Born to Worship not Worry
Good Morning Friends,
Today’s message is clear. Because Jesus has rescued us from the darkness and has given us the power of love and self-discipline… Because He reveals God… Because Jesus fuels our desire to seek, to know and to respond to God’s will… Because Jesus teaches us to join in friendship with the friends of God – not just our friends or the people that we personally like… Because the God of all creation values us as an inheritance we are to come into the presence of the Divine and know that we collectively are Born to Worship not Worry.
Scripture: What should be done then, my friends? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up… but all things should be done decently and in order.
1 Corinthians 14:26 and 40 (NRSV)
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
Matthew 6:25-27 (NIV)
For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
2 Timothy 1:7 (NIV)
Message: For many in the church today, worship has become selfish entertainment – just one more thing we may or may not choose to consume. Many have forgotten how to collectively enter the presence of God. We talk about how good the choir sounded – or, we complain that the sound wasn’t the right volume or the preacher was too long. I don’t think that worship should be boring, I think it should attract people to God but I also don’t think that we should be entertained. When I worship I desire corporate significance, with meaning relevant to my life that is not sequestered in the hands of a few but is a witness to the diversified power of the Spirit.
Eugene Peterson in Practice Resurrection talks about what happens when we worship together. He says: “Common worship, that is, corporate worship (worship ‘in common’), gives the basic form and provides the essential content for this aspect of ‘growing up’ to the ‘full stature of Christ.’ Private worship while alone in semi-paralysis before a TV screen is not mature worship. Certainly we can worship in solitary. Some of our richest moments of worship will come while strolling on a beach or wondering in a garden or perched on a mountain peak. What we must not do is deliberately exclude others from our worship or worship selectively with like-minded friends. These are not options God intends. Maturity develops in worship as we develop in friendship with the friends of God, not just our preferred friends. Worship shapes us not only individually but as a community, a church. If we are going to grow up into Christ we have to do it in the company of everyone who is responding to the call of God. Whether we happen to like them or not has nothing to do with it.”
Friends, we are all too faithless when it comes to worship. We were made to come together so God can shape us and form us in ways that feed our soul…in ways that confirm in our spirit that we were made to worship not worry.
Pray we pray in a way that results in worship. Pray we develop friendships with the friends of God. Pray we grow up in Christ in the company of those called to God’s purpose. Pray we realize that the Body of Christ includes all the people who have ever worshiped in Jesus or will come to worship. Pray we not worship together selfishly. Pray we worship in a thin space where we find something new and very old and join in something still yet to be.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 