Strength Training for Worship

imageWhat were you thinking about on the way to church last Sunday? Was it the songs you were going to sing? The topic of the sermon for that day? Were you even thinking about the service or were you busy listening to the radio, talking to the family or embroiled in an argument that started back at home? Don’t feel bad, you’re no different from the majority of modern day churchgoers. Going to worship on Sunday morning is a habit that practice as Christians but for most, we have lost the anticipation factor of the event. If God actually condescended to descend into the midst of our casual worship, most present would run in horror to the exits.

Worship is a part of our lives but it is not a priority in our lives.

“If the Lord is to be Lord, worship must have priority in our lives. The first commandment of Jesus is, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ (Mark 12:30) “ Foster. If worship becomes a priority, that is, our first love, we will be in a state of anticipation believing with all of our strength that God will make His presence known, felt, and real when we worship alone or with our community. Appearing before the altar unprepared will no more cross our mind than we would take the starting line of a marathon after sitting in our offices all winter.

To prepare ourselves for worship is to worship individually. We need to know the Shekinah in the our hearts. Start now. Stop reading and open your heart to God’s presence. Praise Him for this moment and the next breath and seek His presence. Don’t give up until it is real. God does not want half-hearted seekers. He wants His people to desire to know Him above all else. Make this a habit so that you know when the Lord is present. Build up the ability to wait for the Glory to descend on your waiting heart, whatever it takes.

If each member of the community worships on their own, the expectancy of God’s presence on the corporate gathering will grow in our hearts. We will seek to be with others who are prepared to know the Glory together, to have it multiplied by all of the hearts open and ready to receive it. The Glory will be manifest in the Church and Jesus can use it to draw others to himself. People will come from far and wide to see what the fuss is about.

Going to church is not the same going to worship. We can continue to go for social purposes, to hear a nice talk, and to go through the motions of watching as someone else sings some songs. Or we can move worship into a priority position in our lives and commit ourselves to a program of intentional worship, always wanting to know a greater and greater presence of His unmatchable Glory.

Grace and peace to you.

image Stephen Burch

Day 26 in the School of Prayer : I Have Prayed for You

imageTherefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them. (Hebrews 7:25)

You want to express your love and devotion to your beloved. You want to look into her eyes and let her know how you feel about and toward her, your longing to spend all of your days with her. Your heart pounds just thinking about this encounter.

So you bring a friend along and say “My love, Friend here has something to say to you on my behalf.”

Christ in us completely alters the nature of our petitions. As He inhabits us the Spirit helps to form and deliver our earth-bound prayer. It is He who now prays, bringing strength and just the right words to our halting, immature attempts to convey our love and worship of the Father.

The intercession of Jesus goes far beyond the pleading on our behalf as it is so often portrayed. It is not simply, ‘Father, this is my friend…’ It is the your heart beating with the heart of the Lord, your words in tune with His. We are His body, our prayer is His prayer.

Grace and peace to you.

image auntie k

Psalm 67 Make Your Face to Shine Upon Us

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God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear Him. (v7)

A week has passed this year since the glorious rising of the sun (Son) on Easter morning yet the world does not fear God. The greatest blessing imaginable has been given in the resurrection of the Living Christ, the invitation of salvation and yet the earth does not fear God. Those around us do not fear God because they do not see the living Christ in us.

The psalmist concludes Psalm 67 with this affirmation but it is the early lines of the liturgical form that can have a greater affect on our lives. As we pray these words and absorb them into our souls they have the power to transform. To know God’s face shines upon us is one thing, to exhibit that reality to others is the affirmation that transforms the world. It shows in our trust and obedience, our love and extension of grace. Jesus lives. He lives in me.

May God be gracious to us and bless us

and make His face to shine upon us,

that your ways may be known on earth,

your salvation among all nations. (vv 1-2)

 

image by xavier fargas

The Voice of the Psalms

imageThe Voice is an interesting translation project unlike the others currently available. The bible market has been dominated by literal, word for word and paraphrase translations, all produced by scholars working in the ancient languages and seeking to produce a Bible that aligns closely with the original apparatus while smoothing the syntax to varying degrees. While some translations have been idiomatically freer, few translation committees have taken the input of artists, poets and authors of fiction and given them free reign to retell God’s story in the scriptures. The Ecclesia Bible Society does, and its work is to create a series of new translations for modern readers. The scriptures that result from the project are meant to appeal to a current day audience by retelling the story using modern language and imagery that brings inspiration to modern ears similar to that the Hebrew poetry brought to ancient listeners.

The Voice of the Psalms is a ‘retelling’ of the Psalter that intends to restore the beauty of the original Hebrew poetry for the modern reader. I tend to be conservative in my approach to the Bible and the translations that I will use in the pulpit or for teaching but I can appreciate a Bible in a different voice that offers benefits for my devotional life. The Voice is just such a translation. By and large, the Psalms in The Voice are faithful to the structure and pace of an ESV or NIV with re-phrasings or rewordings to bring out a depth that straight translation might not highlight.

A familiar example that readers can compare is the 23rd Psalm, which many will know by heart. The NIV verses are:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.

He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. (vv 1-3)

The Voice verses read:

The Eternal One is my shepherd, He cares for me always.

He provides me rest in rich, green fields beside streams of refreshing water.

He soothes my fears;

He makes me whole again, steering me off worn, hard paths to roads where truth and righteousness echo His name. (vv 1-3)

The Voice’s poetic presentation offers a new approach to a well known scripture. Devotional reading of familiar passages can be empty as they threaten to leave our heart by rote rather than with prayerful consideration. The Voice encourages us to pause, to consider the language and images, and perhaps to find the freedom to write the psalms to the Father in our own language.  The book won’t accompany me to preach except for illustrative purposes but I feel very comfortable in recommending this  volume for personal prayer and reading. God is blessed when the creativity embedded in His people is released.

 

This volume was graciously provided by Thomas Nelson for review.

The Spiritual Discipline of Worship

“Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.” John 4:23

You and I were made to worship… Chris Tomlin, Made to Worship

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The act of worship centers all of the other spiritual disciplines. Worship is the connection of spirit to Spirit, ours to Him. Many Christians will not immediately identify worship in the family of spiritual disciplines because it lacks an ascetic dimension but this narrow thinking constrains our growth. True worship that brings us into the presence of the God of the universe, to know His immediate glory and holiness and to fear it to our core is anything but a trifling pursuit. To enter the Shekinah demands everything we have to give spiritually and physically; it is not something to be engaged casually. All of the spiritual disciplines have as their objective the strengthening of spiritual muscles that give us the endurance, strength, and character necessary to approach the throne and offer our worship.

God seeks worshippers. He entered the Garden to seek out Adam and Eve. Through Christ and the horror of the crucifixion He draws men and women to Himself (Jn 12:32). Worship is our response to God’s loving advances. Scripture is filled with the stories of those who have fallen to the ground in the presence and reality of the ultimate Love. Human history mirrors this trend. We were made to worship and the trajectory of life is altered permanently when the truth of this characteristic becomes our reality. Worship becomes both the most natural and most challenging of the disciplines.

Our practice of worship must be clear in its objectives and dismissive of peripherals. The first burden to rid ourselves of is the concern for method. There is no single correct form of worship. High, low, liturgical, or free are all valid forms of worship as long as the object of our practice is God alone and our objective is to have His spirit touch our spirit. Anything less is empty and void and is not worship. We are tempted to say that we have worship when we have mouthed a praise chorus or sat through a sermon or greeted those around us or even simply appeared for the scheduled service but worship demands more. It demands commitment, preparation, and engagement.

Worship ends in obedience. Devoting time and effort to seek and enter the presence of God changes us. We are exposed to the same raw glory that caused Isaiah to proclaim his ruin we will know what it is have the burning coals of holiness touched to our hearts. The boundless love of God becomes more and more real in our lives and it affects all that we are and all that we do. Worship, true worship, changes us irreversibly.

 

Grace and peace to you…

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Lent Spent with the Psalms, the Waiting

imageAs modern Christians, we can scarcely imagine the cloud of darkness that enveloped the early disciples of the Lord. He had died and been placed behind the stone in the tomb. All hope had gone, at least for today. It was a test for which they were not prepared. It led to a dawn that was beyond anything imaginable.

We will have times of darkness when it seems that God is far away. He is not, but for whatever reason, His plan calls for us to endure. The advantage that we have is our distance in time. We have seen that our Lord rose and walked among us a second time before rising to His rightful throne. This day before Easter is symbolic and ceremonial. We wait and we watch. We do not allow our hearts to sink into despair in our own moments of darkness.

My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast;

I will sing and make music.

Awake, my soul!

Awake, harp and lyre!

I will awaken the dawn.

I will praise you, O Lord among the nations;

I will sing of you among the peoples. (Psalm 57:7-9)

Grace and peace to you.

 

image taivasalla

Lent Spent with the Psalms Day Thirty Nine

imageBut man, despite his riches, does not endure;

he is like the beasts that perish.

This is the fate of those who trust in themselves,

and of their followers, who approve their sayings. (Psalm 49:12)

We will all face death one day. Our choice in life is to wait on that day for the benefit of redemption as though Christ died for nothing but an insurance policy with us as the beneficiary or to be free today.

But God will redeem my life from the grave;

he will surely take me to himself. (v15)

You have been redeemed and set free. Will you walk up out of your self-made tomb? Will you live as a free man or woman in Christ?

Grace and peace to you.

 

image john thurm

Lent Spent with the Psalms Day Thirty Eight

image Hear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.

Guard my life, for I am devoted to you.

You are my God; save your servant who trusts in you. (Psalm 86:1-2)

The Cross in view and many are still waiting. The Psalmist did not have the Cross in view. He pleaded and prayed and praised and cried out for God to save him. You have the Cross in view and yet many still wait.

For God to save them.

The Cross is in view.

Grace and peace to you.

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Lent Spent with the Psalms Day Thirty Seven

image When I am afraid, I will trust in you.

In God, whose words I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid.

What can mortal man do to me? (Psalm 56:3-4)

Make me confront my own cross?

Cry out for the love of God to flow through me?

Both can be equally terrifying to us. Jesus knew what lie ahead and yet set His face like flint towards Calvary. When we consider what His sacrifice bought, can we do anything less?

After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied;

by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53:11)

 

Grace and peace to you.

image hcii

Lent Spent with the Psalms Day Thirty Six

imageRemember, O Lord, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell.

“Tear it down,” they cried, “tear it down to its foundations!” (Psalm 137:7)

In the midst of Passion week, as we walk the final steps with our Lord feeling the weight of the Cross atop our shoulders and sensing the increasing tension, the world mocks what we purport to stand for. They shop for candy, baskets, and spring clothes without a sense of the sacrifice that the holiest of days represents and we are to blame. We often don’t live out what we say we believe.

If your faith is not being actively lived, today is the day to meditate on why. We should walk quietly in whatever circumstance God brings us, showing our faith as guiding our purpose. The absence of protest on our part will both warn and attract.

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth;

he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. (Isaiah 53:7)

Grace and peace to you.

image Lawrence OP