Do I Praise God Or Just Sing Words?

I stayed in Psalms tonight, I was once again inspired by the duo Shane and Shane.  So I read Psalms 145. Holy crap, have you ever read…I mean really read a Psalm. Look at the words involved, the imagery. They knew how to really praise God.  These are verses 4-7: “One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts. (5) I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works. (6) Men shall speak of the might of Your awesome acts, and I will declare Your greatness. (7) They shall utter the memory of Your great goodness, and shall sing of Your righteousness.” Whoa, I don’t know how you worship, except you Shoe because you’re on stage, but clearly I am not putting the effort into that is necessary. After reading this I just don’t think me singing some words counts. I think that in order to give Him the kind of worship He deserves it requires my whole lifestyle. Each day my actions need to show Him how awesome He is to me. This may seem basic and it is but like I said at the beginning, I think Father is taking me back to the basics.

Papa forgive me for not giving credit where it is due. I am incredible awe of You, your greatness and powerful acts make the words I know to say seem weak. I wish I was able to better tell you O Father how much you mean to me. Let my life be worship to You.

Where to live

1 Tim. 4:6   In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus.

2 Cor. 5:20  We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.

Gal 4:7 Doesn’t that privilege of intimate conversation with God make it plain that you are not a slave, but a child? And if you are a child, you’re also an heir, with complete access to the inheritance.

Rev 22:17 “Come!” say the Spirit and the Bride. Whoever hears, echo, “Come!” Is anyone thirsty? Come! All who will, come and drink, Drink freely of the Water of Life!

I started looking at everything the Word calls us as Christians.  Pretty much everything falls into these 4 categories.  A servant, a friend, a child and a Bride.  I have been looking at this for a long time, and this morning I looked at it again.  I don’t know what any of those means really, I am not sure if there is a difference at all in any of them.  Maybe it was just the thing to say to that group of people at that time that would get their attention and speak into them.  As I was reading though here are some things that stood out to me.  I only picked these 4 verses for sake of journaling but read many more.  I will explain all of these how I see them, what they mean to and for me I guess.

If I had a servant, that servant would live in the house and do work.  Clean, cook, mow, scratch my back, change my channel on the t.v.  Things of that nature.  What would the servant get?  That servant would only get what I gave him.  His days wages for the work done in my house or around my house.   Now since he lives with me there will be special times, his birthday, Christmas things like that, that he might get more than a days wage.  But, ultimately he would work for me and only get what I give him.

Friends.  My friends are incredible close to me.  My friends are people that I go to and talk to.  They know about me and share life with me.  A lot of time they get into some of the intimate places of my life, if I let them.  That’s the key, friends like servants really only get what I give them.  Can you borrow my car, absolutely,  but if you wreck it you pay, and you cant have it to long because I need it.  Can you borrow my guitar? Depends on who you are.  Shoe you can because you can play.  Marshall you can not, you might break it and I really like my guitar.  Marshall you can borrow my x-box, but Ben you don’t know how to play or set it up, so since you don’t know what you are doing  I will have to supervise your borrowing it, but you can pretty much borrow anything else.  J.G. you can have all my T.A.V. stuff back, I don’t want it that much anyway.  You get my point.

I don’t have kids, but if I did I think this might be how it works.  My son, who hopefully I get first, is really allowed to most everything in my house, with restrictions.  I will lavish my son with gifts, and give him whatever he wants, within moderation.  As my son grows he gets more, and the gifts become different.  It starts with toys, and then phones and cars, and then releasing of my mantle upon him so on.  But, as a child he doesn’t have access to everything.  I am not going to give a toddler the keys to my car.  And I’m not going to give my teen my house.  And I’m not going to give my grown man access to my bank account.  There are limitations as to what he receives, I have to watch him some.  He gets to live with me and he is my son, so spiritually he gets everything I have.  I pour myself into him, and train him up.  I love on him everyday and he is the apple of my eye.  He still has limitations and he still doesn’t get access to everything, but much more than anyone else does.

My wife.  She gets it all.  She is me.  We become one and everything I have is hers.  There are no secrets, there is nothing she is not allowed in or allowed to have.  My car is hers, my money hers, her gifts are the most extravagant and heart felt above all else.  She is my beloved and nothing, not even my kids come between me and my wife.  We are more intimate than anyone else in my life.  If I go first she takes over everything I have, its all left to her.

Like I said maybe these don’t have different meaning or different roles.  Maybe we live all of them at the same time, and we serve in different roles at different times.  This was just encouraging for me to look at again today, and ask God If in my perspective of how this works I can walk as a bride instead of the others.

Husband, today I want to live as a Bride of Christ.  I want access to all you have, and I want to be intimate with you like a loving wife would be.  Show me how to become a bride.  Help me become a wife that you are proud of, help us as the church live in that place.  I love you.

What do we overlook?

2 Chronicles 14 begins with the knowledge that Abijah is dead and we now have his son Asa reigning.  Let’s pick up in verse 2:

2 Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God, 3 for he removed the altars of the foreign gods and the high places, and broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the wooden images. 4 He commanded Judah to seek the LORD God of their fathers, and to observe the law and the commandment. 5 He also removed the high places and the incense altars from all the cities of Judah, and the kingdom was quiet under him.

OK, so what was Abijah doing before him.  I remember (since I read it yesterday) that Abijah was serving God.  He had confidence in all that God had spoken.  Yet this chapter tells us that he didn’t even get rid of the junk that caused the original downfall of his family.  WOW!  He was living for God but was holding on to his junk.  His son Asa comes to power and realizes that to truly live the way God had intended he needs to get rid of all the idols and everything that brings glory to the pagan gods.  How did Abijah miss this?  How do I miss this?  Too often we try to serve God and he still blesses us and protects us, but we keep an idol hidden here or there.  I will not wait to make my children clean up my messes.  I want to tear down every sacred pillar, anything and everything that I have in my life that is not pleasing to God.  Asa had peace for many years because of his acts of obedience and submission.

Father I submit to you today, everything that is in me.  Search my heart today.  Remove anything that keeps me separated from you.  Show me anything unclean, anything that I am trying to hold on to.  I was nothing but you.  Help me and my family to fall passionately in love with Jesus today!

Growth by Community

I’m starting a journey through Romans today.

Romans 1:11-12

For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established— ^12 that is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.

In this passage, Paul says that (in the NKJV translation) that he wants to “… impart to you some spiritual gift…“  I’ve struggled with this passage before.  This got me wondering: 1. Can an individual impart a spiritual gift (1 Cor 12:11)?, and 2. If so, how does one do that?  As I began to research this verse I came across a really interesting bit from A Survey of Bible doctrine by Charles Ryrie:

“Too, we can develop our gifts by benefiting from the ministry of others (see Ro 1:11 where Paul is not saying that he could bestow gifts but that he could through his ministry impart the benefit of his spiritual gifts to others). This should be a never ending cycle—gifted people ministering to others who are thereby built up and who in turn minister to others who are then built up to minister to others, etc. This is the way the body of Christ grows quantitatively and qualitatively.”

Ryries’s take on the word “impart,” really helped me personally.  And his last sentance got me focused on verse 12 where Paul talks about the importance of community.

“…that is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.”

Now this, I get.  This is the very reason I’m engaged in daily accountability with a group of faithful men…. that we can be encouraged together by our mutual faith.  This is why Prov 27:17 says “As iron sharpens iron, so one man shapens another.“

So what’s the take away today?   I cannot do this life by myself.  I need community. One of the great lies of the enemy is that somehow, manhood is defined by being the Lone Ranger, or John Wayne, the “strong, silent type.”  No. No! NO!  That is not what God intended.  That’s why God created Eve, because it was not good for Adam to be alone…

Thank you Lord for my community… for those You’ve placed in my life and in my path.  Help me to always be grateful for them and for the work you do in me through them.  May I never take You or them for granted.  Amen.

Why does HE love us?

This is what I pondering yesterday and I woke up still wondering, Why does God love us? I’m not trying to come down on me or anyone but when I think about the core of who I am and the depth of my depravity, about my disobedience , about my pride, and all the crap that goes with that. When you get past all of the cliches and the “well HE has to” stuff, How do you answer that question. What about us, is so lovable to HIM. Is it just because he created us, and HE loves HIS creation. I mean I create things all the time but what I create does/obeys what I tell it to, and when/if it doesn’t I scrap it and build a new one. I mean HE calls children, and I can understand that a little because you love you kids because they are your kids, they are a part of you, there is a heart connection, but beyond that Father calls us “friend” and that is a choice. You have to choose to love your friend, if I had a “friend” that acted the way the we (humanity) does, I know that I would not continue to be their friend. 1 John 3:10
This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother…
I know that there are lots of time that I don’t do what is right, and there are/have been many of times that I dont’ love my brother. Now those times do last forever but, why does HE choose to continue to love me in that? I understand grace, or at least I think I do, but my question even to that is why. I mean couldn’t HE have seen that we were going to sin against HIM from the beginning and scrapped the project and built new people that would love HIM and worship HIM. I know that HE could have and yet HE didn’t… so why? Why keep us? Why put up with our crap? I mean HE’s God, HE can do whatever HE wants, and yet HE wants us, He wants me. That’s just something I don’t get.
Again I am not trying to be grim but it was just something that really blows my mind. I mean I could research this and think about I for a long time and probably never know the answer, other than, HE is God and that is what HE wants to do.