Tag: God’s Glory

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Worthwhile Worship

Many churches divide their services into at least two parts, praise and worship as one, the other, the sermon. But, is worship just singing hymns and praise choruses? Might it include preparing my heart the night before for corporate worship with repentance and thanksgiving? Does it encompass entering the sanctuary reverently and joyfully? Giving a word of encouragement to the person God has placed next to me in the pew? Lifting songs to the Lord, with the choir, voicing adoration to Him? Anticipating the reading of the Word with respect? Listening eagerly to my pastor, prayed for often during the prior week, proclaim the message, diligently prepared in the power of the Spirit—with sheer wonder that God accomplishes in each individual heart exactly what He intends? Could leaving the sanctuary with sobriety and joy in my heart—and service to my neighbor in my resolve be an act of worship?

Worship is to be a way of life—formally, privately, in the mundane, in the consequential. Rising up, lying down, cleaning baseboards, teaching school, caring for the incapable, writing for blogs. All to God’s glory. It doesn’t come easily or naturally. We are so earthly-minded. We like ourselves so much. Worship is something intentional and must be practiced. It derives from being “in awe” of something or someone, transfixed—and awe transforms or intensifies our desires and dispositions. Awe focused on things or people is misplaced with exaggerated affections leading to improper attitudes or actions. Putting on Christ, seeking to know Him in all His beauty and magnificence, being consumed with Him will benefit every area of our lives as the overflow causes desires to become aligned with His will, thoughts and actions working toward putting Christ on display, appetites whetted for more of God.

How do we do this? By being in His Word, regularly sitting under sound biblical preaching, focusing on Him before His table, fellowshipping with like-minded others. If we neglect the Word we tend to create our own little comfortable rules for worship. If we really love Him, we will desire to know Him and love Him in the way which pleases Him. Scripture is our originating and final authority for whom God is and how acceptable worship looks.

Colossians 1 always lifts my heart to Him. It concerns the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, in pre-eminent splendor. It was written to demolish the false teaching that Jesus is not God nor sufficient for all we need. Paul is a master at concisely telling us who Jesus is.

Following instructions in how to walk in a manner worthy of our calling as Christ-followers—after telling us we can, with steadfast joy in God’s goodness face all the reversals and downturns of life without chafing, teeth-gritting, or grumbling because of His power, not our own—after telling us we have been given to Christ, the Son of the Father’s love (incredible thought)—Paul wants to assure our hearts regarding the authority undergirding these blessings.

Our hearts, already stirred to worship, are now directed to even higher thoughts. Not to the gifts, but to the giver Himself. If any confusion lingers in the recesses of the readers’ minds, the author zeroes in on exactly who this Son of the Father’s love is. Paul demands attention with our reasoning powers, our spiritual eyes, and points us relentlessly to this Son, the one who bought us back from the slave market of our true moral guilt before God, the One who alone is able to forgive our sins because of His death on our behalf, replacing enemy status for friend.

This Son is the exact image, the exact likeness of the Father, His manifestation in a human body. Not an imperfect image as we are. The exact image. He is God Himself, omnipotent and altogether holy.

He, being uncreated, ranks above all in creation—having created all that is visible and invisible, reigning supreme now and forever. Christ set the universe in motion, but has not left it alone, robotic-like to do its thing, but actively holds every atom, every molecule together, preventing explosion and chaos. He controls earthquakes and floods and every beating heart. For as long as He deems, His hand is upon night turning to day and the continually changing seasons in their cycles. He is God the Son and life exists because He holds it all together.

Paul continues his description. As the head and brain rule the body, Christ is head of His body, the church, guiding it, giving its members dynamic power, the same power which raised Jesus, the firstborn from the dead, the first one who was raised never to die again—unlike those other miraculous raisings in Scripture, those resurrected ones always dying again in time and space. And this forever resurrected Christ has brought all His children to Himself in right relationship and will reconcile all things to Himself on a certain day of His own choosing. Then, Jesus will give us who are in His kingdom, the Father’s love gift, back to the Father and we will live together, perfectly worshipping the triune God forever.

Dear sister, meditate on these things. Awe is transformative. Awe of Him enables us to be thankful for that wayward child, recognizing that it is God alone who does the rescuing. It empowers us to praise God in the middle of that turbulent relationship or fearful diagnosis knowing that God is up to something good in my life because He is good.

Some day every knee will bow before His majesty, some willingly out of love and gratitude, others by force, remaining in rebellion. May we be numbered among the true worshippers. Like Peter and John in Acts 4, may we live and breathe in such a way that others will realize we’ve spent time with Jesus as everything we are and do becomes an act of worship of our King, the Son of the Father’s love.

Worshipping Christ with you,

Cherry

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Kings, Subjects and Faithfulness

Dear Sister,

My Old Testament readings lately have been in the Kings and Chronicles–the recounting of the rise and demise and obituaries of the kings of Judah. It’s easy to think that the longer we walk with the Lord and see His mighty acts and His faithfulness it most certainly ensures that we will be found faithful in the end. Alas, it is not necessarily so…

As I read these stories about the Kings of old my thoughts focus on finishing well. Some started with so much promise, so godly, so obedient, and each time we want the Scriptures to report that this king or this prophet remained faithful to the end, but not always so. There seemed to be that one thing, that one little sin, that one idol that was not torn down completely. I’d rather the report of my life, when I’m dead and gone, state, “She started shaky, but she finished well, all to God’s glory,” not,  “She started well, but her ending crumbled.”

In my Bible Study a while ago, as we broke into small groups, one of my precious sisters, in answer to a question about our greatest fears before God, answered something like, “I’m always concerned I’ll walk away,” and she mentioned someone in her life who had walked away and it frightened her for herself. I have had that same fear. “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love…”, says the old hymn. How often I have sung those words and sensed the dread of them. Then comes the plea, “Take my heart, O, take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.”

It is reassuring and comforting to know that if we are indeed in Christ, true believers, there is no condemnation, but we can still bring shame by our disobedience. We can dishonor our husbands, our children, our friends, our brothers and sisters in the Church. We can bring disgrace upon our once bright testimony and bring untold glory to Satan. Just ask the fallen pastors if they would relish a godly do-over. Would they check their sin in its beginning buds? Would they be more vigilant over their own souls and not just the souls of others? When did they stop consuming the Scriptures for their personal hearts instead of just checking it off a to-do list or to prepare for a sermon or Bible Study? When did that first dishonorable thought refuse to be brought under the Spirit’s control? When did the horror of a particular sin become a thing to cherish in the mind and eventually an action? Rarely, perhaps never, is a grievous sin in a believer who is faithfully walking in love and obedience, a quick thing. It results from a mind and heart continually left unchecked.

Don’t for a minute think that we girls are off the hook because we are not tempted like some pastors or leaders or ordinary men have been tempted because women certainly can fall in like areas also. Adultery, pornography, embezzlement, and the like. But sin is usually more subtle than this. Materialism–just one more unsatisfying item bought. Anger and bitterness–you don’t know what I’ve had to put up with.  Ruining reputations with our tongues–cutting to shreds with our lips those made in His image. Food. Even making idols of good things (children, spouses, grades, jobs, clean houses) so they become our god rather than worshipping our God.

Oh, Father, may my private, inward life match my outward profession. Remind me, as the old Puritan wrote in his prayer, “I have often loved darkness, observed lying vanities, forsaken Thy given mercies, trampled underfoot Thy beloved Son, mocked Thy providences, flattered Thee with my lips, broken Thy covenant. It is of Thy compassion that I am not consumed.” May I hate my sin more than I despise the sin of others, prays my pastor. “Sin is always crouching at the door,” God warns Cain. Peter’s sober admonition is that Satan prowls around like a roaring lion intent on devouring God’s own children. Check that sin. Stop it. Do not allow it to encroach and grow. Wage war against it. That is the battle of the faithful life. Do not fight this war with broken down walls allowing easy entry for the enemy of our souls. Build those walls, not with twigs and sticks and branches but with bricks and mortar and steel, partaking of His ammunition, His building blocks, His means of grace…the Word, prayer, the Lord’s Supper, fellowship with godly people, worship. You must not neglect these or you cannot, will not, stand. You cannot love the world and its things and its friendships and love God at the same time.

We are unable to do this in our own strength. Let God’s Word have its way with you. Pray.  Do not dismiss the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Repent. Hold on to Christ for all you’re worth, and in the clinging, you will discover He is holding you in His strong hands and will not let His very own child go.

“Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.” Look at Jesus daily in His Word and become like Him.

May we finish well, loyal and steadfast to the end of this life, until we are ushered into His presence because of His faithfulness to us. May our epitaphs read, “The faithful God kept her faithful.”

Love,
Cherry