True Worship

This was the last installment of a five-part series on man’s need for God individually, originally titled Help, I Need Somebody.  This post is a discussion on the true worship of God.

In a previous post we discussed the biblical definition of the word for ritual worship.   Ritual worship, otherwise known as religion can exist in a pure form. Religion pleasing to God takes place when we lovingly fellowship with and embrace the least of these among us. Visiting and ministering to those in need and bearing one another’s burdens is true religion and a by-product of the love of God within us. Religion fulfills the lesser of the Great Command, being, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  In today’s post, we will crescendo with a discussion of the worship that fulfills the greater aspect of this Great Command, being, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.”

The most commonly used word for worship in the New Testament is proskyneō (προσκυνέω.) This word for worship is used by Jesus in response to satan’s temptation and in his conversation with the woman at the well.

To satan:
“Jesus said to him, ‘Away from me, satan! For it is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” (Matthew 4:8)

To the woman at the well: “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24)

Like the biblical definitions for love, faith, wisdom and religion, we are also blessed with a simple definition of this word worship in Romans 12:1.

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship.”

To worship God in spirit and truth is to offer our entire being; physical body, mental faculties, inner soul and reborn spirit as a living sacrifice to the love of God. This is the Abiding Principle, “Abide in me; and I in you.” It is not enough to be in proximity to God, as we’ve seen with Adam. It is not sufficient for God to make the gift of grace available to us. This gift requires a response that involves the surrender of our whole life as a living sacrifice to Him.

Just as there is pure, undefiled religious worship, so there is a fake, corrupted form of religion that seeks to take root in the heart of men. Adam & Eve exercised this false religion when they took the flesh and ate of the tree of the knowledge of high-brow moral philosophy and conflict. Equipped with a cynical view of God, seeded from the deceitful speak of the serpent, they believed this forbidden knowledge would make them like God. Foolishness in that Adam and Eve were both created already in God’s likeness. For those of higher education it is often difficult to see the dignity in those not as highly educated. For instance, seminary education sets many church leaders up to be unable to even recognize that common men within their congregations possess spiritual gifts necessary for the body. Higher education is not bad, but it must surrender first to the headship of Christ. Self-made demi-gods, however, seek superior knowledge on things like ethics, philosophy, the art of war, and science to replace the need for Christ. God warned Adam this way would lead to death, but Adam despised his lowly estate as a farmer in God’s garden. As a result mankind’s need for a Helper was magnified one thousand times that of his original need.

Adam’s response to satan should have echoed Jesus’ words, “Away from me, satan! Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.” But these words always come up short from a man seeking his own glory. Knowledge apart from God and false religious devotion are the precipices for an evil civilization. In our next series we will develop the subject of the tree of knowledge taking deeper root in corporate form, but we will leave it here for now. Spiritual death took its root with Adam’s sin, and mankind was separated from his chance to eat of the tree of life.

Mankind has proven his experiment with the fruit of the tree of knowledge a failure. It has produced nothing but turmoil, war and oppression. Slaves to sin and death mankind is in need of a Helper like never before. In the tree of knowledge forgiveness does not exist. The power to forgive is found only in the Living Light of Love. The atonement for the sins of the first Adam can only be found in the sacrificial death of the second Adam. To worship God in spirit and truth now requires of man the fruit of repentance.

Jesus taught his disciples that to gain life one must be willing to surrender their life.

“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” (Matthew 16:25-26)

This is true worship, this is the fruit of repentance, and this is how one loves God. To worship God is to love Him, and to open our hearts to God’s love is to worship. We cry out as the Psalmist, “Hear my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray,” and again, “Rise up and help us; rescue us because of your unfailing love.” God promised a suitable helper before man ever found his way into trouble.

The story of Adam is contrasted with the story of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Daniel and others who all learned the importance of crying out to God for help. These men of faith are testimonies to the strength found in the Rock of Help. One final story I think best illustrates man’s need of a helper. It is the story of the Ebenezer stone.

Before Israel ever demanded a king and before the kingdom ever fell into captivity they were ruled by judges appointed by God. The last judge appointed to Israel was the prophet Samuel who was used by God to deliver Israel from bondage. In the book of First Samuel chapter seven we find the children of Israel once again having strayed from Jehovah. They are under captivity to the Philistines as punishment for their sin.

“When [the Israelites] had assembled at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the Lord. On that day they fasted and there they confessed, ‘We have sinned against the Lord.’ Now Samuel was serving as leader of Israel at Mizpah.

When the Philistines heard that Israel had assembled at Mizpah, the rulers of the Philistines came up to attack them. When the Israelites heard of it, they were afraid because of the Philistines. They said to Samuel, ‘Do not stop crying out to the Lord our God for us, that he may rescue us from the hand of the Philistines.’
Then Samuel took a suckling lamb and sacrificed it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. He cried out to the Lord on Israel’s behalf, and the Lord answered him.

While Samuel was sacrificing the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to engage Israel in battle. But that day the Lord thundered with loud thunder against the Philistines and threw them into such a panic that they were routed before the Israelites.
The men of Israel rushed out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, slaughtering them along the way to a point below Beth Kar.”

Samuel cried out on behalf of the Israelites, offered a sacrificial lamb as payment for their sins and the Lord God was faithful to deliver them from their oppression. Upon this great deliverance Samuel worshipped the Lord God and erected a monument to God’s honor.

“Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us.’”

Today, we can call upon the name of Jesus, not Samuel, with whom we can make direct intercession. Today, the atonement for our sins has been made through the sacrificial Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. Today, we can pray directly to Christ for salvation from the oppression of our sin. We can surrender our lives in loving worship to the God who saves and rest in the arms of our Helper. In this true spiritual act of worship we are accepted as a living sacrifice, acceptable unto God, made to be an Ebenezer stone to the testimony of God’s help.

This is God’s promise to mankind today. A passage that has been so violated by false teachers that it has lost its meaning. Read it in light of Romans 12:1.

“Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.

“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’

“Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.

“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’

“‘In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,’ says the Lord Almighty.”

Many teach that this passage has to do with God wanting you money, and that is scary because this passage is actually the direct words of God Himself. To twist this passage is no little issue. According to Romans 12:1, the whole offering God is asking for here has nothing to do with your money. God doesn’t want your money. God doesn’t want your empty religious sacrifices.

The message of God here is, “I want you! Bring the whole offering into my storehouse. Test me in this and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.”

Do not rob God. He wants you.

The Simple Things….Rain Washed

It is always the simple things bring the greatest joys.

When was the last time you stopped and appreciated the simple little things?

A little girl had been shopping with her Mom in Target. She must have been 6 years old, this beautiful red haired, freckle faced image of innocence. It was pouring outside. The kind of rain that gushes over the top of rain gutters, so much in a hurry to hit the earth it has no time to flow down the spout. We all stood there under the awning and just inside the door of the Target.

We waited, some patiently, others irritated because nature messed up their hurried day. I am always mesmerized by rainfall. I got lost in the sound and sight of the heavens washing away the dirt and dust of the world. Memories of running, splashing so carefree as a child came pouring in as a welcome reprieve from the worries of my day.

The little voice was so sweet as it broke the hypnotic trance we were all caught in,
“Mom, let’s run through the rain,” she said. “What?” Mom asked.

“Let’s run through the rain!” She repeated.

“No, honey. We’ll wait until it slows down a bit,” Mom replied.

This young child waited about another minute and repeated, “Mom, let’s run through the rain.”

“We’ll get soaked if we do,” Mom said.

“No, we won’t, Mom. That’s not what you said this morning,” the young girl said as she tugged at her Mom’s arm.

“This morning? When did I say we could run through the rain and not get wet?”

“Don’t you remember? When you were talking to Daddy about his cancer, you said, ‘If God can get us through this, he can get us through anything!’”

The entire crowd stopped dead silent. I swear you couldn’t hear anything but the rain. We all stood silently. No one came or left in the next few minutes. Mom paused and thought for a moment about what she would say. Now some would laugh it off and scold her for being silly. Some might even ignore what was said. But this was a moment of affirmation in a young child’s life. A time when innocent trust can be nurtured so that it will bloom into faith.

“Honey, you are absolutely right. Let’s run through the rain. If God let’s us get wet, well maybe we just needed washing,” Mom said.

Then off they ran. We all stood watching, smiling and laughing as they darted past the cars and yes, through the puddles. They held their shopping bags over their heads just in case. They got soaked. But they were followed by a few who screamed and laughed like children all the way to their cars.

And yes, I did. I ran. I got wet. I needed washing.

Circumstances or people can take away your material possessions, they can take away your money, and they can take away your health. But no one can ever take away your precious memories…

So, don’t forget to make time and take opportunities to make memories everyday. To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.

I hope you still take the time to run through the rain.

Quotable Thought!

“As the love of money is the root of evil, so then bitterness is the beginning of destruction”

Jimmy Eldridge

Be Careful Who You Listen To!

We should heed a lesson from the Bible on being careful who we listen to .
Even those that claim they are defending the faith, if done in the wrong way, or with the wrong heart, can cause more harm than good.

I don’t know about you, but I will tune out the ones who are arguing at the top of their lungs all red faced and finger pointing….even if they are doing it in the blogoshpere!

An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered one commits many sins.
A man’s pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor.

Proverbs 29:22-23

Just a thought!

Eugene Peterson on Prayer

From his book Practice Resurrection:

“Not all prayers are conscious. Not all prayers can be identified as prayers. Prayer is the language underlying and sometimes surfacing in all our language as we grow up in Christ. Most of us pray a good deal more than we are aware that we are praying. It’s not that prayer does not involve attentiveness and alertness to God; it’s only that it doesn’t require a learned skill. Trying harder doesn’t help.” (Practice Resurrection, p 266).

May you be blessed today as you practice resurrection.

Because he Shakes, we will not

I am sort of amazed at how two books, one I just finished and the other I am half-way through, have sort of intersected and complimented one another. The first is Eugene Peterson’s Practice Resurrection which I have written about a couple of other times and the second is Annie Dillard’s The Maytrees. These are two of my favorite writers and I rarely have anything but praise for either of them.

Anyhow, as part of my practice to create space to write each day (so that my skills and passion do not fade) I will be reviving a blog habit I started when I wrote for the blog Prophets, Priests and Poets called Thought for the Day. Today’s thought is from Dillard’s book The Maytrees. When I read this paragraph I was struck by the similarities between the way Lou (a female character in the book who has been deserted by her husband Toby) and I seem to have a kindred heart. She has been deserted by her husband Toby and is trying to come to grips with it each day, little by little. I, on the other hand, have been left out to dry by a church and have had to find ways each day to come to grips with that reality.

Here are Lou’s thoughts:

If she, Lou, had known how long her first half-inch beginning to let go would take–and how long her noticing and renouncing owning and her turning her habits, and beginning the slimmest self-mastery whose end was nowhere in sight–would she have begun? Would she have turned herself over like a row of salt hay? Tossed herself to loose her own chaff? It took her months to learn that she could get clean for more than a minute at a time. Consciously she looked out for resentment, self-cherishing, and envy. Over years she formed the habit of deflecting them before they dug in. But she lived through those years in any case, and now she lived from that steady ground she won. More distances opened as she opened. Not that town, national, and world life as it was going did not give her fits. (p 93)

The transitions we have to make in life are difficult and, sometimes, Lord only knows the beginnings and the ends and the means in between. I like the idea of tossing oneself to loose our own chaff. My wife said to me tonight “I know what God is doing to you right now.” She said it with more enthusiasm than I could have conjured up for such a statement, but she was claiming God’s wisdom so I listened as she replied to my “what’s that?” with a rather anticlimactic, “He’s smoothing out your rough edges!” I didn’t know I had any (*smile*).

I’m not strong enough to loose my own chaff so for now the Lord has taken hold this pile of wheat and tossed it in the air. A strong wind has blown away a lot of chaff, but I suspect for now there is more yet to be loosed.

*Sigh.*

So we are tossed–a salad, a ball, a small boat out on the rough sea. But a large part of the tossing, we learn in Ephesians, is that we might be able to stand firm and, thus, no longer be tossed about. He tosses us so that no one else can. Here’s where part of what Peterson wrote compliments this short passage from Peterson:

Christians who let themselves be seduced into taking promised shortcuts of instant gratification that bypass the way of the Cross eventually find that the so-called gratification turns into addictions, incapacitating them for mature relationships in household, workplace, and congregation. (Practice Resurrection, 252).

I remember praying the prayer. Indeed. If there are rough edges they prevented me from standing firm and balanced. If there are smooth edges they have nothing to do with my own strength. If there is a resurrection, there must be a death. So we wait, patiently, not-so-silently, while the Father moves. His movement is the firmness under our feet. Because he moves, we won’t. Because he shakes, we will not be shaken.

Great Quote

Sin is an illegitimate attempt to meet a legitimate need.

~Dr. Robert Lehman

What is a Christian’s Purpose?

You hear a lot of talk now days about living a life of purpose.

There are books that claim to help you figure out this age old question like Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life” and even ones to help your church find it’s purpose with “Purpose Driven Church”.

With all of these helps, have we really learned our ‘Purpose in Life’?

Do you know your purpose in life? Have you made that discovery?

Click Below To Read Relevant Christian News!

What is a “Church”?

Come on…you know you have an opinion.

What do you think church is…or at least what do you think a church should be?

Webster defines a church as:

1. a building for public and especially Christian worship
2. the clergy or officialdom of a religious body
3. a body or organization of religious believers

Which definition is the one that you most identify church with?

Why?

Webster has church listed as a noun…shouldn’t the church be a verb?
Just my thought.

Passionate Belief

Ok…I can tell that I was ‘full-time’ staff at a church for waaaaaayyyy too long.

I spent the weekend in Nashville at a business meeting and expo for the company I work for. As I listened to the different speakers, all who read their entire presentation from a teleprompter, I was thinking…”Oh My God…what have I gotten myself into?”

As I sat and listened to some of the speeches, most of them quoting the same ‘company line’, I caught myself thinking, “Where is the passion?” “I hear you quoting the line, over and over, and you are trying to sell me on it, but are YOU passionate about what you are trying to get me to be passionate about?”

Later that evening as I was reflecting on the day, it suddenly came to me. “Holy crap….how many times have I done that for the sake of ‘ministry? How many times have I tried to get people to be passionate about what I SAID I was passionate about? How many times did the people see that my heart wasn’t in it, and therefore they didn’t buy into what I was selling?”

As I was talking with my lovely wife last night, it came up in discussion what the pastor of a church I used to be on staff at always said, “fake it till you make it”. After that quote rolled off my tongue I realized just how wrong that phrase is. We shouldn’t have to ‘fake’ it…if we have to fake it…we are in the wrong business. I realized right then that my thinking was all screwed up and it needed to change.

I have to passionately believe what I am selling. It has to be deeply embedded in my heart and not just etched on my brain. I has to come from the soul and not just roll from the lips.

original post here