amazing god

Something I Read Lately

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 4 Comments

philippians

 

I’ve prayed this prayer many times on many different occasions. Never once has God answered my prayer by changing my circumstances, i.e. making my life easier, taking away my difficulties, instantly transporting me to the other side of my trials. What He has done is reminded me ever so subtly that He will be with me as He always has during my dark road.

Peace isn’t always  a feeling of contentment. Sometimes, the butterflies remain but so does the promise that God won’t forsake me. For me, a feeling of peace doesn’t always mean peace, nor does a lack of it indicate its absence. Try and work that one out and see if it makes sense.

After all, it is a peace that is beyond my utmost understanding. I don’t need a god who I can figure out and manage and understand. I need a God who is bigger than me, stronger than me, wiser than me. I need a God who is completely Other than me (not a bigger, stronger, wiser version of me).

My advice to you? Keep praying for that peace that passes all understanding and keep claiming it, whether you feel it or not. Keep trusting that the God of peace is walking with you through your dark road.

Sometimes the absence of peace means there is something in your life that needs to change. You’ll generally have an idea of what that something is and how to go about making the changes. You can’t have peace if you’re consistently making choices that go against God’s Word and refuse to submit to His will for your life.

Even then, peace comes with repentance. Peace comes to those whose hearts are broken, like King David’s, over their sin. Peace comes to those who admit once again their total and complete dependence on God.

That’s all for tonight. Come back for something completely different. Or maybe more of the same. You never can tell with me.

 

 

 

Yet Another Worship Blog

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I heard something very interesting tonight. Like interesting enough to change the way I look at worship.

The Hebrew word for obey is shamar. The Hebrew word for serve is avad. If you put them together, as in “obey and serve,”  the idea is of worship.

I don’t know about you, but for me worship becomes too much about performance. How good the worship band is. How electric the atmosphere is. How deeply I feel moved by the Spirit.

Worship, especially when it comes to Almighty God, is much too big to be limited to four or five worship songs on any given Sunday morning. It’s too big to be restricted to singing songs.

Worship is obedience. It’s saying YES to Jesus because he’s worthy. It’s saying, “I’ll do anything you want, Lord, because you gave everything for me.”

Worship is service. It’s putting hands and feet and a face to the love of Jesus. It’s stepping outside the sanctuary and going to the least of these and finding Jesus there. It’s not pious theology or good feelings. It’s tangible, something you can touch and feel and grasp with your hands.

I’ve probably said it before but true worship is a 24/7 proclamation of the great worth of God in everything we do and everything we say every place we go to every person we meet.

Evangelism and missions and discipleship and fellowship are all parts of true worship. The goal is to create as many worshipers as possible from every group of people to magnify God’s name.

Above all, it’s not how loud or well we sing. It’s not how hip and trendy the music is. It’s not how eloquently we can read a Bible passage. It’s not about the great deeds of service we perform.

It has been, is, and will always be about how utterly amazing God is. That’s worship.