Worship

     Every Christian is called to a life of worship.  We may even attend two or three worship services a week.  Most of us we are in the pews week in and week out , we sing hyms, we participate in prayer, we listen to the sermon and we go home. For us our weekly duty to worship is over.
     For many of us worship is an activity that we have to do, something that we know that God has charged us with, but it is an  experience that never makes it beyond our ears, never makes it to our brains much less our hearts. We sit in our pew, the frozen chosen , daring anyone to bless us.  Heaven forbid that we should ever engage in worship.
      God has called us to an extravagant worship experiences. We are called to an intimate experience between us and the Lord of all creation. If anything, worship should be joyful. Worship should even at times be a little undignified. We should laugh, we should weep, we should dance and sing.
     In her worship of God, Hannah was accused of being a little crazy. King David worshiped the Lord by dancing before the Arc of the Covenant, he was considered a fool by his wife Michol. On the day of Pentecost the disciples were accused of being drunk on new wine and it wasn’t even nine in the morning.
     What is the most that can be said about your worship? Do you raise holy hands? Do you weep for joy ? Or are you too concerned with what other people will say or think? We all need to practice a little Undignified Worship.
Shout joyfully to God, all the Earth, sing the glory of His name: Make his praise glorious. All the Earth will worship You, and will sing praises to You: they will sing Praises to Your name.      Psalm 66:1-2, 4

Handle with Care

     At the start of every academic year, in the basement of the old Gaston Ave. Baptist Church, students of the Criswell College are introduced and welcomed to the college.  Sitting in that auditorium your eyes are drawn inexorable towards the plaque that borders the stage. Generation of young preachers have read the words on this plaque and taken them as their own, taken them as an admonition to shape their ministries.
      Paul penned these words to his young protégée Timothy. Timothy was facing the challenge of his young life. Shortly, Timothy would be taking on the congregation of the Church at Ephesus. Paul’s advice was not only for Timothy, it was not even for the preachers who would follow him, but for every believer who would  ever handle the Word of God . “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)”   
     At the time that Paul was writing these words, there were already those in the first century who were distorting the words of God to their own benefit. The Judaizers and Gnostics had infiltrated the church adding to or even substituting their own teachings for the Word of God. These men sought to lead the believers of the time astray. To this day there are those who stretch the Word till it is no longer identifiable as the Word of God. There are others who use scriptures twisting the meaning in order to justify their way of life, a lifestyle that God had already condemned.
     Paul’s words are not for them though, he left his words for us. He left them as a sacred trust. We must make sure that we do not distort the Word of God or read into it our own meaning. Every Pastor, laymen, and believer has the duty to make sure that the Word of God  is handled correctly. We need to handle the Word of God as a Master Craftsman and a workman will be known by his work.  Be proud.

“The Bible is the straight stick of truth by which all things must be measured.” - D. L. Moody

Prayer

     There are times when God gives us a command, through his word or from another means of revelation.  Christians however, more often than not take these commands as suggestions. They think that they can just take it or leave it.

      The Ten Commandments have been reduced to the ten recommendations. It is sin for us to ignore the word of God. James tells us that whoever knows what is good to do and does not do it is guilty of sin. So, for the growing Christian, we can ill afford to be so cavalier about the word of God. We can not ignore what God is telling us.  

     So when scripture tells us that our main function as a church is to be a house of prayer it would be good to listen. One of the greatest areas of neglect in any church is prayer. Either we think that it is not important to the workings of the church, or we think it is too hard. “Prayer is for the Pastor”, we say. And we lump it in along with the other things that we relegate to the ministers of the church like evangelism and bible study.

     But prayer is the most important thing that we can learn to do. The disciples did not ask Jesus to teach them to cast out demons, how to heal the sick, the asked; Lord teach us to pray. It was so important that Jesus gave us a model to base our prayers on.   

     We complain that we never see God answer our prayers. We never see God at work in our lives but we refuse to do the one thing that would insure that we get to see Him at work. It is past time for us to do what we are told. Either we take God at his word, drop to our knees, and earnestly seek His face, or close the book and return it to the dust on the book shelf.

What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer! O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. - Oh what a friend we have in Jesus.

Wait till your Father Gets Home

    Growing up it seemed as if I was always in some kind of trouble. Someone was always on my case, if it was not my parents it was my teachers. Even my girlfriend bemoaned some of the things that I was doing and the people I was hanging out with. “They are not a good influence on you!”  I heard that more times than I can count. (Secretly I wonder how many times that statement was said about me.) But still I hung out with those nare-do-wells.
    I always wondered why I was always in trouble. They were my friends. We were just hanging out, just having fun. We just seemed to gravitate towards doing stupid things; Skipping school, smoking, speeding down the back country roads. I wasn’t that bad of a kid. At least I didn’t think that I was. But I was influenced by the people that I chose to be with.
      It was not until I became a Christian years later that it would become clear. The
people that we choose to surround ourselves can either build us up or knock us down. We surround ourselves with unbelievers, or those who are not serious about their faith, and they can dull our spiritual edge.  “We do whatever seems right in our own eyes”. (Judg21:25)
    On the other hand, when we fellowship with other believers, if we surround ourselves with other strong believers, we are built up. “As Iron sharpens Iron, so one man sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17) Our edge is honed to a keen sharp edge.  

     People can edify us or they can be a stumbling block. They can make us trip or pick us up. But we have to watch what kind of person that we are. We have to watch how we influence others as well; so that we do not become a stumbling block to them. There is however a problem. We have to make sure that we are not causing other to stray away from Gods path for their lives. 

Do not be deceived: "Bad Company corrupts good morals."  1 Corinthians 15:33

Hid in plain sight

     Do you remember those hidden eye posters that were so popular a few years ago? You know those posters that you would look at and see so many beautiful colors but there was no real picture that you could make out. As you got closer and re-adjusted your eyes a hidden picture of an airplane or the statue of liberty would suddenly jump out at you. 

     When those posters first came out I couldn’t get the hang of it. I knew that I was supposed to see something in the poster but no matter how hard I tried all that I could see was a bunch of random colors. My sister would say, “Try crossing your eyes!” “Come at it at an angle!”  No matter what I did. Nothing!  One day everything came clear, I could look beyond the foreground and I caught a glimpse of something beneath. Voila, there it was the Starship Enterprise flying past the Moon of Vulcan.     

     When I was in the sixth grade we had a reading marathon. Each of the kids in my class would sign people up to sponsor them for the amount of books that they would read during the contest. While I was signing people up, one of the men that I talked to said that he would donate five dollars if I read the Bible. We settled for the five dollars if I just read the New Testament. 

     When it was time to collect the donations I went back to the man to pick up the five dollars. I had read the whole New Testament and wanted to collect my prize for that huge labor. When I reached his door he asked me two questions. With a squint in his eye he asked skeptically, did you read the whole New Testament? Yes I said, “The whole thing.”  Well, he reflected,” did you understand it?”  Not really knowing where he was going with the question I replied, “Sure.” Almost at once he asked, “No, did you understand the underlying meaning of what you read.”  Not as sure as I was the first time he asked I replied, “I guess so.” 

     It wasn’t until years late that I would understand what he was driving at. Over the years I had read parts of the New Testament several times. Each time I read it, all that I got out of it was nice stories and ethical points. I concluded that the Bible was just a nice book that could help us to get along with other people.

     After my conversion, after I had come to Christ, I started reading the Bible in earnest. I started looking at the Bible in a new way, a way that I had not looked at it before. Slowly I started to see an underlining meaning to the things that I was reading, the meaning that God had meant for us to see and had given us the Holy Spirit so that we could see. Slowly, the picture became clear. Slowly I got a glimpse of God’s word...  

As far as it goes

  

     Christians have a way of throwing around words. We talk as if we have all the faith in the world and yet at the same time we live as if we have so little faith.  The disciples were asked over and over by Jesus,” have you so little faith.” Their words said that they had faith but their actions told another story. 

     We all know the story, at the wedding at Cana (John 2) the hosts of the wedding miscalculated the amount of wine needed for the week long celebration. In the Middle Eastern world, this was a slip that there was no recovering from. They had breached the rules of hospitality. As long as they had guests, they were under the obligation to care for them and that included having enough wine to last through out the festivities. This newlywed couple faced certain ridicule and years of stories told about their lapse of hospitality.

    Mary stepped in to help out the couple. Mary asked Jesus for help, and though it was not the appointed time for his ministry he turned the washing water into the best wine that ever existed. Although the miracle at Cana is important to Christians showing  the compassion that the Lord has for humans there are five little words that point to heart of  our faith.

     “What ever he says, do. “ Mary’s instructions to the waiters showed the great faith that she had in her son. How many Christians have this kind of faith in our risen Lord?  We read the words of God picking the things that we are going to follow. These things we can trust Jesus with, but these things we can’t.  Faith has to be an absolute. Faith is not something that we choose to exercise or not. Choose to switch on or off.

     The same words spoken to the disciples can be said to us as well,” Do you have so little faith“.  We feel lonely because we do not have faith that God will “never leave us or forsake us.”(Hebrews 13:5)  We fear that we will not have enough food or fear that we will not have enough to cover all of our bills because we do not believe that “He will provide all our needs according to his riches.” (Philippians 4:19) We fear that we will lose our salvation even though He has said that “those who come to him he will by no means turn away.” (John 6:37)

      Sometimes it is hard to have faith. We go through things that shake us to the core of our beliefs, but we are still called to have the faith of a child. A child trusts absolutely. Children trust that everything will be alright, that their parents will provide everything that they need materially as well as emotionally. We have to trust that God has our best interest at heart and that even in the storms of life he has us. Faith is a muscle that has to be developed; the more we exercise our faith the stronger it gets, but we have to remember what Mary said,” Whatever he says, do.”    

Quiet!

     On any given Sunday churches across the country are filled with the faithful. We come in we sing, we mouth prayers, follow along with the Pastors sermon, we may even jot down a few notes.  Just a few minutes after we leave the church we are hard pressed to remember what the sermon was about, or the songs that we sang during the service.  We honor God with our lips but our hearts are far from God. (Matthew 15:8) 

     We do not engage in worship. We show up but never quite tune in. We make a lot of noise, and everybody knows that we were there so that we get credit for showing up, but we are not really there to worship.  

     God says in Amos 5:23 “I don’t want your noise!”  I don’t want your songs, no music and no words.  God wants people who worship with their whole hearts. God says I don’t need your offerings or your sacrifices.  He wants you, not just part of you, all of you.  In spirit and in truth. (John 4:24)  He would rather you not show up at all than to show up and offer half hearted worship. Worship is not an obligation that we have to pay to God; it is a privilege that we should long for, the opportunity to sit at the Masters feet.  The opportunity for true worship.     

Are we there yet?

These days it is easier than ever to travel. Getting from place to place is a snap with some of the new technology. With a GPS it is only a matter of punching in the address that you want to get to and the Tom-tom or Garmin sitting on your dashboard will give you turn by turn directions to get you to where you are going. Even if you take a wrong turn it will re-calibrate your location and get you back on the right path.

     It wasn’t too long ago that if you needed to get somewhere you had to rely on other people’s directions, hoping that they know what they’re talking about, or on your own sense of direction, all the while having our wives and girlfriend pleading for us to stop and get directions.

     While the English Pastor F.B. Meyer was traveling to Glasgow Scotland he had the opportunity to talk with the Ship’s Captain. Meyer asked the Captain how it was that he was able to navigate the channel while avoiding the sandbars and underwater obstacles. Pointing of into the distance the Captain asked Meyer, “Do you see those three lights?” “When each of those lights is lined up together you know that you are in the center of the channel and you’re safe from any hazard.”

     Even as easy as it is for us to travel today we can still have trouble navigating our spiritual lives. If we follow other people’s examples, go with the consensus, we can risk running into trouble. (The blind leading the blind.) If we go with our gut, doing like the Israelites did, by doing what was right in our own heart; we may just need to ask for directions.

   If we want to be obedient, navigating in the center of God’s will, we may need to realign our spiritual lives a bit. We need to line our lives up with God’s word, Prayer, and Godly advice from other believers.  If we can line up our lives along those lines we can avoid those hidden things that can hang us up and threaten to sink us in our spiritual lives. Even if we get off track these three will get us back to where we need to be.