The Heart of Worship

Ever been singing a song in church and had your imagination running wild the whole time? Or singing a hymn without considering the words? Or just getting a psychadelic kick out of a song because it gives you goosebumps? I know I have.

When we sing songs of praise to God like this are they truly glorifying him? Surely not. We end up worshipping the song rather than the God of which the song speaks.

A church in the USA had a problem like this. Their worship became a way to entertain themselves week after week. Eventually they were convicted of this and stripped their orchestra to the bare minimum. They also wrote a great song that speaks to the very issue:

Verse 1:
When the music fades
All is stripped away
And I simply come
Longing just to bring
Something that’s of worth
That will bless Your heart

Bridge:
I’ll bring You more than a song
For a song in itself
Is not what You have required
You search much deeper within
Through the way things appear
You’re looking into my heart

Chorus:
I’m coming back to the heart of worship
And it’s all about You,
It’s all about You, Jesus
I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it
When it’s all about You,
It’s all about You, Jesus

Verse 2:
King of endless worth
No one could express
How much You deserve
Though I’m weak and poor
All I have is Yours
Every single breath

Bridge:
I’ll bring You more than a song
For a song in itself
Is not what You have required
You search much deeper within
Through the way things appear
You’re looking into my heart

Chorus:
I’m coming back to the heart of worship
And it’s all about You,
It’s all about You, Jesus
I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it
And it’s all about You,
It’s all about You, Jesus

Chorus:
I’m coming back to the heart of worship,
And it’s all about You,
It’s all about You, Jesus
I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it
When it’s all about You,
It’s all about You, Jesus

Amen!

 

 

God’s Grace

Over the past December holidays I was extremely glad to put school on hold. It was great at first until I realized I was also spiritually “on hold”. I stopped reading my Bible, hardly ever prayed and was just really sluggish. Even after I realized this I didn’t change anything. To be honest I had no real desire to change anything at that point. Looking back on this I believe it was one of my all time lows. Nothing I did was fun anymore and I became extremely bored and almost depressed.

Thanks to the grace of God the Holy Spirit put a desire in me to again read the Word and devote myself to Him. After just that first quiet time by myself I was feeling rejuvenated. While being on hold over the holidays I was numb, but was brought back to the reality that I need God. Without Him I am nothing and can be nothing.

It’s hard to put into words how great the grace of God is. Without it where would we be?

This all happened just before the start of the next school year. The timing was perfect. God’s grace prepared me to work hard this year for His honour and glory.

What makes this even more amazing is God’s providence in all of this. The first book I had to read for school was The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges*. In it he deals with the believer’s pursuit of holiness and God’s grace. It seemed to speak right to where I was. No doubt this is how God was using it.

I use myself as an example just to remind you all of how dependant we are on the grace of God. Often we can take it for granted or even take advantage of it. Paul’s argument against this is brilliant: 

 “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” - Romans 6:1-4

As believers God’s grace isn’t an excuse to do whatever we want. Rather it is motivation to serve God better. By God’s grace we can take all our sins to Him and as unworthy as we are they will be forgiven.

* By the way I highly recommend that you read this book. It will be of great help in your pursuit of holiness.

“Devote Yourselves to Prayer”

“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” – Colossians 4:2

Here is a sermon on this passage that my dad preached a couple weeks ago. I would encourage you all to listen to at least the beginning of it. Prayer is a vital part of our walk with Christ and yet so many Christians (myself included) hardly ever pray.

My prayer for everyone (again, myself included) is that we would all pray often and with  earnesty. God answers prayer and answers it powerfully.

Living for Christ (2)

What is the meaning of life? What is our purpose on this earth? These are questions that the world wants answered. They are also questions that I have been pondering lately. In my head I know the simple answer: Christ! But…it’s not enough to just know that fact. We have to understand what it means. We have to understand how to apply it to our lives in our striving to glorify Christ.

For the past month or so I’ve been meditating on this truth that Christ is the meaning to our lives. My whole life I’ve been constantly trying to accomplish my will on this earth. My whole mindset was, “Now how can I further myself in life by doing what I enjoy?” I applied this to everything from watching a movie to what I wanted to do after university. My self-centredness was (and still is) a sinful thing and I have realized that by thinking about my life from a Christian perspective and asking myself, “What am I doing?”

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” – Philippians 1:21

This verse serves as a great rebuke to me. Life on this earth isn’t about me. It isn’t about how I can further myself. Life is about Christ! It is about how I can serve him and strive to further his Kingdom and not my own! After what Christ has done for us how can we be so selfish as to not give a damn about the Kingdom of God, but rather strive to make our own kingdom. Life is not about us.

The purpose of our lives is to glorify Christ! I cannot say it enough. Surely this should affect the way we live! Christ’s will is what we should be trying to accomplish not our own.

We have been given one life to live on this earth and only one. Think about that…We are given only one chance to glorify Christ on earth. Why do we not use this chance wisely?! We are headed for an eternity of rest in heaven as Christians. How can we not use this one special oppurtunity to glorify Christ and spread the good news?! There is no need to further ourselves. History will forget us in the end. What matters is that we use our lives to the glory of Christ! Look again at Philippians 1:21. Everything in that passage is about Christ. Our lives are about Christ. Our deaths are about Christ. The only way then to live is for Christ. This should be our desire! This should be our joy! So let’s start doing it!

So then how do we do this? In my mind I’ve categorized into three main ways how we can live lives that glorify Christ.

1. By obedience to God’s commands.
2. By submitting to God’s will for our lives.
3. By enjoying the life God has given us.

1. If our lives are Christ-centred then we will love to obey him! How can we not love to obey Christ?! Our sin will very often get in our way, but Christ has conquered our sin so let’s act like it!

2. As I have already said many times it is not our will that must be accomplished, it is Christ’s. This has quite a few implications. First of all we hold on to things too tightly in this world. It’s about time we loosened our grip. What if it was Christ’s will that tomorrow your house should burn down and all your valued possessions along with it? Would you gladly submit to it as Christ’s will for your life? Or would you cry over your possessions and be angry about it? Personnaly my prayer is that I would have the same spirit that Job had and fall down on my knees in worship of Christ if something like that happened to me! (Job 1:20-22) This is what we should do if we are truely living for Christ and not ourselves.

3. Life is a gift from God. It is made to be enjoyed. God did not create us to be miserable, but to enjoy his awesome creation, worship and thank him for it. After thinking about all of these things I hope you will all have a greater appreciation for life and realize that it is truly a tremendous joy to live!

I hope all of you will meditate on these great truths as I have. They have been of tremendous help to me and I thank God for it. So step back for a moment and look at your life. Are you really living for Christ or are you just sitting around like a piece of rubbish wasting your life?

Living for Christ

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the grace and mercy of Christ. The more I ponder it and meditate on it the more I realize just how infinite his mercy toward me is and how undeserving of it I am.

Every passing moment more mercy is shown to me and to all of us as believers. Every second that I am alive is more mercy being shown to me by Christ. I am deserving of death and yet I live. Christ was deserving of not just life, but all glory, laud and honour and yet he died for me in the greatest act of his mercy on the cross.

This has got me thinking about how then we should live. So often we live thinking that we are making great sacrifices in everything we do. An example that my dad used in one of his sermons was about church. We think that we are making a sacrifice for Christ because we get up early to go to church instead of sleeping in or going shopping or whatever. Surely this is not the case. Christ sacrificed himself for us. We go to church and live lives pleasing him to show our loyalty to him and our gratitude for his great sacrifice.

After thinking through all of this my sin seems so much greater. How could I go around constantly sinning after the awesome mercy that Christ has shown me and still is giving me? I should be living a life that completely obeys and honours Christ and yet I still sin…

I hope that all of you will think about this as much as I have. I stand in awe and amazement at the mercy of Christ.

“May the Name of the Lord be Praised”

Job was a great man upright in the faith and with great wealth.

 Job 1:1-5 – “In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.  He had seven sons and three daughters,  and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.

  His sons used to take turns holding feasts in their homes, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them.  When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would send and have them purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular custom.”

He was blessed by God. One day however God decided to test his faith. God mentioned Job to Satan and told Satan how godly he was. Satan challenged this and God allowed Satan to do with Job whatever he wished only he could not lay a hand on Job’s body. (Job 1:1-12)

So Satan caused different bands of raiders to attack and plunder Job of all his livestock. The raiders killed his servants and took everything. Then Satan killed Job’s family. (notice that the only reason Satan was able to do these things was because God enabled him to) (Job 1:13-19)

In response to this Job said the most remarkable thing: “At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship  and said: 
       “Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
       and naked I will depart.  
       The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
       may the name of the LORD be praised.”

  In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.”

He realized that everything belongs to the Lord and that he deserved nothing on earth. Not even his family. Instead of charging God with wrongdoing he Praised the Lord and worshipped him. The Lord graciously gave him all of his possessions and now took them all away and yet Job didn’t complain or hold a grudge. What amazing faith! We also need to realize that we deserve absolutely nothing that we have. Not even our faith in Christ.

Job didn’t hold on to the things of the world too tightly. He didn’t idolize them. That is why he was able to say what he did.

Another thing Job realized was that when God gives to us  we are happy, but when he takes away we get mad. And so this is what he said to his wife: “His wife said to him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!”

  He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”
      In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.”

So when trouble comes upon us we need to accept it as God’s will, realize that everything belongs to God and be thankful for his testing us. In all things we are to be thankful. (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

“Blessed be Your name
In the land that is plentiful Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your
name
And blessed be Your name
When I’m found in
the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness Blessed be your nameEvery blessing
You pour out I’ll
Turn back to praise
And when the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say
Blessed
be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed
be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun’s shining
down on me
When the world’s “all as it should be”
Blessed be You name
And blessed be Your name
On
the road marked with suffering
Though there’s pain in
the offering
Blessed be Your name

You give and take away
You give and take away

My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

I will bless Your name

Blessed
be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed
be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

You give and take away
You give and take away

My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name”

-NewsBoys

Idols

I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic lately, especially over Christmas. On Christmas morning (when I should have been sleeping ) while opening my presents I thought about what I would do if all of a sudden someone destroyed my presents. I found that my first reaction would be to start shouting in anger. But then I thought, “Wait a minute…I don’t deserve any of this stuff. I’ve only just received it and already it’s becoming an idol.”

I don’t want to generalize, but isn’t that what happens to most of us? We immediately become attached so strongly with a new possession. It becomes our new god that we worship.

In the meantime though we should be extremely grateful for any gifts that we receive. (Whether we like them or not ) It’s only by God’s loving kindness and grace that He grants us these possessions.

 It is foolishness to worship an inanimate object or anything else, but the true Triune God.

Isaiah 44:9-20 – “All who make idols are nothing,and the things they treasure are worthless.Those who would speak up for them are blind;they are ignorant, to their own shame.Who shapes a god and casts an idol,which can profit him nothing?He and his kind will be put to shame;craftsmen are nothing but men.Let them all come together and take their stand;
they will be brought down to terror and infamy.Theblacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the coals; he shapes an idol with hammers,he forges it with the might of his arm. He gets hungry and loses his strength; he drinks no water and grows faint.The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker;he roughs it out with chisels
and marks it with compasses. He shapes it in the form of man,
of man in all his glory,that it may dwell in a shrine,
He cut down cedars,or perhaps took a cypress or oak.
He let it grow among the trees of the forest, or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow.It is man’s fuel for burning;
some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread.But he also fashions a god and worships it;
he makes an idol and bows down to it.Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal,
he roasts his meat and eats his fill.He also warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.” From the rest he makes a god, his idol;he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says. “Save me; you are my god.” They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand.
No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, “Half of it I used for fuel;
I even baked bread over its coals, I roasted meat and I ate.
Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left?
Shall I bow down to a block of wood?” He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say,
“Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?””

That passage speaks about how utterly foolish worshipping idols is. After all…can an idol save us from our sin? Can it redeem us like Christ? Of course not! Christ is the only way!

Matthew 6:19-21 - “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

This is Christ himself speaking and warning us about idolotry. He tells us that our hearts will be where our treasures are. And how true! When something becomes an idol we have no time for anything or anyone else, but our idol. We do not want to be interupted while using whatever our idols are. We become rude to other people, angry and upset when our idol is taken away,etc. Our heart is there with the idol because that is what we treasure. While we are worshipping this “thing” we don’t even have time to worship the true God. We cannot serve both God and our idol as Christ says a couple verses later:

Mathew 6:24 – “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”

So I would exhort you all to examine yourselves and consider whether there are any idols in your lives. I’m not claiming to be perfect in this area (I’m far from perfect), but it’s just something that has been burdening me lately. If you do find that there is an idol then just pray and ask God to help you overcome the idol and keep you from any other idols.

Remember to be thankful for your possessions and give God the glory for them. Don’t fall into the trap of actually worshipping the thing itself.

The 5 Peas have just recently made a good post on thankfulness so check it out: http://5-peas.blogspot.com/2007/01/be-thankful.html

When Death Strikes

Death as we all know is the penalty of sin. Rom.6:23 – “For the wages of sin is death;but the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

When we think of death we are fearful. When we experience the death of a loved one we grieve. Death is not at all a nice thing. I’m not sure how many of you have experienced losing a friend or family member, but for those of you that have I hope to be of encouragement to you because I know how it feels.

One day as was at a chess tournament all day. I was having a really great time there and I was extremely happy. When my mother came to pick me up I could tell something was wrong. She looked extremely sadened by something, but I didn’t ask why. When I got home my dad gathered the family together to tell us something. When we all sat down I immediately knew that someone had died by the look on my parents faces. Then my dad started crying and told us what happened. A friend of my brother and I had passed out and drowned while taking a bath the night before. That was two years ago now and I’ll never forget it…

After the news had been broken to us my dad told us that we must mourn for our friend otherwise we would be depressed for the rest of our lives if we just resisted our emotion. And that is the first step to dealing with a loved one’s death. We must mourn and accept what has happened. It might take a long while to sink in (it took me a month), but we must grieve. Even Christ mourned the death of his friend Lazarus (John 11).

John 11:33-36 - “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her, also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit, and was troubled, and said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said, ‘Lord, Come and see.’ Jesus wept. And so the Jews were saying, ‘Behold, how He loved Him!”

Christ knew that he would raise Lazarus from the dead, but he still wept in order to show his love for Lazarus and to comfort the family.

There are some who say that weeping is a sign of weakness (especially for men). But that is obviously not the case as we see in this event of Christ’s life. Being a man does not mean never expressing any emotion. Expressing emotion is a huge part of being a true godly man.

This passage also shows that mourning is not a bad thing, but a blessed thing: Matt. 5:4 - “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.”

Is that not what we need? We need to be comforted and mourning is the way to do it. And to avoid putting even more stress on yourself do not worry about the future and how you will continue to cope. Just take it one day at a time and things will all work out.

Thankfully this friend of mine who died was a Christian and expressed that fact in his baptism a few months before. It should bring us tremendous comfort to know that a loved one has gone to be with the Lord. Even though we mourn because they depart from us, we should also be full of joy that they have gone to heaven which is a much better place than earth. So let that bring comfort to you if a loved one departs. Thank God for their time they spent on the earth and for your friendship and love of them.

One day we will all eventually die in one way or another. As Christians though we need not fear death. Christ has conquered sin and death on the cross! Death has no power over us as Christians. Our bodies may die, but we gain “eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

1 Cor. 15:54-58 -  “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (Isaiah 25:28)

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where O death is your sting?” (Hosea 13:14)

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”
 

Luther at War

                                           

Well before you read this don’t get worried. This isn’t going to be yet another history of Martin Luther and the Reformation. I’ll just be focusing on part of Luther’s character. From the title you could probably guess it…

Luther was a very godly man as you all know. I’ve been thinking about him lately and the more I think about him the more I can see Christ in his life. I started thinking about all of this while reading his book Bondage of the Will which he wrote against Erasmus’s Diatribe on free will. In Luther’s book he really attacked Erasmus and on almost every page had some kind of insult against him. Here are a few: “…your book, by comparison, struck me as so worthless and poor that my heart went out to you for having defiled your lovely, brilliant flow of writing with such vile stuff.” and “I thought it outrageous to convey  material of so low a quality in the trappings of such a rare eloquence; it is like using gold or silver dishes to carry garden rubbish or dung.” and “But may I ask you, my dear Erasmus, to bear with my want of eloquence, as I in these matters bear with your want of knowledge.” Now that was all just in the first few pages. Luther continues on this “war path” throughout the whole rest of the book. Before I read the book I read an introduction to it. In the introduction the guy said that perhaps Luther went too far with these insults that it became sinful. Well I don’t really think so. Luther took this as an attack on the church in the form of heresy, and that is what it was. It was a serious matter. Luther wasn’t insulting for fun. He was defending the faith.

Jesus also was sarcastic and insulted the pharisees and even got physical whil clearing the temple (John 2:12-25, Matt.23:16-22,33, Luke 11:37-54, John 8:42-47). Jesus was not always nice and kind. He is not only love. He is holy, just, etc. I like the way R.C. Sproul puts it in his book The Holiness of God – “The Bible does not say that God is love, love, love. It says God is holy, holy, holy.”

Well my point in all of this is to show that as Christians we are not to be kind doormats. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be kind, but rather that sometimes we are to take action. Maybe the kind of kindness that someone needs is a punch and a bloody nose in the form of a rebuke.

As Chrstians we are at war in this world against the powers of darkness. On our own we would lose the fight. Thankfully we are not on our own. We have Christ who conquered sin and death on the cross and who gives us the great gift of salvation. This war wich we fight in as Christians is already won. There is nothing that sin and evil can do to win. However, that does not mean that we can stop fighting. Just because we know we will win does not mean we can quit. It is just an encouraging fact. Another fact is that the battle still rages on in our lives.

While we are on this earth we should expect to struggle through this raging battle.

I’ll just finish off with this quote from Wilhelmus a Brackel in his book The Christians Reasonable Service. He says this, “Be reminded that bliss is reserved for heaven, and that this life is a time of battle in which the victory is an absolute certainty.”

The Feeling…

Whenever someone around us is acting strange (in a bad way), or someone around us is hurt or we catch them in sin, or we see a dead person on the street or when something bad happens to another person around us (whether we are the cause or not), we get a strange feeling in our gut. We get that same feeling in all of these situations and in many others. This feeling also comes when bad things happen to us. It is a hard thing to describe. It is like our concience is aching in some way. Still that is not an accurate description. One thing we do know, however, is that it is not a nice feeling.

It is in these situations where we get this feeling that we often begin to see our own sinfulness. We see how our hearts are bent only toward evil and we recognize, as Christians, our need of Christ. One day that I will never forget was the day my family and I were driving on the highway on the way to our holiday destination at the Kruger Park. While we were driving we saw that there was an accident that had just happened up the road. As we drove by we were shocked by what we saw. There was a worker lying dead in the middle of the road with a pool of blood next to his head. Prior to that we were all having a good time. Then we all were silent the whole rest of the way. This was one of the many moments where I got this “feeling”. My first reaction was just that of shock. Then I started thinking. I realized my need of Christ to free me from my sins which were now haunting me.

I’m sure many of you have experienced this before whether it was to this extent, greater or less. When these things happen to us, or when we do something wrong, we need to realize first of all that God is in control. These things are for our good. Now in the different circumstances that isn’t of much comfort. But what is encouraging is to later see how God used that in our lives. Secondly we need to realize that our recognizing of our total depravity is a good thing. It is a neccesary thing. God uses it in our lives. Whether it be to humble us or test us. Now recognizing this (by God’s grace) is of no comfort to us at all. We can know that it is a good thing, but we are not encouraged by it. This is one reason why we shouldn’t always listen to only our feelings. But that’s another topic.

So then where is the encouragement? Well it springs from our recognition of our sin. Although it is good to recognize it, we cannot focus on it. If we do we will become morbid and we will despair. Our point of focus must rather be on Christ. He is the one who gives us hope. He is the one who can (and has) saved us from our very own wickedness. So then we must look to him. There is no one and nothing else that can give us hope, but Christ and Christ alone.