When Are We Worshiping

This is something a wrote for my church this week but thought that it was a good reminder for all of us...

Each Sunday we gather for a time to worship together and to hear teaching. I love these days. I look forward to being in the room with hundreds of people that sing and lift their voices to God together to worship Him. These moments have brought tears to my eyes as I stepped away from the microphone to hear voices raised in passionate worship of our Savior.

 I was thinking about those times of worship and was reminded that they shouldnot begin and end on Sunday morning. In fact our time together should be flowing out of times of worship that is happening in our lives throughout the week.

It makes me ask myself, am I taking time to worship God outside of Sunday morning? Am I setting time aside to give Him praise and adoration in my week? Times that are about worshiping God for who God is, giving Him glory despite my needs, hurts, or struggles.

I know for many of us, when we come together on Sunday morning, it can be difficult to enter into our times of worship. We have had a long week. The pressures, struggles, and worries of our days fill our minds. But I can't help but wonder how much easier it would be and how much more joy we would find in our joint times of worship together, if we were all worshiping outside of our Sunday services as well. Sunday would then be a time of worship that is continually flowing out of our times of worship and praise with God during our week.

Here’s something to think about. Maybe put on some favorite worship music and just sit, sing, pray, read the Psalms and worship your Creator and Savior! Seek to set aside time for God during your week to just worship him, apart from asking him for things. Just loving Him for being God!

Outside The Walls

Amos 5:21-24

I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

 

This verse has been nagging at me lately. Challenging me as a worship leader and pastor. The context of this verse is that the prophet Amos is talking to Israel. They had forsaken God’s call on their lives and were living for themselves. Yes, they were doing the religious duties outwardly that should be expected. They went to “church” (the temple) each week. They heard good theologically grounded teaching. They sang their worship songs. They did what they were supposed to as good Jews. BUT look at God’s response is to them in these 4 verses. 

Why does he respond this way? Because even though they might have been doing the right duties in “church”, they were not living the call BEING the church outside of their services

This is such an important call to us today. If you read this entire chapter (which I encourage you to do) you see God is calling them out for ignoring the poor and the oppressed; for not caring for those in need; for not protecting the innocent and fighting for justice; for caring about themselves over their neighbors; and for ignoring the call of God for how to live outside of their worship services.

And what is God’s response to this? He says that he has rejected their worship because they did not follow God’s calling outside of the walls of the “church”. If we as a church, and as a people of God, are not living out the calling God has on us outside of the walls of our church, outside of our Bible studies, outside of our Christian circles; then we are missing the reason for our faith to begin with!

Pastor Corey said this well a few weeks ago in his Mathew 28 message and this verse affirms that very calling he had for us as a church. Let us not become a people where God says our songs are just noise to him. When we come to worship, it must be flowing out of a life that is truly living the calling God has on us outside of our Christian circles. 

We can do this Church! We must do this!

Satisfaction In Your Calling

1 Samuel 18:7

This was their song: “Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands!”

I was thinking about this verse the other day and, although I have read it several times over the years, I had not quite thought about what it meant. The context of this verse is that David is coming into the city with King Saul. David had been put in charge of the army by King Saul and was leading the military campaigns. As Saul and the army was returning from a victorious battle it says that the women of city began to sing:

“Saul has killed his thousands and David his ten thousands”.

The next verse says that this made King Saul very angry. Why was Saul so angry? He was the king! The people where celebrating his return and victory. Giving him credit for being a war hero as their King that had defeated their enemies, while also celebrating David’s role in it. But yet it says Saul was angry at David for doing exactly what Saul had asked David to do as the leader of the army.  Saul became jealous of the call David had on his life, despite the incredible call King Saul had on his life. Yes David was a war hero but Saul was king. He was the ruler. God had anointed and made him, Saul, king. What a calling, what a privilege!

See, when David was praised for fulfilling God’s call in his life, Saul became jealous. He didn’t celebrate God’s calling on his life being fulfilled in that same victory. When we take our eyes off of the calling God has on us and we begin to compare ourselves to others and their calling, we will inevitably react as Saul did. Yet God was not calling Saul to be the warrior like he did David. Saul was called to be king. But because he took his eyes off of that calling in jealously, he began to fail at his calling that God had given him (as we begin to see in the following verses).

Let this be a challenge to us to stay focused on what God has gifted and called us to do for his kingdom.Comparing ourselves to others must not distract us. God wants our obedience to His calling on us, not his calling on others. He made you for your calling, and that’s what he wants to see you do so you can be called his “Good and faithful servant”.