Fail to Worship

This is a depressing picture, isn't it? For one of my friends who saw this the other day, it's simply hysterical that someone would hang this up as a poster on their wall. There seems to be no meaning to it because we all know that nobody would ever actually say "your best isn't good enough" to you unless they hated you. Well, that's true of most people, but not necessarily of Jesus and His disciples. Failure in God's eyes can be encouraging when it means more of Him who never fails. God, and those born of Him, are the only ones who can lovingly tell us that we will never be good enough on our own.

"Every man, I don't care who he is--even the strongest--every man that hasn't Christ in him, is a failure." ~D.L. Moody

So it's obvious that we will never be good enough because of our works, even if we are working zealously for God--check out Romans 3:23 if you need to be reminded. When we stop living by works, it means that we are shifting our focus from ourselves to God, which is also the way that we worship Him. The idea is not supposed to be a discouraging one; it's supposed to be a refocusing on who is more important. We fail in order to worship better. Failure, in that sense, produces hope, and it means that no matter what, even if you are feeling like the worst of scum, God is always good enough when you can't be.

“Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Him. A great number of Christian workers worship their work. The only concern of Christian workers should be their concentration on God. This will mean that all the other boundaries of life, whether they are mental, moral, or spiritual limits, are completely free with the freedom God gives His child; that is, a worshiping child, not a wayward one. A worker who lacks this serious controlling emphasis of concentration on God is apt to become overly burdened by his work. He is a slave to his own limits, having no freedom of his body, mind, or spirit. Consequently, he becomes burned out and defeated. There is no freedom and no delight in life at all. His nerves, mind, and heart are so overwhelmed that God’s blessing cannot rest on him.” ~Oswald Chambers

The Satisfaction of the Temporal Self

Sometimes I wonder just how long people would have to live before they realized how meaningless life and material things are without God. Some people don't even come to the realization that the next life, if there is any, might be important, even as they lay on their death bed!

"Our lives have been brief, and we've only seen so much. It's hard to imagine the whole puzzle when you've only seen three pieces." ~Trip Lee

Many people think that fame or fortune will satisfy, and they never go back on that assumption because there always seems to be something more to strive for in this world. Sometimes we will have no way of truly knowing the whole picture, so we have to trust. One good example we have to lean on is a person who did experience it all, even during his fairly short amount of time on earth, and who eventually gave up living for himself: Solomon.

On the other end of the spectrum, there is a bunch of people who don't even need 20 years to come to the same conclusion; have you checked the suicide rate lately? What they don't realize is that living selfishly doesn't have to feel good. Escaping from life and from God is also selfish and pointless. So as a take-away for this post, let's look at our own selfishness and pray about how we can change ourselves to be wholly submitted to God and not be working for him out of any other motivation. Let's also be careful to remember how anything we spend time, money, or social status on is ultimately pointless and gains us nothing in God's kingdom unless it is done in love.

Knowing Jesus

"I'm not going to get into the white house tomorrow because I walk up to the gate and tell everybody 'I know George Bush.' But they will let me in if George Bush comes out and says 'I know Paul Washer.' ~Paul Washer

It's about Jesus knowing you, not you knowing Jesus. What good is it if you go around telling people that you are a Christian and that you accepted Jesus into your heart? What if, instead, we go around telling people that we are sinners and that Jesus yet chose to love us, even to the point of death, and that he is willing to do the same for everyone? Remember that it will all come down to nothing if you get to heaven some day and God says 'I never knew you, depart from me.'

It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. ~Philippians 1:20 (ESV)
 

It's hard to act like Christians around other people, especially non-believers. It's even harder to act like Jesus around them. And yet, God asks us to profess Him in such a way that others will mistake us for Jesus. Why then is it so hard? Don't we naturally talk about that which is most important to us? By talking about other things or even by neglecting conversation with others altogether shows them that what is most important to us really has nothing to do with them. It shows that we don't care for anything or anyone but ourselves. The most likely reason Jesus is absent in our outward character is because we don't know Him well enough personally. Or maybe you feel like you have a strong connection with Him and you speak with Him on a daily basis but somehow lack the strength to talk about Him at work. That just shows how much more time you should be putting into your relationship with Jesus. There is no standard of time for prayer and nobody but you and Him will know how sincerely and how often you worship. Let's all commit this week to seeking Him more and more until it's all we talk about!

Ordered Abandon

This Post is a Quote by Aaron Gillespie

(save the photos)

In worship a lot of times, we get confused with the order. We get wrapped up in what our church is doing, and we forget that if we worship God first, I believe that's where our hope is found, and that's where our victory is found. If you look at The Lord's Prayer, it doesn't say "give us this day our daily bread" first, it says "Our Father who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name." Holy be His Name. His Kingdom come, His will be done.

Order is an important thing in our Christian walks, and I believe we miss that a lot when we ask God for things and ask God to take us places and do things for us, whether it is financial, physical or motivational. People do that before looking at the reality of Scripture and Who God is. He is so massive and so Holy. We need to give Him praise. For me, that's what worship is about. It is our strongest ally. It is our strongest question asker. It is our strongest defense against the enemy.

A lot of times, we look at worship in just a congregational setting and we forget that worship is something that is in prayer, in life, that we live. I was writing a song a few years ago with Paul Baloche. He told me that when you are writing a worship song, you are giving them a vocabulary of order. It is the first thing they are doing in a service. It is a sacred time.

I have a friend I used to tour with, and he would also quote John 8:12 about how whoever follows Jesus will never walk in darkness, but have the Light of life. It is interesting to think about how we walk in darkness unless we've had the Light of Christ in our lives. The "light of life" is a beautiful way to say that. It's really easy to take our salvation or personal journey with Christ and turn it into something inward. In Psalm 106 the writer says "We were saved for Your glory to make Your name known." It's not about us. It draws us to Christ. I love the idea of making Jesus famous. That's our whole meaning. We need to focus on that more, and we'll have a much fuller life.

The Great Thaumaturge

How can you get run over by a semi truck and not be physically altered--changed? It is not possible, as far as I know. In the same way, God (unfathomably bigger than a semi) has changed many of us, altering our spiritual bodies. So why do so many Christians act like it never happened? We claim to know God, but in our personal lives we are not showing that we have truly changed from the rest of the world. Getting "run over" by God is what killed our old lives and it's what allows us to die to self, and yet we still manage to hold onto the things of our past. How can it be so easy to forget something so big happening in our lives? This has always been somewhat of a mystery to me.

"Everyone wants to see heaven but no one wants to say goodbye/Everyone wants to see heaven but no one wants to die/Can’t explain this feeling there’s a void inside/Can’t escape this feeling how can I deny/I hear voices in my head/Choices, I can’t contend/I hear voices and they all know your name/& they all know your name/Trapped inside a cell that I built myself/Felt so very empty cold dark and lost/Everyone wants to (know) God but they’re afraid of what they’ll find/Everybody wants to know God but they want to live like he died/Can’t explain this feeling there’s a void inside/When the spirit moves you how can you deny" ~'Hearing Voices' by Anberlin (Christian rock band)

God is a worker of miracles. So considering that miracles happen every day, even in ways we will never know, we should have dozens of testimonies by now of the things He has done for us and for others. Most people are blind to the fact that God actually moves still today just as readily and steadily as He did two-thousand plus years ago. The Spirit of God is active, and if you are willingly seeking Him, you will begin to see His workings all around you. I think that, in this way, God moves in peoples' hearts the most when He performs miracles for them that cannot be explained or effectively relayed to others. He is a God of personal relationships, everlasting love, and holy addiction. Seek Him out--I challenge you--and find for yourself that the salvation He used to change you is the same salvation He has in store for everyone, and that confidence can be a complete joy and perfect testimony in any situation.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. ~Psalm 51:12 (NLT)

Operation Crossroads

The safest place to be is always where God leads you, regardless of how dangerous it might seem.

In Numbers chapter 14, the people of Israel rebel against Moses. The entire encampment of exiles wants to go their own way and disregard the Lord. They want to stone Moses and find a new leader, but instead of backing down, Moses knew that he had to stand for the Lord and for what was right, even though it looked pretty grim. God had put Moses in a leadership position and Moses had to stay his ground. God delivered him from the people, and even gave him two other faithful servants who stood with him: Caleb and Joshua.

In the same way that God called Moses to stand for what was right, He calls us to find our strength and courage in Him when we come to a cross-roads in life. And there are cross-roads every day. Questions come up like "should I take the time to read the Bible this morning, or am I too tired?" "Should I intercede on that conversation at work about how people view church, or should I just not get involved and affiliate myself with something that could harm my reputation?" "Should I go somewhere that will be physically dangerous and taxing for the sake of spreading the Gospel?" These kinds of questions range in weight and change between people. I doubt I'll ever have to stand up in front of thousands of people who want to stone me and tell them that they should obey God, but I might encounter a different cross-roads where I will have to do the hard thing. So where does my courage come from, and will I be ready to do what it takes?

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. ~Joshua 1:9 (ESV)

Another thing that God calls us to do every day is to do good works. We are to look for ways to help others and the put our efforts into things that will glorify God. He has, in fact, set up these good works for us ahead of time, so He every day, He is "waiting to see" if we will do them. When we deny the chance to do a good work, we are disregarding God's command to be strong and courageous for Him.

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. ~Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)

Life In 3D

We need to separate in our minds the prospect of being miserable and going through suffering, because they are two very different things. Suffering for Christ always has a purpose, while every other kind of temporary pain and sorrow you will come across in this life will only follow you to the grave.

"God is a good God. He created life, and He wants us to live that life to the fullest. There's nothing in the Bible that suggests God doesn't want you to enjoy anything....The way people talk about Christianity, you'd think there was a verse where Jesus says,'If you follow Me, you must be miserable forever, hate everything, and drag others down with you.' While He does call us to some difficult things, a miserable eternity is not one of them." ~Trip Lee

You can be completely joyful, happy and satisfied in knowing and following Christ, unlike popular opinion. I think that most people see Christianity as a commitment to the boring, do-good, "Mommy's Kid" lifestyle, but only because they have never experienced the kind of joy that you can find in being in a relationship with Jesus.

"[God is] not trying to block our joy and leave us in the dark. He intends to enhance our joy, to give us fullness of joy. He wants us to enjoy life as it was meant to be enjoyed." ~Trip Lee

To the unbelievers: if there is even the possibility of finding joy in knowing Jesus and being confident in your final destination, wouldn't it be worth it? Trust me when I say that the joy the world offers is not even comparable to the joy of Christ, regardless of whether or not you believe in Him. Life without God can seem good sometimes, like watching a movie on Netflix, but the life God offers is much better. God offers 3D, High Definition, Big Screen Motion Pictures!

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. ~Romans 15:13 (ESV)

To the believer: following worldly passions always leads to nowhere. Look for the joy that God offers in all areas of your life, and ask Him to enhance it in every way possible, conveying it to others along the way.

"God's revelatory manifestation of Himself in creation, in providence, in Scripture, and pre-eminently in the face of His Son, Jesus Christ, is designed to evoke within the breathtaking delight and incomparable joy of which God alone is worthy. Beauty is that in God which makes Him eminently desirable and attractive and quickens in the soul a realization that it was made for a different world." ~Sam Storms