A challenge to mainstream worship…

So this is my new read. I’ve always been fascinated by various forms of Church worship. Liturgy, celebration, confession, commitment, prayer, song, communion; all of these incorporate the idea of true worship in the Christian community. Worship is not merely an idea or an act. It is an all-encompassing, life changing, total agreement with the object of our worship. In a word, it is life. We were made to worship, and we will be restless unless we do. But it’s not enough to do it. We must understand it, embrace it, and take part in it as we give our everything to it. Worship is about the object we so desperately desire. If we fall short of this revelation, we fall short of our intention as human beings before the Uncreated Lord of glory.

Here’s an excerpt from the book. I hope it encourages you as it has me. I consider this to be the plumb line for true and authentic praise.

“In a word, worship must inspire a different ethic among the people, which in turn will have an impact on society. But if the teaching only imparts information, and fellowship is equated with socializing, and the ritual acts are rushed and not explained, the moral sense will not be caught by the people. If worshippers leave a service with no thought of becoming more godly in their lives, then the purpose of worship has not been achieved. If they walk away from an assembly without a conviction that they need to conform their lives to Holy Scripture, even if it means changing their lifestyle, then worship has been perverted somewhere. For example, if people continue to be unkind, or mean-spirited, or self-centered, or immoral, then there has been a breakdown somewhere in the process. If they are not at peace with one another in the assembly, then they are not at peace with God and should not leave the sanctuary until they are. The clear teaching of scripture is that genuine worship is life changing.” Allen P. Ross – Recalling the Hope of Glory

Despise not small beginnings…

Most things that we find beautiful, moving, powerful, ascetic begin with an imperceptible seed, movement, or cause. Can you trace the origins of the Grand Canyon? It began with a crack in the desert floor. Do you understand the expanse of the stars in the heavens? It started with a word. Do you realize the awe and splendor of the oceans began with a single drop of rain? Consider the tallest growing plants known to man: the giant Sequoia; it started with a seed no larger than the nail of your pinky finger. All things that we marvel at begin with an unrecognizable, infantile beginning. This should say something to us about our life in God. And it should be encouraging. It should also say something to us about the Day of the Lord and the promise of His return. It should affect the Church’s mission and function, but above all, it should root our hearts in the revelation that God likes to take His time. He makes beautiful things, fruitful things, permanent things. And He does it carefully yet carelessly. He moves in a way that offends us precisely because He is not limited to time. We are. His workings derive and spring forth from a limitless, eternal equation unhindered by the necessity of resource and originality.

The modern, common translation of Exodus 3:14 “I am Who I am” should be translated “I am Who I shall be.” With God there is no limit to who or what He is. Creation shows us His indelible artistry. We should be consoled by the fact that He begins all things in weakness and takes His blessed time to bring forth unto maturity that which He intends and creates. I am encouraged that my weakness will eventually be caught up into resurrected, enraptured glory that will make even the angels of God scratch their heads in unbelieving wonder. And I started from a mere speck of dust!

What I am hammering home here is that we cannot judge things for how we see them before God finishes with them. Paul said it this way: Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God. – 1 Corinthians 4:5

There must be a greater trust in the ways of the Lord. We must carry within our hearts the beginning of wisdom which is the fear of the Lord that He does see and know, and that He will reward or punish with exactitude. Everyone of us needs a much broader, deeper perspective in order to remain faithful and true to the calling of God on our lives. Don’t live for today. Stand your ground with a stiff resistance to the pleasures of this world, and I promise that you will become like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bears fruit in season and does not whither. We are caught between a rock and a hard place, as it were, as eternal beings in a temporal age. Do not be fooled. This age will pass yet your eternal soul will never fade. Therefore embrace wisdom and listen to her exhortation. All flesh is grass and it’s beauty fades, but the Word of our God abides forever. Live and love and linger by the Word of God. There is no safety elsewhere. To those who see and live in the perspective of the Creator-Sustainer God, something stunningly beautiful will unfold in due time. Stay your course friend. Do not despise these small beginnings!

On prayer…

The greatest traits of one who endeavors to walk with Jesus are humility and genuine love. Because prayer does not happen in a vacuum, the Lord often times sees fit to give us opportunities to embrace humility and to exemplify love. More often than not, these opportunities run against the grain of our preferences. It is not easy to live a life of prayer. It is not easy to love. It is not easy to embrace humility. But to the soul longing for true communion with Jesus, righteous and tender responses in trials and adverse circumstances are the quickest ways forward into love. Love is not an idea; love is Jesus. We must not forget the road He walked for it was the road of selfless humility and servitude that evidenced His love for the Father. Why would it be any different for us? Are we afraid of suffering temporarily for Jesus? Perhaps. Maybe we should be more afraid of not growing in authentic love for Him; that is a suffering we should not be able to bear.

It is easy for most of us to appear humble, patient, modest, and loving when the sun shines, when others commend us, when we succeed, when we are healthy, when the way is clear of obstacles. What man or woman really is shines forth under contradiction, failure, illness.    – Thomas Dubay on Prayer

Let us not forget that this life is a vapor. It is a testing, designed to help us cultivate love for Jesus and our fellow-man. Our responses to our circumstances now will forever determine our quality of life in resurrected glory. Oh that we might shine with the brightness of a thousand stars on the day of His appearing. Then what must we do? How do we ensure our brilliance before the Lord? Give from the heart. Forgive all wrongs. Embrace the poor and weak. Seek first His glory. Abandon yourself to divine providence. Most of all, agree with grace; it is the simplest of responses and bears the most fruit.

What I’m thinking about today…

“While the saints are citizens of their times – what else could they be? – they have a knack for transcending the myopias and smallnesses of the concrete circumstances in which all of us live. They are always up to date because their vision and love are rooted in eternity. Despite the trivialities of time and place, they love their fellowmen far more than the wordly possibly could, because they are immersed in the Origin who makes lovable any lovableness anywhere.” – Thomas Dubay

We will only live a lifestyle that reflects our personal vision. If your vision for life is comfort and happiness, you will have it, though you might miss the blessing of poor in spirit. If your vision for life is world redemption and transformation, you will have it, though it may very well cost you your life. It is no coincidence that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Once you realize the fragility of a life devoid of concrete consequences for either listening to the word of God, or spurning its totality, life becomes a weight you cannot carry, and you are forced to re-evaluate the words of Jesus; “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Comfort My People

Today I am at peace with this: we are fading. Life is a vapor. There is only one constant: the eternal beauty and goodness of God. It is not beauty and goodness of the Greeks or sages from long ago; it is beauty unending and unchanged by man’s opinion and negativity. His is a beauty unknowable until the vail rent.

Today I have found joy and fresh air in the thought that all flesh is grass and its loveliness like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God abides forever. And I have hidden that word in my heart. I am carrying my reward on the inside, and its becoming more real to me than the riches and pleasure of this life. When everything is said and done I will see His smile and pleasure that I have believed His word. I took Him at His word and I trusted. I longed for it. Everything I have done in faith for His name is remembered and will be acknowledged by Him. I wait expectantly for the day.

The “Last Day”

The cataclysmic event of the Judeo-Christian “last day” is the single most important anomaly in the entirety of world history. Far from the cacophonous clamor of western civilization and ideology, the doctrine of the “last day” sits in eager anticipation of the execution of perfect justice and judgment. It hastens the time of all wrong being made right.

The wisdom of Christianity, and its subsequent message, is that things will go on as they have temporarily. Eventually all will be weighed by God and reckoned for what it is. After the reckoning of the “last day” life will go on, unhindered by time, sin, frailty, sickness, death, and temporality. These things are meant to be a gift for the human race, reminding us of our real condition apart from God’s presence. The weaknesses that the world so desperately hates and spurns are actually instruments of mercy to bring us to repentance. We would cast them off and have pleasures evermore on this side of the “last day”. God would have us embrace humility now and wait for the other side of that day, when all will be made right and we will live in perfection forever. We would turn the tables on God, but it cannot happen. He has ordered life as it is for redemption and glory, but first, we must be tested in the furnace of affliction.

As Christians, we live solely for the “last day”. This is where the doctrine of the resurrection becomes the hinge of our theology. If we do not understand God’s ways, that they are higher than ours, and that we must bear discipline unto repentance, then we will not understand the resurrection and the hope of renewal that is so central to original Christianity. This was the hinge of Paul’s and Jesus’ theology. Everyone will arise to receive reward or punishment based on their actions this side of the “last day”. The nature of that day is the inauguration of the manifold wisdom of God demonstrated throughout the vastness of eternity. Therefore, be wise, kiss the Son, lest you perish in the way! Wisdom calls aloud in the streets, she lifts up her voice to plead that this life is a vapor and it’s beauty fades. The only safety is in living for the day of His return.

And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he really find faith on the earth? – Luke 18:7-8

The sobriety of commitment…

Love, real, honest, committed, and determined, comes from an initial ache. Without that first ache and the pain of longing that it produces, love remains a mere seed in the heart. The emotion of love, that feeling of utter abandonment to the response of another, comes only from the initial ache of wanting yet not having. When two people fall in love they first give themselves to the reality of sacrifice. Without the disposition to give unreservedly, love cannot exist. Real love is painful precisely for this reason: it endures. Real love is also glorious for the same reason; it gives.

This is where I’m at with the Lord. My sense of entitlement is gone. The emotion of surprise has ceased. The question before me stands and shouts like a drunken Irish rover. “What are you in this for?” The pain has set in. The season of testing has come and my heart knows longing again. What do I really want? Do I want Jesus or His blessing? Do I love Him for who He is or for what He does? Do I trust Him? Is HE really all I want? Or do I want Him so long as He makes me feel good? Wow, is my god Santa Claus? Or is my God the God I see bleeding on a cross, losing His life, suffering because of obedience and committed love to the desire of another?

What does love look like? It’s not romance, I can tell you that. The human heart is fickle. Emotions come and go. How does God define love? The pain of these questions is surpassed only by the answers I find. Love is gritty. It smells. It hurts. It is an ache that feels like nothing I had ever imagined. Love is brutal. The romantic love of Hollywood never conquered kingdoms, risked everything, or died unnoticed and alone. The love of Jesus does so in a world of cheap imitation. It reminds me of fake crab meat: just enough taste to keep you chewing while your taste buds assure you that this is not, in fact, crab.

The love that God longs for caused Him so much pain that He could not look on His Son’s death. I sometimes wonder if the love I offer Him brings relief to His heart. And then I have to ask myself, as I ask for help, if I could ever love like that. I want to. I think. So I continue to ache, and long, and feel His pain. He wants us so bad it hurts. No love song can capture the essence of His pain. Nothing man produces is worthy. It takes God to love God. So my prayer today is that the Holy Spirit, the bond of love in the trinity, would escort me into the living flame of love. Aching, it seems, is the only way forward.

everything…

The Lord doesn’t care what amount we give when we give, as long as its everything.

The poor widow in Mark 12 gave everything she had to live on, which wasn’t much; two copper coins. Most likely she was in the exact same situation as the widow in 1 Kings 17. Elijah was told to go to a certain woman who the Lord promised would keep him alive during one of Israel’s worst famines. Elijah goes, interupts her from gathering wood for a fire, and asks her for water and bread. Her response to the man of God was that she had no bread, just some meal in a jar. She explained that she was gathering wood for a fire so she could go home to her son, bake what little bread she had left, and die. But, out of obedience, she promises to give Elijah some first. It was all she had to live on. She baked the last remaining measure of meal and gave it away, and the Lord kept her alive through the famine by miraculously causing the meal in the jar to replenish itself.

But the widow in Mark’s gospel gave a different resource, two copper coins. We don’t even know if she lived. Jesus doesn’t say anything about it, other than the fact that she gave everything she had to live on. She may well have died a week later. If she did, she did so highly esteemed by the Son of God. Life is more than food. So long as we relate life to only the basic necessities of food, water, and shelter, we will miss the Kingdom of God, which is truth, humility, and righteousness. I’m not saying that the Lord won’t give us those things because He promises that He will. Life does include food, but it is so much more than that. There is an element of walking in faith where you absolutely must take your eyes off of your circumstances. The Kingdom of God does not run off of copper coins and jars of flour. It runs off of extravagant, obedient love and the violence of giving everything in order to get everything: Jesus.

The Suffering Servant and the Way of Meekness…

We esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. – Isaiah 53:4

But we esteem Him wrongly. What we call smitten and afflicted is honorable to the Lord. What we call unlovely is precious to God. What we call precious is often abominable to God.

The way of meekness is higher, deeper, stronger than our natural inclination to strength and individuality. The life of meekness that Jesus displayed was considered by His peers, a waste in the moment. But the long-term truth of humility’s overpowering beauty was made known at the resurrection when death itself was overcome by the power of meekness. Humility and meekness is not something we graduate from, ever. It is the pillar of God’s kingdom and it holds the power of the entire way of God. His ways are higher than ours. Our understanding of God’s humility is usually relegated to kindness for the sake of others. But Jesus’ way is directed first and foremost to obeying the Father.

The greatest hindrance to the fullness of God working in and around us is our resistance to being crushed. We give theological ascent to His humility because it benefits us. If we really understood His meek and lowly way; if we grasped the key of the kingdom, we would allow God to use us as He desires: to break us so that His fragrance comes forth. Can we say that we have seen the suffering servant and gone to do likewise? Do we follow Him wherever He goes? Do we even want to?    The bride at the end of the age will not only say yes, she will greatly desire it. Where He has gone is where we have been invited to go: glory. But it takes a cross to get there. The Spirit and the Bride say come!

Poetic witness…

A witness of Christ is by default a poet, and an artistic one at that. When your subject matter is Jesus, you find the gift of inspiration daily. Your writing is alive. Your verse His attributes. Your work is simply a reiteration of His extravagant mercy.

My heart overflows with a pleasing theme; I address my verses to the King; my tongue is the pen of a ready scribe. – Psalm 45:1

If ever I lack motivation in serving this Man, in giving my all to Him, let me simply meditate upon His service to me. Let me recall His commitment to me. At once my heart overflows. All of the inspiration I need can be found in remembrance of His faithfulness and goodness to me. My heart knows the verses to declare; they are the songs I have sung in the house of my pilgrimage, where His unending kindness and gentleness have been my guides. Wonder and adoration sustain me as I grope through the wilderness, longing for His judgments. My tongue is the pen of a ready scribe. I declare with unshakeable confidence that His gentleness is making me great. Oh that all His people would meditate upon Him as they sojourn. Oh that all God’s people were poets in His presence. My witness to the world is the song of His dedication to me, and as I sing, I find my dedication to Him.