I’ve been reading this Summer… a lot.  The girls have to read at least 30 minutes per day, and I have been reading with them.  I have also been staying up with Eric as he works into the wee hours of the morning, and most often I read then as well.  Needless to say I’ve read quite a few books in the past 2 months.

But something I read tonight in one of these books struck a chord with me, and I thought I’d share it.  It is in response to a question about how a place that the characters are visiting is making them feel – giving them a completeness, a wholeness, a rightness to the world that they have never known.

“There is a love here that is rarely found on earth.  Perhaps in families, certainly between a husband and wife on occasion, but almost never in the world at large.  Love governs everything here.  Everything.  Love and the continually practiced presence of the Most High.

“Yeseph explained it once to me.  He said that the Most High is indeed ever-present with his creation, with us.  But we often lose sight of him – we fall away from him unless we practice his presence.  By that he meant we must keep him with us in our thoughts and deeds, lest we forget.

“For it is not the One who forgets us, but we forget him.  It is how we are made, a defect perhaps, but one that makes belief necessary.  And belief is the Most High’s greatest gift.  So even there he has rescued us.”

“Rescues us from ourselves.  I see.  Is it love that transforms even the common things – the sunrise yonder, for one – into such works of beauty?  Is it love that makes me feel as if all my life until now was a life lived in shadow?”

“Oh, yes!  Love, and the knowledge of the Most High”

“But I know very little of the Most High.  How can it be that I feel as I do?”

“In your heart of hearts you know him.  Durwin used to say that all men were born with the knowledge of the Most High in their hearts.  The trick is to spend more time remembering, and less time forgetting what we already know.”

“From now on I will spend all my time remembering.”

This is an excerpt from “The Sword and the Flame” by Stephen Lawhead.  It’s the third book in the Dragon King Trilogy.

I think that it is quite applicable to our lives as well.

We do often lose sight of God in the busyness of our day-to-day lives.  We do often forget Him as we go along through life.  The trick, it seems, is to spend more time remembering.

How is your memory today?

Recent events have brought a thought to my mind…

…Namely the murder of a doctor while he was attending church…

…and a simple verse in the Bible.

“By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:35

It seems that The Church has gotten a little off of the narrow path as of late (and by late I mean over the past 1500 years or so).  We are supposed to love one another.  We are supposed to love those whom God has created – even if we don’t like the sin that they are committing.

There is another verse that these events brought to mind…

“Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written,
“VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,” says the Lord.”  Romans 12:19

… which is at the end of a passage on how we are to serve one another.  I highly recommend reading through Romans 12 if you have the time – if only for the reminder of how we are to treat one another within the body of Christ.

Then, of course, there is that short little verse in Exodus 20:13 (and Deuternonomy 5:17) which has just 4 little words:

Thou Shalt Not Kill.

Um… yeah.

So far I’ve been staying pretty high-level, common knowledge with these references, and yet so much of the Church at large seems to forget that they exist!  Why is God so often used as an excuse to show cruelty?  Just a few examples:

• The Crusades (it was really all about the wealth of the area… Europeans had never seen anything like Byzantium!)
• Hitler’s oppression of the Jews (and let’s face it, he’s not the only one!  Many “Christians” show heavy anti-symatism)
• the Religious Right using their bibles to bash anyone who gets in their way.
• The Pharisees & Sadducees who were the earthly force God used to hang Jesus on the cross… and who then persecuted His followers, forcing them to the ends of the known earth.

I said it was just a few examples… that list could go on and on and on.  We have all experienced it – someone using God or their faith as an excuse to put someone else down.  I daresay we have even done it once or twice ourselves.

But what does Jesus call us to?  Does he tell us to go out and sin against God in His name?  Does He send us out to steal, kill and destroy?  It seems to me that description was reserved for a different kind of roaring lion.

No, He called us to love.  To build relationships with those that we meet on a day to day basis, to share Jesus with them – and occasionally to use words.

Folks, our actions should show them Jesus!  We should be living our lives in such a way that people see HIM when they look at us.  We are called to be salt and light to a lost and dying world – something that is hard to do when our lives are no different than theirs, and is especially hard when we are behaving with less self control or morality.

Here’s a crazy thought…

What if we took the energy that we normally would use to cut down others or vent our frustrations and instead spent it on reaching out in love to a lost and dying world?

What if we focused our attention on taking a meal to the neighbor who lost a loved one or who recently had a child or lost their job?

What if we offered to watch the kids down the street for an afternoon or evening so their mom could have some down time or go out on a date with her husband?

What if we baked a double or triple batch of cookies and took the time to walk around the neighborhood and share the extras with those who live around us?

What if the next time we wanted to say something negative or derogatory about someone we reigned in our tongue and prayed for them instead?

What if instead of watching 3 hours of TV with your kids tonight, you played a game with them?  Or spent 10 minutes each night memorizing a scripture verse as a family?

What if we allowed the love that is God so fill our lives that it overflowed into everything that we did?

Somehow I think that if The Church would focus on Love, we could change the world.

They will know us by our love and be changed, or they will see us through our hate and turn away.

01-we-are-one-in-the-spirit-_-by-our-love

One last reminder… revival starts in the heart – yours and mine.

I think I need to go bake some cookies.

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Once again, Tam is inspiring a blog post.  Stop it!  Ha!  Just kidding.  I hope you are enjoying the slightly more prolific me that has taken over this week (who am I kidding… today!)

First – go read this post – then come back here and see where it got me.

Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

Take your time.

This window will stay open for you, patiently waiting for your return.

You back?  Good.  Let’s dig in.

The big question?

WHAT IS WORSHIP?

Yep.  That is the question I have for all of us.  What does the word make you think of?  How does it affect (or effect) your life?

Why do I ask this?  Because it needs to affect your life.  I needs to be the cause of the effect of God on your life.  It needs to be in the air that you breathe, the food that you eat.  In the actions and reactions of your day.

Why?

Because the painful truth is that we all worship something every second of every minute of every day.  Yep.  We are creatures that were created to worship (notice I didn’t say “for worship” – we don’t deserve to be worshiped!)

What are you worshiping today?

• yourself
• your spouse
• your kids
• your job
• your car
• your computer/online life
• your wii/nintendo/x-box
• etc
• etc
• etc

The list of the things that we worship goes on and on and on and on.  Truth is, we have idols, and lots of them.  Just because they aren’t carved out of wood or stone and made to look like a little person or animal doesn’t make them any less of an idol.  The idols we worship in place of God are the things to which we devote our time, energy and money.

And trust me when I tell you that I’m talking to myself as much as anyone else!  My flesh considers itself a demi-god.  Worthy of worship.  As having a worth-ship, a high value.  Others should sacrifice for me, right?  For my wants and needs and desires!

NOT!

My kids… yep, they are little gods in their eyes too.  Humanity is so full of itself!  Look at any 2 year old, and you will see a creature that seeks to fulfill it’s own desires at (almost) every turn.  As a mom, I can easily make them into idols too… catering to their wishes and sacrificing to them.  Yes, I should sacrifice for them, but not to them.

So, back to our question.  What is worship?

It is the act of sacrificing time, money, energy and desire for something that we have deemed valuable enough to be worth it.  That’s one way of putting it.  There are others too, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

So, are you worshiping the right thing?  The right Being?

Are you devoting your time, money, energy and desire to God, or creator?  Or are you sacrificing those things that belong to Him in preference of something else?

Is He worthy of your life?  After all, He gave His for you.

I was blog visiting this morning, and after commenting on David’s blog, I thought I’d share the comments here for you as well.

His question was on love, and what it is to you.  Here is my (slightly added to) reply…

Love… wow.

Friendship has taught me that we need others in our lives. They challenge us, they help us experience the world around us in new and different ways. A true friend is there beside you to help you through the good time and the bad, and something that should be cherished. Friendship has taught me how to bear one another’s burdens. To lift up those around me in prayer, to share the joys and pains, to laugh and to cry for things that aren’t “mine” and truly experience them through another.  It has taught me about brotherly love, and has helped me to realize that God made us for community.  We need each other, just as we need that friend that is closer than a brother.

Marriage taught me how to love deeply – for better or worse, in good times and bad. It begins with a desire for that person to be your everything (at times) and grows into the realization that no one but God can (or should) be your everything. But that other person IS your other half in many ways. They are there beside you, helping you, nurturing you, growing with you. Love will continue to grow and deepen – despite hurts, despite pain, love can and will endure. It will heal. And it will fill you up and bring such joy in the midst of the trials of life. Marriage has taught me about true, deep commitment. And reminds me not to take Eric (or God) for granted. It has taught me about how Jesus loves the church, the Bride of Christ.

Parenthood has taught me more about God’s love than anything else in my life. To have a child is to send your heart out walking around in the world each day. Their simply being alive makes you love them. When they show love in return, it is a huge blessing. When they attempt to withdraw that love it is painful, but you still love them, and hope that by continuing to love them, they will come around again. Witnessing their achievements fills you up inside, seeing their hurts breaks your heart. Parenthood had taught me about how God loves us, and reminds me that even when I choose to ignore Him, He still loves me and is patiently waiting for me to come back home. He is always waiting for us, always loving us.   He will never leave us or forsake us.  NEVER.

This is love, that you would lay down your life for a friend… or an enemy. That is the love of God, that He would sacrifice His only Son so that EVERYONE could be saved. He died not only for those of us who call Him Lord, but for those that despise and curse Him, that they could one day come to love Him.

THAT is amazing love.

What about you?  What does Love mean to you?

This looks to be a very cool week… we are studying God! Day one is about the One, True God.

Wow…

We read through King Jehoshaphat’s cry to God for Israel in 2 Chronicles 20, Job’s conversation with God in Job 40 & 42, and we touched on Elijah’s day taunting the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18:36-39.

Do you realize what a powerful God we serve? He created the heavens and the earth… He can cause fire to rain down on an alter that has been doused with gallons and gallons of water and left to soak it in – and consume the water as well! He controls the animals, He controls the winds and the waves, He… well, He chose to give us free will. He could just as easily control every aspect of our lives by force just as He controls the elements, but instead He chose to let us have control of our lives.

Read through Job… The man was tortured by satan repeatedly – for no reason other than that he loved God! Yet, what was his reaction? He still chose to love God. Did he blame God? No. Did he choose to curse God – even when everyone around him told him to? No. He knew that God had a purpose for everything that was happening to him. Was he dissatisfied? Oh yeah. Did he question God? You’d better believe it! But… God didn’t come crashing down on him and curse him for questioning. God did come down. God did speak with him. God did reveal Himself to Job in a powerful way. And what did Job do then? He repented. He worshiped God.

Would you hold up that long? We all hope we would. I can’t imagine what he went through – to lose all of his children in one day. Who cares about the house & money – to lose your children! And not just one, but every child you had. All at once! And the only one left to comfort you was so torn up in their grief that they not only blamed you somehow, but told you to curse God and die! On top of that grief to have every worldly possession destroyed or taken away at the same time… He had nothing left BUT God. No, his “friends” don’t count. They were also blaming him – he must have done something to deserve this! Yes, God spoke the them too. He wasn’t as gracious to them…

Our culture tries very hard to make God into something that you can place into a little box and carry with you throughout your day. A little good luck charm to keep you safe, a little genie in a bottle to grant all your wishes. Do you really want to serve a God like that? Can you serve a God like that? That sounds to me like a pet that serves YOU!

No, Jehovah is not a genie in a bottle. Yahweh is not a good luck charm. Just because we call Him Emmanuel – God with us – does not mean that he can fit into our pocket to be our own personal protector. It’s ludicrous. We are talking about a being that was never created… a being that has always been. A being that IS always - He exists outside of time and space! We are talking about a being that was able to create this planet that perfectly sustains us. He created every plant that lives on it. He created every life form that thrives on land, in the water or in the air. He created US. He created every fiber of our beings, He knows the exact number of hairs that are growing out of our heads at every moment of our lives – and He knows the exact number that came out in the shower this morning! He knows how many skin cells we have still connected to our bodies, as well as how many are floating around in our homes disguised as dust.

You can’t put Someone that powerful in a box to be rubbed occasionally when you want your wishes to come true.

Yet, that is just what we try to do. We try to make God into something that He is not, simply because we are afraid to grasp who and what He really is. Not that we will ever fully grasp Who He is – our minds aren’t up to the task – but we are too afraid to even try to truly see His Majesty and Power.

We are afraid to be humbled.

We, as humans (you know, the top of the everything-on-the-planet chain) like to be the ones in control. We are, after all, made in His image! We were told to take care of everything else that was created! Yeah – great job we are doing there too… but that’s another topic entirely…

We don’t like to look to someone else to take care of us or to tell us what to do. We don’t like to admit that we aren’t enough. But God is! That’s the beautiful thing! HE IS ABLE! He created each of us, He knows us better than anyone else ever could!.  He gave us the free will to choose to love Him, or not. But He wants us to love Him. He wants us to realize our great need for Him and turn our lives over to Him. Remember that? He controls everything on this rock except us… but He is waiting for us to realize that we can’t do it without Him. He is waiting for us to look to Him to be our Lord, our Master and our Saviour.

Job realized Who God is… and he confessed. He begged forgiveness of the Almighty for questioning Him. Elijah realized Who God is when he taunted the false prophets. He prayed expectantly that God would reveal Himself in such a powerful way that no one could doubt His power! Elijah knew God well enough to not be afraid to stand up for God’s character. He knew God well enough to know that God would provide the fire that was needed – even under the most impossible circumstances.  He also knew that God would send the rain that the land so desperately needed.

What about Jehoshaphat? He was the king of Israel at a time when they were being attacked. He knew God well enough to know that the first thing they needed to do was to cry out to God! The news of the impending attack came and Good Ol’ Jo went to the temple! He went straight to God and cried out for deliverance! He commanded the priests to cry out to God – he called for all of Judah and Jerusalem to gather together and cry out to God. To someone who doesn’t know God, this looks to be a bad military strategy… Old Jo should have been preparing the troops for battle! Ah, but he was… he was reminding his people who was really in control. God was their true King. He would deliver them from the hands of their enemies!

And you know what? They never even had to fight. They worshiped our wonderful Saviour, and God took care of the battle.

You see, when we give the control of our lives over to God, we don’t need a genie in a bottle to grant our wishes! We don’t need to have a good luck charm in our pocket! We have the Holy Spirit of God living inside us! He is able to bring about His will better than any mere human could ever dream of.

Will there be times when our lives may be in danger? Absolutely. The word “martyr” is closely aligned with christianity for a reason – in fact, it was someone’s name. We may be called to stand up for the God of the Universe, and it may be the last thing we ever do. If that is the path that God has chosen for me though, I pray that I will have the faith and the courage to take that final stand proclaiming His glory for all the world to see and trust that He will use it to expand His kingdom.

I am guilty of trying to carry around a “God in a box” myself. It is so easy to get caught up in our everyday lives – the trials, the struggles and the joys – and forget that God created me for a purpose, and He has a plan for my life. It is so easy to forget to take the time each day to spend with Him – to build that relationship with Him, to come to know Him so well that I will be able to take any stand for Him that He calls me to.

We need to give Him that time!

After all, how willing will we be to take a stand for someone that is only an acquaintance? Someone that we know because of what someone else had told us about them? But if you KNOW someone – you know that you know that you know them – you will have the courage to stand for what is right. You will have the faith to believe that God will come through – one way or another – and that He will be magnified through your circumstances.

That is my prayer for all of God’s people. For myself, my family, my friends, my church family… it is my prayer for you! I pray that we will come to know God as fully as we are able so that our lives are turned back over to Him to control, and that we will walk out our faith in our daily lives to such a degree that His love and grace and mercy will overflow out of our lives and pour out into the lives of everyone who comes into contact with us. That they would not come into contact with us, but with the Creator of the Universe! That we would be the hands and feet and arms and legs and eyes and ears and voice of Jesus reaching out, going out and sending out into a world that needs Him so desperately.

But to do that, first we need to become intimately acquainted with our Creator. We need to know Him.

So, I’m starting a new bible study online tomorrow using the new Pure Praise book. If you want to join in, head over to TheWorshipCommunity.com for the details.

Being a good student (yes, it does occasionally happen!) I decided to read a bit of it tonight to get my thoughts heading in the right direction – basically skimming the first chapter before diving in.

But I got stuck.

I came upon a portion of day 3 that sent me into Amos… and as I was reading the passage it sent me to, I noticed that there was a coupe of verses that had been underlined at some point in the past… so I re-read them (after all, that’s why we underline them, right?)

Then I went back and read the chapter… chapter 5 of Amos, to be more exact. This is one of those times in Israel’s history that God was sending a prophet of judgment to the northern kingdom… but there are a couple of verses that jumped out at me that I wanted to share.

“Thus says the Lord to the house of Israel. Seek Me – inquire for and of Me and require Me as you require food – and you shall live” Amos 5:4

“Seek the Lord – inquire for and of Him and require Him – and you shall live.” 5:6a

“Seek – inquire for and require – good ans not evil that you may live, and so the Lord, God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. 15 Hate the evil and love the good and establish justice in the court of the city’s gate. It may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.” Amos 5:14-15

Are we seeing a pattern here? We are to Seek God – and I loved the insert added into the Amplified Bible – “Inquire for and of Me and require Me as you require food” (emphasis mine) that is what it means to truly seek God. Our souls need Him the way that our bodies need food. He is our nourishment! If we do not require the food that He offers, we will slowly whither away, we will become malnourished. this is not a good thing!

Trust me, there is a reason that these verses jumped out at me. I have been caught up in the business of life and have not taken that time. I have been starving! My spirit is requiring God as my body requires food, yet I have been ignoring those hunger pains.

Then the study sent me over to Psalm 51… and the following jumped off the page.

“O Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. For You delight not in sacrifice, or else I would give it. You find no pleasure in burnt offering. My sacrifice – the sacrifice acceptable to God – is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart [broken down with sorrow for sin and humbly and thoroughly penitent] such, O God, You will not despise.” Ps. 51:15-17

Yes, this is an oft-quoted passage, but again, I love the description… a heart that is broken down with sorrow for sin and humbly and thoroughly penitent. When was the last time you were penitent? Does our modern society even know what it means? I decided to look it up.

pen-i-tent:
–adjective

---

Origin:
1325–75; ME < ML pēnitent-, L paenitent- (s. of paenitēns), prp. of paenitēre to regret; r. ME penaunt < AF; see penance

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

So, a penitent person is contrite., they are expressing sorrow over sin, and “disposed to atonement” – translation please! If you are disposed to atonement, you are open to or inclined towards receiving forgiveness.

So, how do we find ourselves feeling penitent? Is this something that just happens to us as we randomly walk through life? Not usually.

No, in order for our hearts to find themselves humbled and repentant we need to find a reason to recognize that we have sinned. We need to encounter the majesty and glory of a holy God.

If we never see Him – His majesty, His grace, His holiness – we will merely become as self-righteous fools thinking only of how good we are rather than recognizing that WE ARE SINNERS.

Oh, and a self-righteous fool is someone who finds their righteousness within themselves, rather than in God.

So, can you say that? Can you speak – out loud – the words “I am a sinner” and truly mean it? This is a hard thing to do some days! Go ahead, say it. If you cannot recognize that truth, then you cannot truly recognize the grace of God!

The Pharisees did not recognize that either. They were proud of their righteousness! They were proud that they had kept the Law (and added substantially more of their own!) and they weren’t too keen on the fact that Jesus told them that they had to claim to be a sinner.

Are we any better than them?

We need to find a way to truly experience the majesty and awesomeness of God if we want to truly recognize just how lost we are. When we experience the majesty of God – truly experience it – we cannot continue on the former path. We will recognize our weakness, and realize that this thing called life is not something that we can do on our own.

We need God!

We need to be able to cry out “Abba Father” when we fail or are afraid, the same way that our children cry out for us. If we do not know Him, we will not cry out for Him. We need to know the one who introduced Himself as “I AM” – the one who IS always – there is no yesterday, no tomorrow. God is ever-present. He holds our tomorrows in His hands, so there is no reason to fear.

God is majestic, He is holy, and as such He cannot tolerate sin. He is pure! It is for this reason that He had to send a part of Himself – His Son Jesus – to earth to be a sacrifice. We cannot do it on our own – we are not holy. Without the filter of Jesus, God would only see the wretched, filthy rags of our sin clinging to us. Thankfully, Jesus paid the price for our sin on the cross, and when God looks at us through that filter, He sees His perfect, spotless, Holy Son. We can then be accepted into the presence of God.

Praise God!

We now have a direct line of access to the Throne of Grace! We can boldly come before our perfect, majestic God without fear! We can commune with Him, we can talk with Him, we can cry out to Him!

This brings me to the next passage that God put on my heart tonight… Psalm 55.

1 “Listen to my prayer, O God, and hide not yourself from my supplication … (3) I am distracted at the noise of the enemy, because of the oppression and threats of the wicked, for they would cast trouble upon me, and in wrath they persecute me. (4) My heart is grievously pained within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me”

(16)”As for me, I will call upon God and the Lord will save me. (17) evening and morning and at noon will I utter my complaint and moan and sigh, and He will hear my voice. (18) He has redeemed my life in peace from the battle that was against me… (22) But I will trust in, lean on and confidently rely on You [God].”

David knew God. He had that direct line of communication with the Most High God, and he was not afraid to use it! He cried out to God with assurance that God would not only hear him, but that God would answer his cry! Do we come before Him with that same boldness? Do we have that same confidence in our relationship with God that we will come before Him with expectation of what He will do?

We should.

We are surrounded on all sides by an enemy that is distracting. He will do whatever he can to keep us from crying out to God – boldness and assurance or not. He will make us too busy to carve out that time alone with God. He will distract us from the beauty of what God has brought us through in the past by dredging up our past failures – taking our focus off of God and putting it on us. He will pull out any and everything that he can think of to take our eyes off of God.

But what did David do? He cried out to God morning, noon and night! He made his petitions known to a God that could take care of everything – and he knew it.

We need to cry out when we are surrounded by the noise and distractions that come from our enemy. We need to have the confidence in God and in our relationship with Him that He will hear our cry and act upon it.

Yes, God does allow times of trials and testing to come our way, but these times are there to bring us back to God. They also serve to shine out His light to the unbelievers around us. How we react to the trials in our lives will show them the difference that comes from having a relationship with Jesus Christ.

The bible says “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” We must first humble ourselves enough to seek His face. To come face to face with His holiness, so that we can truly see our sin. Once we truly see our sin – recognize it and admit it – then we can begin to understand our need for Him. For His grace and mercy in our lives.

I challenge both of us to carve out that time in our busy schedules to seek Him. To realize our need for Him that is greater than our need for food. We need to feed our spirit with the Word of God, so that we don’t find ourselves so malnourished that when the enemy distracts us, it’s an easy job.

Instead, I want to be a woman that when I wake up, all of hell groans in fear of what God will use me to do that day. I want to be so close to Him that every aspect of my life is lived out in submission to Him, and – most importantly – in worship of Him.

God alone is worthy of worship. We were created to give Him worship. He longs for it, and our hearts yearn to do it! Why do we stand in the way of that connection?

Let’s open up that connection, let’s seek after the One who is worthy of praise and be humbled by His glory – the glory of the Most High. Let’s give Him the praise that is due to Him and Him alone.

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*God works so mysteriously! Thanks to Pastor Chris for letting me borrow some of his points from the sermon today – they helped God get the point that He was making to me through these verses.