thinking that scruffy is authentic -  as opposed to fake.  

We would think that somewhere in the middle of all of that, we are just simply well enough prepared that the worship settles in with a simplicity, with that basic element of seeking to experience Him being the main thing.  

Maybe the way to authentic worship is in thorough preparation by all who lead worship, including prayer as a vital part of preparation.  Also, seeking ways in worship to explore and explain things in terms of everyday living. Creating ways to help people receive some formal language comfortably, and yet avoiding oversimplifying language for children or others, also helps toward authentic worship.  As said earlier, we need to realize we can not equate one particular style of worship with authenticity.  I said to someone just this morning that I am kind of a "bottom line guy," and the bottom line is for us to have authentic worship.  We must gather as a people desperate to experience Him!  mjm

Authentic Worship is Life Changing

Many times I have said that if we leave a worship service the same as when we came, we have not really worshipped.  If we as worshippers leave a worship service with no thought of becoming more Godly in our walk, without a conviction that we need to conform our lives to the Holy Word, unmotivated to be a part of God's mission or have not experienced God's presence in a way that is life-changing, then somehow we have perverted the worship experience.

If we really believed this it would change the way we worship and the way we lead worship.  We wouldn't just ask for a "good time in worship."  Our expectations would be much higher.  We would do all we could do to serve God's purpose for the church as we gaze on His glory.  2 Corinthians 3:18 says, "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.  For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."

The whole reason for us to seek His presence and behold His glory is because God's intention is to transform us into His image.  These are the kinds of changes that God wants to take place among the Body of Christ in the local church.  When we join together in glorifying God in Sunday worship, God works in us "both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13).  The joy is all ours, but the glory is all His!  May we be faithful in praying every week that our gathered worship will be life-changing for the glory of God!  mjm

Remembering your "Ebenezer"

You remember the hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing and the stanza that says, "Here I raise mine Ebenezer; Hither by Thy help I'm come."  I have been asked many times over the years what that word, "Ebenezer" means.  Some hymnals have actually dropped that particular stanza because of that word.  I don't know why in our day and time we want to dumb everything down, or label things "old fashioned" when the word "Ebenezer" is a Biblical word with important meaning.  I have even heard people make fun of the word.  Isn't it interesting that people make fun of the things they are ignorant of.  Why can we not just simply teach?

I ran across the word, "Ebenezer" again this morning when I was reading out of I Samuel 7.  Israel is coming up against the Philistines in battle and they start begging Samuel to pray with all His might that they will be saved from the boot of the Philistines.  So Samuel prays and offers a burnt-offering to God. God intervenes with huge thunder above the Philistines, causing panic and mass confusion and they run from Israel giving chase out of Mizpah.  

Then Samuel takes a single rock and sets it upright between Mizpah and Shen. He names it "Ebenezer," which has the meaning of (Rock of Help). He sets it for them to remember this marks the place "where God helped us".  All through the Old Testament we see the importance of markers in the lives of God's people. 

What is your "Ebenezer", the place where God helped in your walk with Him (your Rock of Help)?  It would enhance the worship of each of us to remember God's faithfulness, our Ebenezers if you please.  It would also enhance the worship of local bodies of believers, the local church, to remember the "Ebenezers" of the church collectively.  We need to "raise our Ebenezer" in worship knowing that God is our help.  He is truly worthy of our worship and we are blessed! mjm 

Unity - God's Intent in Worship

If we are truly in Christ and have the mind of Christ we are one, and in unity in all things including our worship.  "Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ.  Then, whether I come and see you again or only hear about you, I will know that you are standing together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the Good News." (Philippians 1:27) Our Lord's prayer for believers is "that they will be one, just as you and I are one - Father." (John 17:21) In Cor. 1:10 Paul pleads with the Corinthians to "be of one mind, united in thought and purpose." Then again in Romans 15:5-6 Paul says to the Romans, "May God, who gives this patience and encouragement, help you live in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus.  Then all of you can join together with one voice, giving praise and glory to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This picture of worship Paul gives mirrors John's vision in Revelation, where all of Christ's bride joins together - every nation, every tongue, grandparents and grandchildren, rich and poor, black and white and every other color or ethnicity. That's how worship around the throne is described.  

Satan knows that if he can keep us divided and debating worship styles, music styles, etc., that he is able to keep us from worship "as it is in heaven".  Another version has the phrase in Rom. 15 saying, "Live in complete harmony - each with the attitude of Christ Jesus toward the other."  When we are in the Spirit we will not encounter barriers of culture, race, generation, or personal preferences.  Barriers will fade when we bow together in the radiance of His glory.  Issues of what we prefer or expect in worship will be unimportant.  Unity in worship has nothing to do with style of worship or musical style, but rather it is about us. When we are changed in Christ, then we will indeed worship together.  

We can only experience harmony and join as one voice in worship when we have the attitude of Christ toward one another.  That attitude is described very vividly in Philippians 2, "You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.  Though He was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.  Instead, He gave up His divine privileges; He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.  When He appeared in human form, He humbled Himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on a cross."

We will never experience the glory of God among us apart from unity in Christ.  mjm