Why I Worship

What Is Worship, Why Do We Worship, How to Worship

Squirrel!

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Have you seen this? Funny, huh?

I had to run by our local mall the other day and I went to the food court to grab a bite to eat. They have video monitors hanging from various places there and they are connected to speakers that are scattered around the area.

As I sat down to eat, I kept hearing something that reminded me of a sound check session for a second rate music concert; LOUD… then soft, LOUD… then soft again. It was quite distracting and annoying. I began to look around for what might be the cause of these awful distractions. Then I realized… “This is intentional!”

I noticed that, on the video monitors, every time the advertisement would change, the first one and a half to two seconds of the the accompanying sound would be considerably louder than the rest of the clip. This was an attempt to “get my attention.”

Our world is full of distractions; television, radio, smartphones, social media, baseball practice, soccer practice; you know, so many things that shout for attention in our daily lives. These are not inherently “bad” things, but they can be very distracting. They all fight for our focus.

1 Kings chapter 19 tells us of when Elijah found himself distracted and searching for answers in his life. In verses 11 through 14, we find God’s answer to him.

11-12 Then he was told, “Go, stand on the mountain at attention before God. God will pass by.”
A hurricane wind ripped through the mountains and shattered the rocks before God, but God wasn’t to be found in the wind; after the wind an earthquake, but God wasn’t in the earthquake; and after the earthquake fire, but God wasn’t in the fire; and after the fire a gentle and quiet whisper.
13-14 When Elijah heard the quiet voice, he muffled his face with his great cloak, went to the mouth of the cave, and stood there.
The things that “shouted the loudest” to Elijah; the wind, the earthquake, and the fire, could not give the answers he was so desperately looking for. It was only when he looked past all of those things (“When he heard the quiet voice, he muffled his face…”), that he began to get the revelation he needed for what was ahead of him.
What are the things that are shouting for your attention today? Are they keeping you from hearing what is really important? Are they keeping you from knowing what you need to know?
I encourage you today to take time to be still, find a quiet place, not just in volume but in your heart and let THE Still Small Voice of your Father speak to you.

A Lifestyle of Worship?

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1Samuel 13:14 states that “the Lord has sought out a man after His own heart…”

We know, of course that Samuel is speaking about the young King David. So, here’s the question… What does it mean to be “a man after God’s own heart?”

Some say it was the fact that David was always quick to repent when confronted with his sin. Some believe that it was his humility in his dealings with King Saul. Some say it was his willingness to abandon himself and “worship the Lord with all his might.”

The theological offerings could go on and on but I’d like to know what you think.

I hear people constantly making statements like “We’ve gotten church all wrong!”, or “Most church leaders are crooks!”, or; I think the popular one right now is “We shouldn’t be worried about GOING to church, we should just concentrate on BEING the church.”

I only have one rule for this discussion: POSITIVE STATEMENTS ONLY!

I want us to look at this as a body (if you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He came to earth, lived a perfect life, died on a cross, and rose again on the third day, then we are in the same boat) and see if we can define what it is that the church is supposed to be. I want to find out what it means to “be the church.” I am asking God this year to make me one of those people to whom He would refer as “a man after His own heart.”

Ok… Here we go… What do you think?

 

 

Where was Jesus???

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I was looking around on Facebook the other day and came across a post from an old friend that raised some very hard questions for me. I’ve been thinking about the things he said ever since I read it.

He was writing in reference to the tragic shooting that took place in Tuscon, Arizona last week and the nine year old girl who was killed there.

Here is what he said in his post…

“i wonder where jesus was this weekend when that poor little 9 year old girl was shot and killed at random…… I wonder how the christians explain that one…… oh i bet they say” evil is in the world and god has a plan for everybody and that was her time”…. i say that’s a sad fu–ing excuse… it’s because psycho’s like that asshole get their hands on guns…

My outrage is just that when something like this happens,, christians say ” gods will”… and it amazes me because others will post ” jesus answered our prayers.. sam’s ingrown toenail is healed”… but jesus didn’t stop that asshole from killing those poor people…”

Wow!

He raises some very strong questions that I think are a indictment against us as believers.

I believe that if we are to be true ambassadors of the Kingdom of Heaven, we are going to have to address and deal with the perceptions that these questions are symptoms of.

How do we answer the question of  “Where is Jesus when bad stuff happens?” How do we change the perception of the world that the Church of the Most High God has been reduced to a faceless, voiceless, powerless group of people who meet on Sunday to get their “shout” on and only have enough knowledge and revelation of the character and heart of God to say things like:

“This world is not heaven and sin is bad. That little girl is in heaven where no more sin exist.”

or

“I think Jesus was sitting beside that little 9 year old girl.”

 

When will we realize that this world will never believe what we have not experienced? If we have not experienced and are not experiencing the power of Almighty God in our lives, in our homes, and on our jobs, how can we ever present Him to a world who needs to see real power more than anything else?

You can dismiss my friend’s comments as “just the rantings of a raging liberal,” or you can take time to look a little deeper into the fact that we are not accurately representing the God of Heaven on this earth. We are not “going into all nations and preaching the Gospel and making disciples.” Instead, we are trying to take something that someone told us (but we’ve never experienced) and make it real to a world that is crying out for something real. It’s like we’re in a boat and the whole world is drowning around us and the only thing we keep throwing them is a spaghetti noodle to hold on to. All it does it fall apart when it hits the churning water of their storm. Can we please throw them a real rope???

“Father, help me today to be your witness to a dying world. Help me to show them the real you. Help me to live the life of someone who knows you and knows your power in his life. Help me to be an ambassador of your Kingdom here in this land where they don’t know or understand you or your ways. “

Your thoughts??