Archive for July, 2009
This last blog in the “Heart of a Worshipper” series (HWS) summarizes all the characteristics I’ve written about. You can find the articles about each characteristic here. Much of this series has been revolutionary to my walk with Christ. I hope it’s impacted you as well. Today’s blog hits the two things that have impacted me more than all the other things put together. Read on…
The Heart of a Worshipper
For almost three months we’ve studied the heart of a worshipper. We’ve seen a progression of the worshipper’s heart as he or she pursues God more diligently. Let’s review all 7 qualities:
- A hungry heart – one that desires to know God more intimately.
- A pursuing heart – one that follows hard after Jesus. It is the action that results from having a hungry heart.
- A transparent or unveiled heart – one that allows the Light of Life (Jesus) to shine through it so that He can reveal to us what is hidden in it’s most private corners.
- A vulnerable heart – the heart that suppresses our “fight or flight” response as we sit at Jesus’ feet and allow Him to change us. It is the logical extension of the transparent heart.
- A willing heart – one that is predisposed to say “Yes, Lord.” It is also the obedient heart.
- A free heart – the heart that is unencumbered by sin, condemnation and fear.
- A secure heart – the heart that is confidently established in the knowledge of Christ’s love.
Where are you in this progression?
- Are you satisfying your hungry heart by pursuing God diligently?
- Are you remaining transparent and vulnerable before God and His people?
- Are you obedient and increasing in your victory over sin?
- Do you reject condemnation and fear?
- Has that lead you to a place of steadfastness in Christ, a place of calm and joy despite life’s circumstances?
I wish I could say that I’m always at that steadfast place, but I’m not. In this final article, I’d like to share two teachings that have helped me to become a greater worshipper of God.
Developing Childlikeness
He [Jesus] called a little child and had him stand among them. And he [Jesus] said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. ”
Matthew 18:2-4
While reading this a dozen or so years ago, I was struck by the word “change.” That means that being childlike doesn’t come naturally, which makes a lot of sense when you think about it. From a very young age, children are trying to be older than they are. And while we try madly to reverse the process once we reach a certain age, we still don’t want to be considered childlike. Children are unsophisticated. They’re annoyingly spontaneous. They’re immature. I want to be sophisticated, in control and mature. Yet Scripture says I should change and become like a little child.
So I began to focus on children and the qualities they possess that I lack. And then I worked at changing to become more childlike. This was a step of obedience. Being willing to be childlike regardless of what others thought was a HUGE step for me. I’ve always had an overactive “what will people think” response. But I wanted to be more concerned about what God thinks, so I began to change. Here are some of the childlike behaviors that I saw and began to imitate.
Humility and trust – Verse 4 specifically says that God values humility. I see humility in children as trust without understanding. Children trust. Period. They don’t have to understand how it works or why it works, they simply trust what they’ve been told. I often require understanding before I give my trust. When I examine that attitude under a microscope, I find that at the root of it is pride. I am essentially saying, “Unless you explain it to me in such a way that I understand it and agree with it, I’m not going to trust you.” Or maybe I’m saying, “I don’t trust you to do what’s best for me. I only trust myself. Therefore, I must understand before I extend my trust to you.” Either way, there’s too much pride in the attitude. Scripture teaches by word and example that God is more loving than I can ever imagine, that He loves me more than I can imagine, and that He desires good things for me. I believe that. (Lord, help my unbelief!) The action that’s required on my part is that I place my trust in Him. Lack of trust shows up in adults in many ways: The need to control situations, the unwillingness to fully submit to God’s will in one or many areas, and the attitude of rebellion are just a few.
Spontaneity and joy – The two seem to go together in children. Children are discovering God’s world for the first time and they find great delight in it. (I’ve seen more spiders than I care to see, so I no longer take much delight in them.) By nature, I’m serious and reserved. When I look at my personal history, though, I can see that part of that nature developed as a defense against being hurt or judged negatively. So I’ve made a decision. I’ve decided that God wants me to take delight in His creation. I need to see it through the eyes of a child and be willing to respond to it like a child. That means being willing to be thought a fool for laughing aloud or skipping in the rain or showing awe when it’s appropriate. My adult response is to suppress the laughter, carry an umbrella, and act nonchalant toward new things. God wants me to be childlike. And I’ve found that life is more enjoyable this way. It continues to be a struggle for me, something I must repeatedly remind myself about, but when I’m successful at it I enjoy life more, and I’m confident that it pleases God.
I am the Bride of Christ
In addition to beginning to understand what it means to be childlike, I’ve begun to have a greater understanding of my position in Christ and before God: Scriptures teaches that I am the Bride of Christ. Not only does God love me, but Jesus is “in love” with me. The Bible says He “delights” in me. When I began to understand how totally, unconditionally and passionately Jesus is in love with me it changed my heart and increased my passion for Him. It also gave me the confidence to be transparent with Him and the courage to be childlike in His presence. It revolutionized my worship of Him and my desire to draw near to Him.
The Transformed Heart
While I have loved the Lord for thirty years, I have only been “in love” with Him for about fifteen. It was about fifteen years ago when I began to study childlikeness and Bride of Christ teachings. That led to studying the topic of worship and pursuing God through worship. The result is that my life has been transformed from the inside out.
In the first article of this series I included a definition of worship by William Temple, the archbishop of Canterbury from 1942 to 1944. It’s somewhat long but it explains how worship transforms the worshipper. I’d like to close the series with the same quote. If you find yourself fitting the description Temple gives in the first sentence, please ask God to help you make worship a priority. It will undoubtedly change your life.
“Both for perplexity and for dulled conscience the remedy is the same; sincere and spiritual worship. For worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is:
the quickening of our conscience ………………………. by His holiness;
the nourishment of mind ………………………………….. with His truth;
the purifying of imagination ……………………………… by His beauty;
the opening of the heart …………………………………… to His love;
the surrender of will ………………………………………… to His purpose
– and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.
Yes – worship in spirit and truth is the way to the solution of perplexity and to the liberation from sin.”
Lord, help me to be one who worships you in spirit and truth.
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About a month ago, my pastor suggested something whose time has come! He suggested that we go home, find a box, write out all our excuses on individual pieces of paper, crumple them up, throw them in the box and close the lid on them. It was something I needed to hear. I am ashamed to admit that I have more excuses today than I had six years ago. I have the same excuses I had six years ago plus a whole pile of new ones. I don’t want to have excuses. I want to have a heart that always says “Yes, Lord.”
I like to think that I have that heart…but the problem is that I have this stack of excuses that even keeps me from hearing God give me new assignments. When the excuses short-circuit hearing God’s voice, I am deceived into believing that I have the “yes, Lord” heart. If I received a clear word from the Lord with a new assignment, I’m pretty sure I’d say “yes, Lord.” I just can’t receive the clear word because every time God tries to speak to me, I short-circuit the connection with an excuse.
I am reminded of this parable told by Jesus:
15When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”
16Jesus replied: ”A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. 17At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’
18“But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’
19“Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’
20“Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’
21“The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’
22“‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’
23“Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. 24I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”
Luke 14:15-24
I don’t want to take the passage out of context – it is intended to challenge the Jews who believed they would be partaking of the great feast in the Kingdom of God. Jesus was speaking to people who in most cases had not accepted Him as the Messiah. We are not in the same situation as the Jews of Jesus’ time. But there are some principles we can draw out of the parable.
Each person had an excuse. Each person missed what God had for them because they chose to do things that could have been done by someone else. One commentator shot down all three arguments:
- “I must go see the field” – if he had just purchased the field, he had likely just seen it;
- “I must try out my new oxen” – if he had the money to buy five oxen, he surely had people working for him who could try them out;
- “I just got married” – according to Jewish law, that was a valid excuse not to go to war for a year, but it wasn’t a valid excuse for missing a great banquet, especially one that they had already committed to attend.
These men chose to attend to matters of livelihood, commerce and family rather than the banquet. According to one commentary, they would have RSVP’d – promised to attend – but instead of keeping their promises, they made excuses.
Having said “Yes” to Christ as not only my Savior but also my Lord, I have put in my RSVP to accept any invitation He extends to me. Yet I suspect there are times when He begins to extend an invitation and I preempt Him by saying “but…..” or “I can’t because…” or “I could if…” or even “when….then I’ll…”
Please don’t get me wrong. There are times when people will ask us to do something and our priority (or more accurately, God’s priority for us at that moment) is to take care of business or commerce or family. But I suspect that there are many more times when God asks me to do something and I short-circuit His request with one of the many excuses I seem to carry around “for such a time as this.”
Lord, make my “for such a time as this” opportunities be ones in which I choose to serve You, not convenient times to pull one of my old excuses out of my back pocket. Better yet, Lord, help me to pull those excuses out one by one, look at them, then crumble and lay them at the foot of Your cross. No more excuses, Lord!
Are you like me? Do you have too many excuses in your hip pocket? Do you suspect that your excuses are keeping you from even hearing the opportunities God might have for you? Do you suspect you’re missing opportunities to say “Yes” to God and serve Him with all your heart? If so, I pray that you will join me in my prayer I prayed above. And I pray that you will join me in the effort of identifying your excuses and bringing them before God one by one. I suspect one of two things will happen with each excuse: Either God will shatter the excuse with His wisdom – you will see the utter irrelevance of the excuse – or He will enable you to make your excuse a sacrificial offering to Him – that you will lay that excuse upon His altar and say “no more Lord. With Your help, I will not use this excuse to keep me from following Your will.”
I’d love to hear how it goes for you. Add a comment below or e-mail me at sandy@ApprehendingGrace.com.
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Every so often my perspective gets out of whack. I begin to forget how blessed I am. Maybe a better way to put it is that I have a hard time remembering that I am blessed, or why or how I’m blessed. You know those times. Life pushes in hard, and you really want to stand firm and you want to continue in the joy of the Lord, but you just can’t seem to remember how you are blessed. You know that God’s Word says you’re blessed and you have set your mind to believe it, but there’s just too much junk in front of your eyes to see the blessings.
Let me take you to a simple verse:
Blessed is the man
whose sin the Lord will never count against him.
Romans 4:8
Hallelujah! No matter how bad your day is going, if you have asked God to forgive you and trust in Christ as your Savior, your sins are forgiven and the Lord will never count them against you. We deserve God’s wrath, but instead, He chooses to give us His love. What a phenomenal exchange!
I am blessed. And during those times when I can’t think of any other reason that I might say I’m blessed, this one is overwhelmingly enough.
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Living in the United States, many have come to value freedom over all else. Further, we have come to equate freedom with individual rights and the moment that my rights have been even slightly bumped, we cry foul. We then turn to our democratic government believing that it is their responsibility to protect our rights and we join political parties and various political organizations to make our rights a priority and to protect them.
The problem is that this wars against much of what we ought to be living as a follower of Christ.
Let me say at the outset, I am a proponent of being involved in our government. I do not in any way shape or form believe Christians should eschew government involvement. Further, I am in favor of all people, regardless of race, creed, ethnic background, gender, or sexual orientation being treated fairly and equitably. As a woman I’ve faced way more discrimination and demeaning treatment than I would wish on anyone.
As a Christ-follower, however, I see two serious issues with the attitudes that can take root deeply in our psyche, when we allow democracy to go too far.
It’s Not About My Rights
First, as a Christ-follower, it’s not about my rights. It’s about Christ, having Him formed in me and living my life through Him.
When I read the Gospels, I don’t see Christ standing up for His rights. I don’t see Him demanding anything except a respect for and honoring of God. I know the moment that attitude rises up in me that says “what about my rights?” or “I deserve…” – I know that in that moment I’ve lost sight of Christ. Democracy has gone too far when it fosters the idea that my rights are superior to all else, when it causes me to have the default position that being wronged is an actionable offense.
I do not see that in Christ. I see Him laying down His life for His sheep. I see Him forgiving offenses and not keeping score (thankfully). I see Him taking the punishment I deserve and saying “I forgive you.” That ought to be my default position, not “I demand to be treated equal or I will take action to force you to do so.”
We have become an overly litigious society because we have allowed the world to convince us that our freedom is more important than our walk with Christ. That having my rights respected is more important than walking in forgiveness. Essentially, we have allowed the world to influence us to the point that we often establish “our rights” as our god. Lord forgive us.
We Live in a Kingdom
Secondly, when we live with the “democracy” mindset, it is very easy to forget that we live in a Kingdom that is ruled by a King. In our democracy, we live our lives from the perspective of organizing to get what we want (or at the very least arguing interminably to get what we want). It’s a perspective that wars against an attitude that says “here I am, send me.” (Isaiah 6:8)
As Christ-followers, we are not only children of the King, we are also subjects of the King. In the United States we struggle to understand the King/subject relationship because our very development as a nation plants in us the DNA not of a slave, but of independence – of one who glories in their freedom. Being independent is not a good quality for a Christ-follower. God wants us to be dependent on Him and it is a very hard practice to learn when everyone around us preaches independence and freedom. Yes, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1), but read the entire book – He has set us free – released us from the “curse of the law” (Galatians 3:13).
We live in a Kingdom, and in a Kingdom the King rules. I am thankful that I serve a loving, merciful, compassionate King. But I must regularly be reminded that I serve a King, and what He says and wants is far, far more important than what I want.
Final Words
Again, please do not read into this that I believe we should not work to improve our government or that we should not pursue equitable treatment for all. Let’s work hard, however, to follow Christ first, embracing His attitudes and purposes. The Apostle Paul put it this way:
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!
Philippians 2:5-8
Lord, help us to stay Christ-focused in heart and mind and attitude.
God bless America.
Enjoy your 4th of July celebrations!
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We must take our Theology and make it our Biography.
Tim Hansel
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