Even Now!

As I prepare for another Sunday morning worship service, I began to think about whether or not the rest of the people who will be joining in worship this Sunday morning have begun to prepare. In my mind I hope they are, but I fear the reality is that most are caught up with the business of life and have yet to think about a worship service that is still 3 days away. I think we have it in our minds that it is the pastors and the "professional" ministers jobs to prepare the services, and the rest simply are just attenders. I feel the church has killed so much ministry here in America, because we believe that the ministers are those people who are hired by the church to preach and teach us how to live good lives. Then Monday through Saturday the non-ministers go about their lives as usual with no empowerment or expectancy to see God move in their lives. This seems to be so contrary from what we see in the Scriptures. Christ says to the woman at the well in John 4:23, "but an hour is coming, and NOW is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers." God desires us to worship Him in spirit, now, not just on Sundays, and He desires us to worship Him in His truth, now, not just when the pastor is preaching to us. So whatever expectancy we have on Sundays for God to lead us, teach, guide us, heal us, we should walk in that same expectancy day in and day out, even now!!! When we walk in this kind of daily worship it changes everything, it changes our Sunday mornings. Our Sundays then become a time of refreshment where as Paul says in Ephesians 4:12, a time of equipping for the work of service that the Father desires. When we walk in this kind of worship, and see ourselves, all of us, as ministers, we will then begin to see our friends, families, and communities being changed for the glory of Christ Jesus. I pray that we would begin to rid ourselves of the business of this life, and chase after the cross, not just on Sundays, but even now!

Lent - Week 1

I realize that tomorrow will officially be one week of Lent, but I decided to go ahead and blog today anyways about what's been going on. I have already found in only 6 days of focusing completely on Christ and His cross and mercy how much time we waste each and every day doing "stuff", time that could be spent pressing into God and allowing Him to pour into us. It seems the theme for my life over this past week has been the sufficiency of the cross, and how so much of the time we are asking God to do all these things for us, and we quickly forget that He gave us the most incredible gift anyone could possibly have ever asked for, in spite of the fact that we were so undeserving of even the smallest of gifts. He owed us nothing, and yet gave us everything!!! (Romans 5:8) I heard someone say that they had nothing to be thankful to God for currently because they had not seen God do anything for them recently. I wonder how many of us on a given day think this exact same way, even though we probably would never dare admit it. In a time when our economy and everything seems so uncertain, people (even Christians) are asking this same question to God, "what have you done for me lately?" although maybe in different words. His reply is loud and resounding, "Have you so quickly forgotten my Son? and the cross that He bore because of you?" God owes us absolutely nothing!!!

In America it seems to be a very popular notion that God will somehow reward us with good health and prosperity in this life for the great things we "do" for Him. Although it is clear over and over in Scripture this is NOT the case. Christ, Himself, says very clearly that "If any would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23; Mark 8:34; Matthew 16:24) I realize in Christian America today the idea of "taking up a cross" is completely lost. But the disciples new very well what the cross meant, and Christ was telling them, that whoever follows after Christ must be willing to lay down his very life and lay down the dreams and aspirations of this world, in order to find new life and fellowship in Christ. This new life in Christ no longer needs the things of this world, but is content in the cross and in the cross alone. And when the cross alone is sufficient, followers of Christ are never at a loss for anything to praise God for. I am not sure I can even express in a blog how freeing it is to find contentment in the cross...but my prayer is that the cross would be sufficient each and every morning, and we would never lose sight of the priceless treasure our Lord has lavishly poured out on us through His grace and mercy!!!