Does the thought of spending any amount of time quietly sitting still and telling God how much you love and worship Him and Jesus sound impossible to you? So many of us have such busy lives that we wonder where we will find time to spend in worship. Well, consider this, something so simple as you telling God how much you love and adore Him brings Him immeasurable pleasure. However, it requires something that has become a rare commodity, your undivided attention.
If you were to ask most Christians what they think they will be doing for much of eternity, I believe a very high percentage would acknowledge that they would have an intimate, loving relationship with Jesus and the Father. Most would say they expect to enjoy times in His presence basking in His glory and free of all care. But, if asked, chances are those same people would have no clue that they can enjoy that same presence right now while still on this earth.
One thing I have discovered as I have endeavored to cultivate His presence in worship is that this is not a race to a finish line it is a journey. Some days the journey is rich with His presence full of joy and excitement knowing that you have the attention of the creator of the universe. Other days are a struggle trying to keep every thought focused on Him. Whether it is financial worries, family problems or just random thoughts, it is a challenge to keep your thoughts focused on Him.
Isaiah 26:3 says, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee."
If you were to add all the hours I have spent in private worship and then subtracted the hours spent struggling, fighting with everything in me to keep my thoughts focused exclusively on Him, I am sad to say that I think the hours free of struggle would be very few.
Here's why; my soul thinks it is still in charge and fights endlessly to maintain control. For example, just today, I was sitting in my chair worshipping the Lord with all my attention focused on Him when all of a sudden off go my thoughts on a totally unrelated subject. Today, it wasn't necessarily worried thoughts, I think I was thinking about giving my dog a bath. But, nevertheless, my soul was in control for those few seconds. So, I regained control once again and with everything in me I focused on Jesus. I worshipped Him. I told Him how much I love Him. Next thing I know, my mind wants to think about food. If I let my mind, it will run all over the place thinking about one thing and then another. "What am I going to do today?" "Has anyone sent me an email?" "What is the weather forecast?" "I need to wash my truck?" The list goes on and on because the soul demands to be in control. The act of worshipping the Lord is birthed out of your reborn human spirit consequently your soul is gaining nothing from it, in fact it is losing its seat of dominance and it hates it. Your spirit soars with joy every second you give yourself over to worshipping God, while your soul pines away, sulking because it isn't in control.
Just consider your soul like a spoiled little brat always wanting his way and never growing up. Be stern and don't let it get by with anything. Maybe you don't even realize your thoughts have drifted until about 10 minutes later. Don't get upset. Crack the whip and demand your soul to shut up then put your attention back on the Lord.
Look back at that scripture once again. Look at those words, "perfect peace". Can you imagine perfect peace? Most people, Christians and non-Christians alike have no idea that "perfect peace" is even possible in this life, especially now with the financial downturn. To think that anything even remotely close to "perfect peace" is possible in this life is like a fairy tale to most.
Let me assure you that "perfect peace" is not a pipe dream. It flows like a river out of your new nature and can be accessed through private worship. His peace will role over you like waves across the water as you focus all your attention on His greatness and His all consuming love for you. He loves you. God, who set the sun and the moon in their orbit and spoke this world into existence loves you, that's right you, with a never ending love.
Crawl into His lap and put all your attention on Him as you worship Him and allow His "perfect peace" to engulf your entire being. That is what He wants for you.
~Blessings Mark
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
In Love with LOVE
In times past, when I thought about the Genesis account of creation my attention seemed to always gravitate towards the fall of man in the Garden. Questions would immediately flood my mind such as: “How could Adam fall like he did?” “Why didn’t Adam just run the devil out of the Garden?” All my attention seemed to be focused on man and what he did and didn’t do.
Something has begun to change in the way I am looking at that entire account of creation. My focus of attention has begun to shift from man and his failures to God and His Love. Now, instead of trying to see everything through man’s eyes, I am catching glimpses through God’s eyes. Believe me, when you can finally start appreciating the depth of God’s love for man and stop just focusing on man’s failure you are on your way to knowing your Father more intimately than ever before.
Man is always so “I” focused that when he looks at Adam he identifies with Adam’s failure. He loses sight of the fact that God’s greatness and His abounding love for man is on display as clearly in the Garden as ever. For a moment, take your eyes off man and look at God. See Him for who He is. Stop trying to measure God with terms that only exist in this world. See Him for who He is beyond the four walls of this creation.
God exists outside the limits of time and space. This means that if you had the ability to look in each direction, past and future, you would never arrive at a place where God has not already existed forever. God is omnipresent. You might ask yourself why it is that you can not see a God who exists everywhere and the answer would be that He exists in a realm that operates just beyond our ability to see with the naked eye. He lives just beyond the speed of light making it impossible for man to see Him. So, at some point man became subject to the speed of light barrier and his ability to see an omnipresent God stopped. We do see instances where for a brief moment man has been allowed to experience travel at God’s speed in the accounts of people like Philip who were translated. Philip moved from one place to another instantly because he was allowed to briefly experience moving above the speed of light.
Likewise, God has no need for a wristwatch. Time exists in our world because God created a planet that revolves around a sun. Prior to the fall when everything still existed in a state of perfection and there was no decay man would have lived indefinitely and not suffered the effects of the aging process. The introduction of sin changed all that. The instant Adam fell all of creation immediately began a count down process to total destruction. All the while as creation continues its steady decent to destruction, God remains unchanged, constant, as He has always been. That is, except for the fact that the second member of the Godhead stepped out of His realm and into ours. It wasn’t that God tried to coexist with man in His “original” form. That would have been like trying to mix oil and water. They just don’t mix. One member of the Godhead, Jesus, willingly stepped out of His realm never to return in the same way again. He stepped out of His realm that He always, always, always existed in to become one of His own creation living in a world set for destruction. Here is what you must see. You must see the reason God was willing to do what He did. What motivation could be so strong that God Himself willingly set this creation into motion knowing forever in both directions that the instant He did it He would eventually be required to pay the price Himself for the failure of His own creation? Only one motivation could be so strong. Love. God does not have love God is Love. Love spoke the creation into being. Love placed man in the Garden to fellowship with Him. Love even set into motion the plan of redemption way back in the Garden when God told satan that one would come who would “…bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15) Man had just betrayed God and yet immediately Love provided man with the way back to Himself.
To think, all of this, all of what we know and see was done for the sake of Love. Love that goes far beyond what fallen man calls love. This Love willingly altered Himself in order that He could finally end up with someone who would freely love Him in return. Not manipulated or coerced in any way because love that is made to love is not love at all. This is love that is born out of a heart of gratitude for a Creator who willing died for His creation. Is this the love that you have inside you for your Father? It has cost God literally everything to finally have a person who will lift up his hands for no other reason but loves sake alone and tell Him how much he loves Him.
I believe all of heaven surges with excitement when one child of God looks to heaven and worships the Father and the Son because God finally has the unsolicited, free will offering of love for which He has longed.
~
Something has begun to change in the way I am looking at that entire account of creation. My focus of attention has begun to shift from man and his failures to God and His Love. Now, instead of trying to see everything through man’s eyes, I am catching glimpses through God’s eyes. Believe me, when you can finally start appreciating the depth of God’s love for man and stop just focusing on man’s failure you are on your way to knowing your Father more intimately than ever before.
Man is always so “I” focused that when he looks at Adam he identifies with Adam’s failure. He loses sight of the fact that God’s greatness and His abounding love for man is on display as clearly in the Garden as ever. For a moment, take your eyes off man and look at God. See Him for who He is. Stop trying to measure God with terms that only exist in this world. See Him for who He is beyond the four walls of this creation.
God exists outside the limits of time and space. This means that if you had the ability to look in each direction, past and future, you would never arrive at a place where God has not already existed forever. God is omnipresent. You might ask yourself why it is that you can not see a God who exists everywhere and the answer would be that He exists in a realm that operates just beyond our ability to see with the naked eye. He lives just beyond the speed of light making it impossible for man to see Him. So, at some point man became subject to the speed of light barrier and his ability to see an omnipresent God stopped. We do see instances where for a brief moment man has been allowed to experience travel at God’s speed in the accounts of people like Philip who were translated. Philip moved from one place to another instantly because he was allowed to briefly experience moving above the speed of light.
Likewise, God has no need for a wristwatch. Time exists in our world because God created a planet that revolves around a sun. Prior to the fall when everything still existed in a state of perfection and there was no decay man would have lived indefinitely and not suffered the effects of the aging process. The introduction of sin changed all that. The instant Adam fell all of creation immediately began a count down process to total destruction. All the while as creation continues its steady decent to destruction, God remains unchanged, constant, as He has always been. That is, except for the fact that the second member of the Godhead stepped out of His realm and into ours. It wasn’t that God tried to coexist with man in His “original” form. That would have been like trying to mix oil and water. They just don’t mix. One member of the Godhead, Jesus, willingly stepped out of His realm never to return in the same way again. He stepped out of His realm that He always, always, always existed in to become one of His own creation living in a world set for destruction. Here is what you must see. You must see the reason God was willing to do what He did. What motivation could be so strong that God Himself willingly set this creation into motion knowing forever in both directions that the instant He did it He would eventually be required to pay the price Himself for the failure of His own creation? Only one motivation could be so strong. Love. God does not have love God is Love. Love spoke the creation into being. Love placed man in the Garden to fellowship with Him. Love even set into motion the plan of redemption way back in the Garden when God told satan that one would come who would “…bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15) Man had just betrayed God and yet immediately Love provided man with the way back to Himself.
To think, all of this, all of what we know and see was done for the sake of Love. Love that goes far beyond what fallen man calls love. This Love willingly altered Himself in order that He could finally end up with someone who would freely love Him in return. Not manipulated or coerced in any way because love that is made to love is not love at all. This is love that is born out of a heart of gratitude for a Creator who willing died for His creation. Is this the love that you have inside you for your Father? It has cost God literally everything to finally have a person who will lift up his hands for no other reason but loves sake alone and tell Him how much he loves Him.
I believe all of heaven surges with excitement when one child of God looks to heaven and worships the Father and the Son because God finally has the unsolicited, free will offering of love for which He has longed.
~
Friday, August 19, 2011
No "Goose Bumps" Required
If you are someone who has struggled with the prospects of sitting and worshipping God for an extended period of time because of the total lack of emotions then this message is for you.
Our church society has cultivated this idea that we are only making spiritual progress when we have corresponding emotions to confirm what we are doing spiritually is actually working. In other words, if we don't feel something then we must not be getting through to God. My question to you is this, where did God ever say that we must feel something in order to know what we are doing spiritually is working?
On the contrary, the Gospel is not about believing only in what you can feel. For example, if you are waiting to feel something before you believe you are saved, then you are in trouble. Salvation is strictly based on believing in someone you can't see or feel. Salvation is about accepting the word of this unseen person with no physical proof of His existence but rather believing and receiving by faith. There are no feelings required.
For those of us who have successfully crossed that hurdle of salvation, we have discovered that not just salvation, but everything in the kingdom of God is received by this force called faith. Healing, material needs, everything in God's Kingdom is available to those who believe. It is not based on if we need something or how long we beg God for it. No, it is based on our ability to stand on the Word of our God, whom we can not see, releasing the unseen force of faith, believing that at the moment we pray that we receive the answer to our prayers. After that, we stand and thank God for the answer until it manifests in the natural. No feelings required at all. NO, there is no need for little "goose bumps" in order to know that He heard us or that we have what we are believing for. In fact, until we stop relying on having to feel something we aren't really going to make much progress at all in the Kingdom of God.
Please understand, I am not opposed to feeling God's presence. I love it when I am in a service and all of a sudden His glory roles in like a wave and it is actually possible to feel something. Those times are great. But, I don't measure my relationship with God based on those few short moments. My relationship with God goes far beyond a few "goose bumps" every once in a while. I have a daily communion with God based on His Word which assures me that He will never ever leave me nor will He ever, for any reason, forsake me.
You see, I am head over heels in love with my Heavenly Father, my Lord and Saviour Jesus and the sweet Holy Spirit. When I approach the God head I don't do it with the attitude, "Make me feel something so I will know you are real". No, I approach the God Head knowing with every fiber of my being that He is real. I am not about to embarrass myself by asking God to let me feel something so I can know that He is real.
Let's bring this all into the arena of private worship. Do you think that God responds any differently when we worship Him? Do you think that all of a sudden now feelings are some how a prerequisite for knowing that God is receiving your worship? Do yourself a favor and settle this one issue once and for all. Determine in your heart that regardless of whether or not you ever feel anything at all, you are a worshipper of God. This could very easily be one of the best decisions you will ever make.
Look at what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman He met at Jacob's well. (John 4:23) "But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship Him." Think about this, God, who has no need for anything is actually seeking something that He can not create for Himself. How can this be? The simple fact that He is God means that He is the sum total of everything. What could someone with an endless supply of everything seek after? He seeks after what only you and I as His born again kids can give Him, worship out of our reborn human spirit. When Jesus said "in spirit" He was speaking directly to the time we now live in when we who have received the Lordship of Jesus are born again in spirit. No old testament believer could ever worship God the way you can because they were dead in spirit.
God has waited out the centuries looking for someone with a reborn human spirit to give to Him the most unique, priceless offering available, worship out of a reborn human spirit. You see, this cost Jesus His life.
Yes, you can give to God something that no one else on the face of the earth can give Him, your worship.
So, at what moment do you think He receives your worship? Do you think He starts receiving it after an hour, or maybe 2 hours of you sitting and worshipping Him? Do you think He only receives it once you finally feel something? What about the rest of the time? Is that all wasted? No No No. Settle this once and for all, there is no wasted moment of worship. Feel something, don't feel anything, either way makes no difference at all. The very moment you decide to speak out the least little bit of worship to God all of heaven is at attention. Why? Because, with all of hell stacked up against you, symptoms screaming in your body, problems at every turn, you decide to stop and look to heaven and begin to pour out of your spirit the very thing that God seeks for, your unsolicited worship.
I thank God that His receiving my worship is not based on me feeling anything. If that were the case, so much of my time would be wasted because generally I don't feel anything. But, I know that He has waited out the generations for me to give to Him what only I can give Him, my worship.
I hope that this inspires you to once and for all decide that you are a worshipper and that nothing is ever going to stop you.
~
Our church society has cultivated this idea that we are only making spiritual progress when we have corresponding emotions to confirm what we are doing spiritually is actually working. In other words, if we don't feel something then we must not be getting through to God. My question to you is this, where did God ever say that we must feel something in order to know what we are doing spiritually is working?
On the contrary, the Gospel is not about believing only in what you can feel. For example, if you are waiting to feel something before you believe you are saved, then you are in trouble. Salvation is strictly based on believing in someone you can't see or feel. Salvation is about accepting the word of this unseen person with no physical proof of His existence but rather believing and receiving by faith. There are no feelings required.
For those of us who have successfully crossed that hurdle of salvation, we have discovered that not just salvation, but everything in the kingdom of God is received by this force called faith. Healing, material needs, everything in God's Kingdom is available to those who believe. It is not based on if we need something or how long we beg God for it. No, it is based on our ability to stand on the Word of our God, whom we can not see, releasing the unseen force of faith, believing that at the moment we pray that we receive the answer to our prayers. After that, we stand and thank God for the answer until it manifests in the natural. No feelings required at all. NO, there is no need for little "goose bumps" in order to know that He heard us or that we have what we are believing for. In fact, until we stop relying on having to feel something we aren't really going to make much progress at all in the Kingdom of God.
Please understand, I am not opposed to feeling God's presence. I love it when I am in a service and all of a sudden His glory roles in like a wave and it is actually possible to feel something. Those times are great. But, I don't measure my relationship with God based on those few short moments. My relationship with God goes far beyond a few "goose bumps" every once in a while. I have a daily communion with God based on His Word which assures me that He will never ever leave me nor will He ever, for any reason, forsake me.
You see, I am head over heels in love with my Heavenly Father, my Lord and Saviour Jesus and the sweet Holy Spirit. When I approach the God head I don't do it with the attitude, "Make me feel something so I will know you are real". No, I approach the God Head knowing with every fiber of my being that He is real. I am not about to embarrass myself by asking God to let me feel something so I can know that He is real.
Let's bring this all into the arena of private worship. Do you think that God responds any differently when we worship Him? Do you think that all of a sudden now feelings are some how a prerequisite for knowing that God is receiving your worship? Do yourself a favor and settle this one issue once and for all. Determine in your heart that regardless of whether or not you ever feel anything at all, you are a worshipper of God. This could very easily be one of the best decisions you will ever make.
Look at what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman He met at Jacob's well. (John 4:23) "But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship Him." Think about this, God, who has no need for anything is actually seeking something that He can not create for Himself. How can this be? The simple fact that He is God means that He is the sum total of everything. What could someone with an endless supply of everything seek after? He seeks after what only you and I as His born again kids can give Him, worship out of our reborn human spirit. When Jesus said "in spirit" He was speaking directly to the time we now live in when we who have received the Lordship of Jesus are born again in spirit. No old testament believer could ever worship God the way you can because they were dead in spirit.
God has waited out the centuries looking for someone with a reborn human spirit to give to Him the most unique, priceless offering available, worship out of a reborn human spirit. You see, this cost Jesus His life.
Yes, you can give to God something that no one else on the face of the earth can give Him, your worship.
So, at what moment do you think He receives your worship? Do you think He starts receiving it after an hour, or maybe 2 hours of you sitting and worshipping Him? Do you think He only receives it once you finally feel something? What about the rest of the time? Is that all wasted? No No No. Settle this once and for all, there is no wasted moment of worship. Feel something, don't feel anything, either way makes no difference at all. The very moment you decide to speak out the least little bit of worship to God all of heaven is at attention. Why? Because, with all of hell stacked up against you, symptoms screaming in your body, problems at every turn, you decide to stop and look to heaven and begin to pour out of your spirit the very thing that God seeks for, your unsolicited worship.
I thank God that His receiving my worship is not based on me feeling anything. If that were the case, so much of my time would be wasted because generally I don't feel anything. But, I know that He has waited out the generations for me to give to Him what only I can give Him, my worship.
I hope that this inspires you to once and for all decide that you are a worshipper and that nothing is ever going to stop you.
~
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