Worship – Page 3 – Snapshots

To Be Sin

In seeking God, to know Him and walk with Him, we face an immediate obstacle: He’s holy (1Jn 1:5) and we’re sinful. (1Jn 1:8) Rather than facing our sin, it’s tempting to try to disassociate ourselves from it, to pretend that our actions don’t define us, that our bad actions don’t reveal that we’re bad people … as if just any kind of tree can produce apples, not just an apple tree.

But God tells us that we are, in fact, known by what we do: our behavior reveals the kind of people we are (Lk 6:44), whether we’re good or evil. (Lk 6:45) This isn’t like saying a tree is an apple tree because it produces apples; but rather that a tree produces apples because it’s an apple tree.

In this analogy, there are only two kinds of fruit: edible and inedible (Mt 12:33), analogous to two sorts of behavior: love (keeping God’s Law 2Jn 1:6) and sin (breaking God’s law 1Jn 3:4), revealing two kinds of people: good and evil. (Jn 5:28-29) As we are in the core of our being, obedient or disobedient, holy or sinful, so we do. Our motives don’t make us what we are, they reveal who we are: we live in love or sin, obedience or rebellion, because of our inner nature.

So, if God identifies and classifies us by our behavior, God’s redemptive plan, to redeem from fallen Man a people for Himself (Tit 2:14), cannot merely be theoretical, it must be practical. In other words, salvation cannot merely be the bestowal of a positional righteousness, there must also be fundamental change in our nature (Ga 6:15), from evil to good. To walk with God we must be transformed, regenerated, born again.

As we are made new creatures in Christ, our inward behavior invariably begins to reflect Christ’s nature. (2Co 5:17) As God delivers His elect from sin’s penalty, He frees us as well from sin’s dominion. (Ro 6:14) Regeneration is thus always accompanied by a growing, practical holiness. (He 6:9) This is a miracle; only God can do this in us. (Je 13:23)

In other words, since we are what we do, to redeem us, God deals not merely with our actions, He deals directly with us; He does not merely forgive our sinful ways, He becomes our sinful selves (2Co 5:21), not only by suffering the penalty we deserve, but also in becoming what we are.

God has never sinned, and He never will; but JEHOVAH so identifies with us as sinners that He treats Himself as if He has, as if He has committed all our sins. God, the perfectly holy one, doing this for us, becoming our sin … this is infinite love. (Ep 3:19)

But God doesn’t stop here; as He becomes our sin, He makes us His righteousness. (2Co 5:21) As He becomes who we are, He is also making us as He is. He does not merely atone for our sinful behavior, He also replaces our old carnal nature with His own holy nature. He does not just forgive our sin, He begins to eradicate it, making us who were born desperately wicked, holy and righteous in thought, word and deed … this is infinite power.

The sacrifice of God, as He gives Himself for us (Ga 2:20), is real and personal: it costs Him everything … to give us everything. (Ro 8:32)

Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. (1Jn 4:11)

articles ♦ blog

Honor and Glory

God is honorable, worthy of great respect and esteem. (Re 4:11). All in heaven honor Him (Re 19:7); how might we do so here on Earth?

A primary way we honor God is by believing Him, taking Him at His word, acting as if everything He says is true, trusting Him. We call it faith. Anything else is calling Him a liar (1Jn 5:10); certainly not honoring to Him.

Obeying God honors Him by acknowledging His right to order our lives, to require right behavior of us, which is itself honorable. (Ro 2:10) Disobeying Him flaunts His authority and majesty, rejects His lordship and moves Him to wrath and indignation towards us. (Rom 2:8)

Treating our own selves with dignity, honoring all as God’s children, also honors Him, for we’re made in His image. (1Th 4:4-5) Purging all dishonorable activity and influences from our lives suits us for His service. (2Ti 2:21)

It is also honoring to God to suffer in hope (Ro 5:3), knowing He’s working all things for our good (Ro 8:28), and that He will be glorified in the end. (1Pe 1:7)

A more subtle way in which we might honor our God is by acknowledging H is goodness, giving Him the benefit of the doubt, as we’re laying the practical foundations of spiritual life. For example, the Bible says God inspired scripture (2Ti 3:16); in accepting this we know the autographs, the original Greek or Hebrew manuscripts, were inspired by God.

Yet the Bible doesn’t explicitly tell us whether any copies or translations of the autographs also contain this inspired property, so we must make an assumption about that: either God did preserve His Word for us in an inspired form, so that we can access a modern version of the scriptures today, in a common language, one that’s equivalent to the originals for all practical purposes, or He didn’t.

Which assumption honors Him? Gives Him the benefit of the doubt? Shall we assume God inspired His word for no practical reason, such that no one has ever actually benefited from this special quality? Shall we act as if no one has ever held a perfectly trustworthy Bible in their hands, one they could call the authentic word of God? Or shall we assume that God inspired His word for a purpose (2Ti 3:17), and that He is fulfilling that purpose, and act accordingly?

Most of us assume He didn’t, and assume inspiration is confined to the autographs, in a perfectly useless place. We’re encouraged to depend on pastors, teachers and theologians to reveal scripture to us. We don’t think we have access to the Word of God today, so we don’t tend to hide scripture in our hearts and meditate on it day and night, like God tells us to. (De 6:6) It’s hard enough to do this with a text we trust, so most of us have given up before we even start. But is this honoring to God?

Wouldn’t it honor God more if we expected Him to act with integrity, with intention? Being Who He is, faithful and true (Re 19:11), wouldn’t He enable our journey with an inspired version of His word in a modern language, a book we can read and understand for ourselves, to feed and guide us safely home, seeing that’s why He gave us the scripture in the first place? If we acted like He did, would we expect this to please Him, or disappoint Him?

articles ♦ blog

One Flesh

Sexuality is a mystery; it isn’t merely biological, for humans at least: there’s a spiritual dimension to us being male and female.

In men, there’s typically a longing to be permanently and intimately connected with beauty, to have unrestricted, exclusive access to their own delightful portion of humanity. In women, there’s often a longing to be discovered and valued, enjoyed and cherished. Both are hints at spiritual fulfillment in God, windows to a world of spiritual reality of which courtship and marriage are merely shadows. (Ep 5:32)

As Man seeks to explore and enjoy the beauty of Woman, and to connect with her in the most intimate way possible, this is a faint hint at the pleasure of finding, beholding and enjoying the beauty of God, the One who makes Woman beautiful, and Whose delightful nature can never be fully fathomed. This is our privilege and purpose, and all sexual desire is a gift to remind us of this.

As Woman goes to great length to be attractive to Man, to catch his eye, arouse his interest, and to enjoy his protection, love and affection for herself alone, she reflects our intense desire to be recognized and valued by God, to find our unique purpose in God, and for Him to take pleasure in knowing us, in being ever mindful of us and watching over us, enjoying us and fellowshipping with us throughout our days.

When a man and a woman become intimate, this is much more than a physical experience; together they become a single metaphysical being: one flesh. (1Co 6:16) They’re joined together in an eternal mystical union that can never be broken; it’s evidently an expression of how God and His chosen are inseparably connected (1Co 6:17), not something to be taken lightly.

God seems particularly interested in each of us respecting and fulfilling the spiritual dimension of our sexuality, remaining in monogamous, committed, heterosexual relationships. (Mt 19:4-5) He calls each gender to walk in a way that the other deeply desires: the husband to love and cherish his wife (Ep 5:28-29), to dwell with her according to an intimate knowledge of her frame and disposition (1Pe 3:7), to cleave to her (Ge 2:24), and to put her needs before his own. (Ep 5:25) He calls the wife to treat her husband with honor and deep respect (Ep 5:33), to be in subjection to him, seeking to obey his every desire (except that which violates God’s Law), as if he were God himself. (Ep 5:24) Violating marital roles is not only harmful physically and psychologically, but also spiritually. (1Co 6:18)

For husbands, it’s sometimes as simple as just showing up. We don’t need to be perfect and flawless, to have all the answers and make everything right. Often, just being present and available to our wives, joining them in the journey, letting them occupy our minds and hearts as we walk through life with them … it’s what they’re looking for in us.

For wives, sometimes it’s as simple as being silent when we’d rather criticize, trusting God and saying, “Yes Sir!” when he asks something non-sinful of us and we’d rather not. Think of God saying, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant,” (Mt 25:23) rather than short-term inconvenience.

Many, if not most of the problems I see in our world stem from us rejecting our God-given roles in marriage. Just imagine the blessed world God’s called us to, if we all did what He says. Ponder the life He desires for us, if we were all found faithful here. Wouldn’t it be awesome?

Yet seldom do both husband and wife both walk out their calling in God together. Are we willing to be the one, if need be, to walk it alone? To carry our light affliction for a season, for the love of God? Here and now is the only chance we have to live sacrificially for Him. Once we’re with Him, that will be gone forever.

articles ♦ blog

All His Benefits

We’re constantly being lied to about the goodness and faithfulness of God. How easily we forget how graciously He takes care of us, protects us, and rescues us time and again. Remembering specific things He’s done for us, all His benefits, helps maintain spiritual equilibrium and encourages a life of thanksgiving.

JEHOVAH’s benefits include things like forgiving our iniquities, healing our diseases, redeeming our lives from destruction, crowning us with loving kindness and tender mercies, and satisfying our taste buds with delicious nourishment to renew our strength. (Ps 103:2-5) Reminding ourselves, and recounting these blessings to others, is part of how we edify each other in our walk with God.

For example, a few weeks back, my wife and I had just closed on a house and we only had one house key. While she ran some errands, I went for a run on the beach, planning to return before she did and open the house for all the folks planning to deliver appliances, get final repairs done, etc. I put the key safely in the pocket of my gym shorts and headed off.

When I arrived at the beach, noticing only a handful of people as far as I could see in either direction, I stretched out and began my run, thanking God for the cool sunshine, running through the waves and meditating on scripture … it’s one of my favorite things to do.

At a good half-way mark, as I turned to head back, I realized the house key was no longer in my pocket! Somewhere in the last 1.5 miles, over the last quarter of an hour, it had fallen out, lost in the sand and/or the water!

I immediately began thinking what a total inconvenience this was going to be for everyone, particularly my wife, who’d arranged for all of these people to come over and get us set up in our new home! We’d need to call a locksmith and have him bust out the front door lock, reschedule all these appointments, and be without a refrigerator for who knows how much longer! The closing had already put each of us into some stress … and this was just flat out careless on my part! Needless! It would surely mar our joyful memories, especially hers, in finding and securing our “forever home” together.

Praying wasn’t an option — supplication poured out of me as instinctively as breath, begging God for mercy to help me find this tiny little key lost in thousands of yards of sand and waves … I wasn’t hopeful. My dread was palpable.

I began thinking it might have fallen out when I was stretching, lying down on my back in the sand, and that was at least a couple of times during this particular run. Could I find those places based on marks I’d left with my back on the beach? It was a bleak option, but it was my only hope, other than retracing my steps and examining the entire shoreline. That could take hours; I didn’t have that kind of time!

After hunting up and down a while, I finally found the last place I’d last stretched out and started searching carefully. Thankfully, there were so few people out the scene was just as I’d left it, far enough up on land to be undisturbed by the waves … but no key here, best I could tell. I could keep looking trying to find it here, or move on and hope it was back toward at the start of my run. I kept on running and praying, eyeing my earlier footprints and scanning the sand, returning back to where I’d started out.

I got back to the area where I’d begun, searched around a bit, and found a place where it looked like I’d stretched out, and then I recalled it was a couple of different locations, as I’d been hunting for a suitable spot I had tried at least three different places. First one place, then another, scanning the sand carefully and trying not to disturb anything. The dreadful feeling of helplessness and doom looming over me.

Then I saw it! WOW!! Silver, shining, lying on the sand undisturbed, right where I’d been stretching, the first place I’d laid down. How happy and thankful I was to see that little key I cannot say! Whether it was a real supernatural miracle or not really isn’t the point for me; it sure felt like one, another precious token of God’s merciful hand in my life, caring for me and redeeming my life from destruction, chaos, and pain, all of which I fully deserved. Should have been more careful with that key!!

“It is of JEHOVAH’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness!” (La 3:22)

articles ♦ blog

Cleave to Jehovah

Loving God is obeying Him (1Jn 5:3), and obeying Him includes cleaving to Him (De 10:20), clinging to Him, sticking to Him like glue; we can’t love God as He ought to be loved … from a distance.

If we ever find ourselves checking in with God, that means we first checked out. If we ever return to Him, then at some point we must have left Him. If we’re ever unaware of God, oblivious of Him, ignoring Him, then we’re out of focus, distracted, consumed with the temporal, cleaving to dust.

What if one of the four beasts surrounding God’s throne, whose sole purpose is to glorify God Almighty by continuously repeating a single line, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come,” (Re 4:8), got distracted for a minute, and checked out to focus on something else?

We’ve no lesser purpose here and now. Sure, we can’t physically see Jehovah (1Ti 6:16), but He’s as much or more with us than with the heavenly hosts; He lives in and through us! (Ep 4:6) Constantly envision Him standing beside you, hovering around you, observing, engaging … He’s closer than that, closer than our breath. He’s never distracted, never loses focus, never forgets.

We’re not to hope to eventually live this way, looking to abide in Him (1Jn 2:28) in some far away day, but to be deliberate and intentional about it now, moment by moment, cultivating a continuous awareness of God’s companionship in our lives, and purposing to cleave to Him. (Ac 11:23)

If there’s anything we cannot boldly do in the presence of God, then let’s not do it. If there’s anything we cannot freely say before Him, then let’s not say it. If there’s any place we cannot joyfully go with Him, then let’s not go there. We live and move in Him (Ac 17:28); let’s do all in His name, every moment of every day.

In Christ, we can focus on the task at hand without ignoring Him; we can engage in prayerful conversation while we’re rejoicing in Him (Php 4:4); we can live in unbroken delight in His immediate and overwhelming presence as we serve Him here in this life. (Ps 27:4)

This is our inheritance in Christ; He lived this way (Jn 8:29), so He can live this way in us, as we access His life by faith. His command in itself proclaims His promise of aid in all who seek Him. (He 11:6) It’s a loss to live a single second of this life in any other way.

Oh! To be ever mindful of the living God! Continually loving Him, feeding in His majesty!

articles ♦ blog

Rejoice in the Lord

YHWH. Jehovah God. The infinite, unchanging (Ja 1:17), omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent Creator. Matchless in beauty, infinite in wisdom and understanding (Ps 147:5), unwavering in truth. (Tit 1:2) He cannot learn; He cannot risk in hope: He knows.

He inhabits eternity (Is 57:15), ever present in all places at every moment of time (2Pe 3:8), both within and beyond time and space, knowing all, pervading all, all powerful.

He made the stars (Ge 1:16), arranging them in countless, gigantic, spectacular galaxies, and calls them all by name (Ps 147:4) as they each uniquely proclaim His glory (Ps 19:1), His exquisite, eternal, infinite majesty. (Ps 96:6)

He is infinitely sovereign, in absolute control of everything all the time. (Da 4:35) He always works everything according to His own will. (Ep 1:11)

He’s relational, in Himself a flawless divine community (Ge 1:26), in perfect delight and harmony within Himself (Jn 17:5), needing nothing and no one (Ps 50:12), welcoming every sentient being to come to Him and enjoy Himself. (Re 22:17)

He’s created each of us uniquely in His own image (Ge 1:27) to express some nuance of the divine nature, giving us meaning, purpose and intrinsic value, loving us unconditionally (Jn 3:16) and individually. (Jn 13:1) Though we’re all born at enmity with Him (Ep 2:1), He’s reaching out to every one of us in the mystery of the gospel to reconcile us to Himself, regardless what we’ve thought or done. (2Co 5:19)

He has revealed Himself though perfect Law (Ps 19:7), a living expression of His love and justice (He 4:12) in the context of human brokenness (Mt 22:37-40), revealing and exposing as corrupt all that is contrary to His nature. (Ro 8:7)

He has also revealed Himself through His Son Jesus Christ, Himself the godhead incarnate. (Co 2:9) God Himself condescended to become one of His own creatures, one of us, to show us exactly what He’s like (Jn 14:9), willing to die for His enemies (Ro 5:10), enduring His own justice on our behalf, receiving us into His family and adopting us as His own (1Jn_3:1), if we would just be willing to receive Him. (Jn 1:12)

He’s perfectly just, no respecter of persons (Ac 10:34), and yet He’s infinitely merciful (Ps 103:17), benevolent and kind (Lk 6:35), even offering us the strength to obey Him if we’ll have it; He will never turn anyone away who’s diligently seeking Him (He 11:6), and will eternally terrify (2Co 5:11) all who won’t. (Mt 25:46)

He’s made many, many amazing promises (2Pe 1:4), and He’s never broken one. He’s perfectly faithful; He will never leave us nor forsake us. (He 13:5)

Regardless where I am, who I’m with, or what’s happening to me or around me, I can always rejoice in the eternal infinitude of God, beholding His beauty (Ps 27:4), feeding in His majesty, being delighted in, awed by and overcome with the perfection of His Way.

The almighty, eternal God repeatedly commands me to rejoice in Him, and to persist in this, always. (Php 4:4) He will have it no other way; He’s made me to exult in Him: enjoying God is the singular fuel of the human soul, joy unspeakable and full of glory. (1Pe 1:8)

articles ♦ blog

Kiss the Son

Once we see Yeshua Messiah as fully God, equal in divinity with the Father (Php 2:6) but lower in rank and submitted to Him (1Co 11:3), we begin to see it everywhere, as in the last of Psalm 2:12: “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”

We compare this with: “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.” (Ps 118:8-9), “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.” (Ps 146:3), and “Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.” (Jer 17:5-7)

We can’t have it both ways: either Christ is fully God and worthy of our implicit trust, or He’s a mere man and shouldn’t be ultimately trusted. If God says that all those who put their ultimate trust in Christ are blessed, Jesus Christ must be the omnipotent, infinite, eternal God.

Kiss the Son, acknowledge His majesty, giving Him honor, reverence and glory. (Re 5:13)

Jehovah is angry when we don’t glorify Him as God. (Ro 1:18, 20) God’s Son is just like His Father; we can either trust, serve and respect Him as Almighty God or perish from the way; He’s a consuming fire. (He 12:29)

articles ♦ blog

Worship in Truth

We’re designed to worship God, to delight in Him, to enjoy Him, to praise Him. Unspeakable joy in God is our calling, our destiny, to be continually adoring and reveling in the divine nature. (1Pe 1:8)

Jesus says our worship must be in spirit and in truth. (Jn 4:24) What we believe about God matters; it defines Who we worship. To the degree our thinking about God is off our worship will be in vain.

Not all worship is good; in fact, a lot of it’s worthless. (Mt 15:9) Feeling close to God when we’re singing and praying doesn’t help if we’re deceived about who He is. How dreadful to find that in all our feel good we were being seduced by a counterfeit spirit, worshiping a false Jesus! (2Co 11:4) Many who think they’re serving Him will end up here. (Mt 7:21-3)

But the godward heart says, “I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.” (Ps 119:7) We can rightly worship God only to the extent that our hearts are aligned with His Law. As God’s Law, Torah, reveals Who He is and what He’s like, so our attitude towards Torah reveals who we are and what we’re like. (Ro 8:7)

We can’t separate love for God from loving (Ro 7:22) and obeying His law. (Jn 14:15, 24) We must pursue a right knowledge of God and His ways so that our worship will be in truth, rooted in obedience. Making it up as we go, thinking we know good and evil on our own, or letting others define it for us, is pointless.

God’s children worship Him in the spirit, from the heart, and rejoice in Christ Jesus (Php 3:3), … longing to know Him as He really is. (Php 3:10)

articles ♦ blog

Lord Knows

Back in the late 80’s Bo Knows ads featured my favorite athlete, Bo Jackson, whose seemingly superhuman feats awed both baseball and football fans for years: Bo could do anything.

But saying “Lord knows” (2Pe 2:9) seems like such an understatement … His understanding is infinite. (Ps 147:5)

YHWH is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient: infinitely present in all places at all times, infinitely powerful, infinite in knowledge and wisdom. (Is 40:28) How can He try? or learn, or hope or grow? We can’t measure anything about Him. Saying He “knows how” suggests He developed a capability or acquired a challenging skill … an anthropomorphism that just won’t fly; He’s infinitely infinite.

God has always known everything about everything (Ac 15:18), so saying “the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished” (2Pe 2:9) is indeed stating the obvious. But it’s evidently an obviousness worth pondering.

God knows how … knows how to deliver the godly, those that are becoming more and more like Himself, out of temptations: He doesn’t spare us life’s trials and testings but forms us into His likeness through them. God knows how … and He does it with style. We count it all joy to be His workmanship (Ep 2:10), growing stronger under His loving hand and watchful eye through all our difficulties. (Ja 1:2-3)

But this omniscient, omnipotent God also knows how to reserve … to preserve, keep in store … the unjust, the biased, who judge inconsistently and selfishly … setting them aside unto the Day of judgment when He will expose all wickedness for what it is, and deliver them over to be punished. God knows how … and He’ll do it in righteous vengeance. (He 10:30-31)

God is good; God is just; God is faithful: I rest in His perfect knowing, in His faithful timing, in His awesome, righteous power.

articles ♦ blog