service

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.

 

 

Lessons Learned from a Life covered by the grace of God, Part 1

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 3 Comments
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I have learned a few thing in my time that I want to pass on:

1) Never try to figure out anything, especially people, when you are tired. I personally tend to drift toward the negative when I am exhausted and am not really good at being balanced or fair to others when I am worn out.

2) When you are inclined to judge someone’s actions, remember that there is at least one factor that you don’t know about that person that if you knew, would cast a totally different light on their actions. Also, remember that in the same circumstances you might do the same or worse. Which leads to the next point.

3) If you err, err on the side of grace. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Of course, use common sense and don’t be a doormat, but think of what you would be apart from the grace of God and then you realize that you have no place to give up on or despair of anyone (I totally stole that one from Oswald Chambers!)

4) Remind yourself that in life and the big picture, it never was, is not and will never be about you. It always was, is and always will be about God and His redemptive plan for the world. His will for you is always in context of His plan for the world.

5) Never go by first impressions, regardless of what the world tells you. Some of the best people I know who have impacted me were the ones whose first impression was unfavorable. I think you sometimes have to step out of what is comfortable and familiar if you want to find God’s secret blessings and surprises.

6) What is important in life, what I want you to remember, is not me or how well I write or how clever I am. You can forget all about me and if you remember that God loves you, that God is in love with you, and that God can take the worthless and transform it into something priceless, then I am OK with that. As one person said, I’m just a nobody trying to tell everybody about Somebody that can save anybody. That’s all I am, regardless of what my ego tells me.

What are some lessons you have learned? Share them with me, because I am always learning and God always has something to show me. Plus, we only grow and mature in the faith in community. You can never discover God’s will for your life by yourself, but only with other believers as you share yourself and your gifts to serve one another in love.

That’s all for now. More later.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.