Tag Archives: Worship

Growth/Pursuit, Meditations, Promotions, Quotes/Lyrics, Resource

Heart of the Matter Review

““This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”” (John 6:29 ESV)

What is the work that we need to be doing?  That is the same question that was asked of Jesus in John 6:29.  His answer?  Be disciplined, work hard, feed the poor, love the unloveable, memorize the scriptures?  No.  All of these are good things, but they are secondary things.  The work we need to be doing in our faith is belief:  “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”  The real battle for us is to remember and rely upon the seemingly unbelievable good news of the Gospel – that a good and all powerful God has made a way for rebellious creatures to return and be reconciled with Him.  We don’t forget this in our minds, but the glory of God & His gospel readily creeps out of our hearts.

Heart of the Matter: Daily Reflections for Changing Hearts and Lives by Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation helps us to remember the staggering promises of the gospel by providing short, gospel saturated daily devotions that are aimed at penetrating the reader’s heart.  Paul Tripp, Ed Welch, Timothy S. Lane, William Smith, Michael Emlet, David Powlison and others share profoundly practical & impactful truths on subjects that include fear & anxiety, anger, contentment, faith, relationships, stress, suffering, identity and trials & suffering.  If you find yourself in the battle for belief, then Heart of the Matter: Daily Reflections for Changing Hearts and Lives is an excellent resource to help you on your journey.  It is available from New Growth Press at their online store, Amazon or WTS Books.  You can sign up to win a free copy here.

Belief, Growth/Pursuit

Abandoning Idolatry

“‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Deuteronomy 5:8–10 ESV).

God’s revelation to His people was audible, and therefore they should not create a physical image of the Almighty.  He is not physical and nothing that we could craft would accurately represent His glory and majesty.  He is eternal, infinite and almighty – nothing created can capture this.  Carved images were common to represent other gods (especially in Egypt and Canaan).  God is not limited or created, He is eternal and outside of the created order and is not only in one place at one time.  God had dramatically demonstrated that He is so far above competing deities by the plagues in and deliverance from Egypt that the people would likely have recalled this.  See Deuteronomy 4:12, 15–19, 23.  Additionally, God is a jealous God, visiting iniquity to the 3rd and 4th generation.  This is not God punishing, rather this is feeling the effects of our ancestors sins.  But, God is so benevolent because He shows steadfast love to those who are His in heart and showers them with love, mercy and grace for thousands of generations!

How often do we look to created things instead of the Creator of all things?  How often does the weight of our worship (think worth-ship) fall upon these created things.  This seems to be one of the central battles of the human heart.  To what are you looking to provide you with value, significance, worth, safety, security, meaning or love?  What do you dream about happening that you think will make life work or that you can’t live without?  That is the idol that you worship.

Growth/Pursuit

Singular Devotion, First Affection

You shall have no other gods before me.” (Deuteronomy 5:7 ESV).

The New Living Translation says “no other god but me.”  God demands exclusive worship because He is incomparable and because there are no other true gods; our God is not part of the created order (i.e. sun, moon, etc), He reigns over creation with all power.  God created all things and sustains all things (John 1:3, Colossians 1:17, Hebrews 1:3).  He is not some distant deity, He is all powerful, just and holy and yet He still draws near to His creation.

Our primary problem is a worship problem – we worship all sorts of things to which we ascribe godlike grandeur, but there is only one true God.  When we place the weight of our worship on created things, they buckle because they are not designed to hold the weight that our worship places upon them.  Singular devotion to Him is how the created order was designed to operate.  This is not because He is insecure or needs anything from us (Acts 17:25), but because it glorifies Him and gives us maximum joy (Psalm 16:11).  What are you worshiping, what is your first affection?

Gospel Centrality

The “how” matters

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“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” (John 5:39–40 ESV)

You will find no mature Christian that will not tell you that one of the foundational ways to grow in your faith is to read the bible.  This has always been one of the foundational disciplines that leads to authentic spiritual transformation, especially since the scriptures have been translated and available to the common man.  But how we read our bibles matters greatly.  According to the the text above, it is possible to read our bibles and miss the Author all together.

It is not uncommon for us to read our bibles and see how we should behave, what we should feel and what we need to be doing.  Yes, indeed, the bible is full of these things, but if this becomes our primary focus in our bible reading, then we miss the entire point of the bible.  The bible is not about us and what we must do, the bible is about a good, sovereign and holy God and what He has done on our behalf.  The more that we read the bible through this lens, the more we will begin to see a God who is sovereignly ruling over what often times seems to us like an “out of control” world.  The more that we read through this lens, the more we will begin to experience the peace that transcends all understanding that Paul talks about in Philippians.  If you read your bible and hear “do more, try hard, run faster” then you will ultimately be worn out by what seems to be a litany of commands that you must follow to appease God.  Jesus perfectly obeyed on your behalf because you can’t.  Jesus said, “it is finished;” Hebrews tells us that the alter is closed and that we no longer need to drag our sacrifices into the temple.  All that is required now is your sacrifice of praise.

Our primary work is to abandon our work and believe in the One who worked on our behalf.  Jesus was asked “what must we do, to be doing the works of God?” (John 6:28).  That sounds like us, doesn’t it?  What do we need to do?  Our identity is far too often tied up in what we do – even spiritually – rather than whose we are.  Jesus answers their (and our) question in the following verse (29), “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”  Martin Luther said it like this, “It ought to be the first concern of every Christian to lay aside all confidence in works and increasingly to strengthen faith alone and through faith to grow in the knowledge, not of works, but of Christ Jesus, who suffered and rose for him, as Peter teaches in the last chapter of his first Epistle (1 Peter 5:10).  No other work makes a Christian.  Thus when the Jews asked Christ, as related in John 6:28, what they must do “to be doing the work of God,” he brushed aside the multitude of works which he saw they did in great profusion and suggested one work, saying, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent John 6:29.”  Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings by Martin Luther, Timothy F. Lull, William R. Russell and Jaroslav Jan Pelikan.  Page 395, chapter 32, The Freedom of a Christian.

That sounds good, you might say, but how in the world do I develop that kind of belief (faith)?  As a friend of mine put it, “you stare until you see it.”  Paul says it like this, “we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.  For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV).  We become like that which we worship.  Worship is an old English word that means worth-ship.  Whatever captivates and occupies the upper most affections of our heart is the object of our worship – and our lives will be marked by it.  It might be a relationship (or relationships), financial success, athletics, marriage, Christian service or a litany of other things.  John Calvin said that our hearts are little “idol factories.”  Unfortunately, in the church, these idols are good things that we turn into “god things” – these are secondary things that we make primary things.  Paul tells us that being transformed is the work of God (“for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”)  Our work is to stare, to beg God to enlighten the eyes of our hearts (Ephesians 1:18-21), to root out those things which we have come to rely upon other than Him, to see Him as the ultimate Treasure (Matthew 13:44) and to give us the faith to believe (Mark 9:24).

For most of us we know what we should and should not do, but lack the fuel to actually obey.  Who among us would say that fear, anxiety and worry are a good thing?  And yet, fear, anxiety and worry rule the hearts of far to many Christians.  Didn’t Jesus tell us not to worry about the things of this life in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:25-33).  We know we shouldn’t, and the advice that most people give us is to just “seek first the kingdom of heaven.”  Is there any more ethereal and abstract counsel than that?  We miss the entire middle part of the text – the birds don’t worry about these things, the lilies don’t work to be clothed in all of their splendor.  Why don’t they?  The real power to overcoming worry is understanding what the birds and lilies intuitively understand – that there is a good God on the throne that is in absolute control.  For me, I began to actually win the battle with anxiety when I began to believe at a deeper level that God was actually in control of all things – despite how things currently looked in my life.

How do you start?  “What can I do,” you might ask?  Pick a book of the bible (try the gospel of John) and start reading.  Ask God to show you who He is, what He’s like and what He’s done.  Then take some notes, write down everything that you notice about God’s character, nature and behavior.  Avoid writing down what you should be doing (you already know that).  Try this for a month or two and see if the Creator of the universe does not reveal Himself to you in new ways!

Growth/Pursuit, Missions

“Missions exist because worship doesn’t”

“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the Church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.

Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. “The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!” (Ps 97:1). “Let the peoples praise thee, O God; let all the peoples praise thee! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!” (Ps 67:3-4).

But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. Missionaries will never call out, “Let the nations be glad!” who cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the Lord…I will be glad and exult in thee, I will sing praise to thy name, O Most High” (Ps 104:34, 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship.”

–John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993/2003), 17.

Gospel Centrality, Growth/Pursuit

A profoundly practical way to build belief

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 “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” (Philippians 4:8–9 ESV)

The post from yestereday, beating fear, anxiety & worry involves a transference of trust, was about how we must build belief in the fact that God is good, sovereign and faithful if we wish to overcome fear, anxiety & worry in our lives.  Today, we will explore a profoundly practical way to begin doing that.  The Apostle transitions from telling us not to worry (because God is in control) to telling us to fill our lives with things that inspire a worship of God instead of our idols.  This is an incredibly practical thing that we can do.  Far too often, we read this verse as a precaution to avoid thinking or exposing ourselves to immoral things – that is not the intent at all!  This is an admonishment to find things that stir one’s affections for Christ.  These are true, gospel saturated truths that evoke worship in the soul – this worship then overflows in to service.  What kind of things?

  • True things – seeing things as they actually are.  Jesus is true (Matthew 22:16, Mark 12:14), God is true (John 3:33, 7:18, 8:26, Romans 3:4), Jesus’ flesh & blood is true food and true drink
  • Honorable things – serious, reverent, holy, dignified, honest
  • Just things – righteous, right, upright, virtuous, observant of divine & human laws
  • Pure things – holy, morally upright, blameless, innocent, chaste, exciting reverence
  • Lovely things – friendly, affectionate, sentiment & feeling, acceptable, pleasing
  • Commendable things – worthy of praise
  • Excellent things – virtuous, praise worthy, moral goodness
  • Praise worthy things -things that evoke worship in your heart

THINK on these things.  To think means to take a mental inventory, esteem, to take an account of and treat accordingly, reckon, run debits & credits, meditate, weigh, understand, count (accounting term), reason, regard, remind, understand or consider. This is no fleeting thought, what is in view is a disciplined effort to take a mental inventory of things that are right, things that stir up our affections, things that cause us to worship.  This is only done with intentionality.  There are so many different things vying for our attention nowadays (ie Facebook, Twitter, politics, athletics, activities, hobbies, relationships, family, friends, work, and the list goes on and on) – good things – it is the rare person that has disciplined himself or herself to drive out the distractions and dwell upon transcendent, ultimate, eternal things.  It is easier to open up the computer, turn on the TV or run to the next activity than it is to still ones heart and mind and beg the Almighty to do what only He can do – irrigate our dry parched soul.  Being intentional will never irrigate our souls, it merely places us in proximity to the waterfall of God’s grace, we still must dependently and desperately beg for His divine intervention.  Being still is a hard fought discipline.

What do you dream about?  What fuel are you feeding your fantasies?  What sermon are you preaching to yourself when no one is there to hear it?  What you dream about, fantasize about or preach to yourself shapes your life, emotions and actions.  “If I only had that, if my life was more like hers, if I had a family like them, if my marriage looked like theirs, or if I was wired like him.”  These things are idols, these things are false gods that we often place our trust in for deliverance, these hopes and dreams will never enable you to walk freely.  We need to think upon greater things and beg God to root out these idols in our hearts.  We must pray for God to enlighten our eyes, quicken our hearts and give us a desire for Him and Him alone.  To be free, we must be willing to let go of our heart’s idols and desperately grasp a hold of God and God alone.  We must come to a place, like Habakuk, where God alone is enough.

How do we begin to do this?  We should use our time (especially our discretionary time) and be disciplined in our minds.  The Apostle apparently believes that what we meditate upon, fantasize about and spend time turning over in our minds has a profound effect on the way that we feel, what we do, and how we behave.  This is a more expanded version of 2 Corinthians 3:18:  “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.  For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV).  This is a call to think more about the manifest glory of the Almighty – to see Him as who He really is.  Spend time thinking about and mulling over the trueness of God, the holiness of God, the righteousness of God; find things (ie nature, Olympic competition, children, etc) the stir up your affections for a big, true, holy, loving, just, good, gracious God.  It is not easy nor natural – there is no secret formula, but nothing in our faith is easy, natural or formulaic – our faith is supernatural.  BEG GOD FOR HELP!

Gospel Centrality, Growth/Pursuit

God will not be domesticated or manipulated by our religious systems

“Thus says the LORD: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.  He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, like one who breaks a dog’s neck; he who presents a grain offering, like one who offers pig’s blood; he who makes a memorial offering of frankincense, like one who blesses an idol. These have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations; I also will choose harsh treatment for them and bring their fears upon them, because when I called, no one answered, when I spoke, they did not listen; but they did what was evil in my eyes and chose that in which I did not delight.”” (Isaiah 66:1–4 ESV)

God seems to be constantly reminding us that He cannot be pinned in, domesticated or manipulated by the systems, institutions and laws that He has given us.  All of the ceremonies, laws, worship, covenants and military victories were (and still) are designed to point to the glory of God and the worship of the Creator.  Instead the people regularly attempted to use these religious things in an attempt to manipulate God in to getting what they wanted.  The problem is that what they wanted was His benevolent blessings more than they wanted Him.  God looks favorably on the dependent, lowly & contrite spirit that recognize their spiritual bankruptcy and throw himself on the grace and mercy of God. (Matthew 5)

God views our worship that is not accompanied by a trembling, contrite heart is wicked as murder or idolatry.  God is not interested in external compliance to His laws – God is after heart level transformation and increasing affection for Him.  The people were using compliance to their Levitical worship in an attempt to control God and get Him to bless and protect them.  We, too, often times, believe that God “owes” us protection, blessing or prosperity because of our morally clean lives or ability to keep God’s commands.  This is idolatry that reveals a heart that is more interested in God’s blessings and gifts than is in knowing or walking with Him – this is the default mode of the human heart, but even Christians must carefully guard their hearts and ask what their true motivations are – what their desire is for and where their real treasures are.  Our affections matter, they are the central component in the battle for our faith.

Gospel Centrality

Righteousness does not come from obedience, righteousness comes from faith which leads to obedience. They may look the same on the outside, but the innards are worlds apart!

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Righteousness does not come from obedience, righteousness comes from faith which leads to obedience.  They may look the same on the outside, but the innards are worlds apart!  Their “delight” in verse 2 is not genuine as they attempt to use their religious behavior as a tool to pressure and manipulate God to get what they want.  But their real delight is in God’s good gifts, not in the Giver of the gifts.  Their false piety is apparent by their oppression of their workers, fighting and bickering.  Our obedience is never a director of God’s favor; it is a reflection that we have already received God’s favor – their is a huge difference.

““Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God.
‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD?” (Isaiah 58:1–5 ESV)