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* I have discovered over the years that I have spent a great deal of time either… …trying to talk myself out of believing in God (because it seems I lack the definitive proof that I need), or …trying to talk myself into continuing to believe (because my version of God didn’t seem to fit my assumptions. God seemed to act many times in a way that was not in keeping with my predictions!). * Either way, I’m not completely satisfied. I find that when I try to talk myself out of believing, I sense this inner-determination that will not be satisfied until I find him. I also find that when I try to talk myself into believing in God there’s an absence of passion that won’t even merit a search! * It’s like the way you feel when you’ve been watching a movie for an hour and a half, then there’s this moment of insight which starts to bring everything you’ve seen together. I can’t say that I have it all figured out, but I do believe that I’m starting to get it. * John describes it this way… John 17:3 “Now this is eternal (Gr. “life of the ages”- not just life after death, but different from the way we’ve been living) life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” So, John is saying that… Life is only possible in relationship with God. The point of the story (Bible)?... We were made for God, therefore, nothing else will satisfy us! (Psalm 100:3 “Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us…”) To know God is what satisfies the human soul; what explains the lack of fulfillment (lifelessness) apart from him. * Throughout the Bible, I find this concept of God’s glory to be the centering factor in all of life. His glory seemed to be associated with his presence. “glory”- weight, status, prominence, power, reputation”. It is the essence of who he is. It’s the glory that gives meaning to the medium (i.e. Solomon and the Temple (1 Kings 8): readied, but not meaningful until God’s presence occupied it). Everything God does, he does for his own glory, which is for our good! Romans 11:36 “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” Isaiah 42:8 "I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.” Jeremiah 2:12-13 “The heavens are shocked at such a thing and shrink back in horror and dismay, says the LORD. For my people have done two evil things: They have forsaken me – the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all!” * There we stand, at the fountain (source) of all that will satisfy us- give us life (living water), and we turn and look elsewhere or fulfillment. We decide to look for our own sources; dig our own wells, but they “leak”! (insatiable) Acts 17:25-27 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. It’s only as I become convinced that God doesn’t need me that I can truly begin to appreciate him! We mistakenly interpret grace as something centered around us… but grace is centered in God’s glory, not the human dilemma. The anticipated response in light of all of this… worship. OUR REASONABLE RESPONSE TO GOD’S UNREASONABLE LOVE! C.S. Lewis… “If God is to love you, he must give you what’s best for you. The best thing for you is God himself. If he were to give you everything else, yet withhold from you himself, he would not love you. And if he gives you himself, and nothing else, he loves you infinitely. I must have God for my enjoyment.” * I might note that what I have found to be true: … boredom (familiarity) and distraction are the (2) great enemies of worship. Boredom… …the result of thinking that you have God “all figured out”! (i.e. like the “Rubix Cube” or “Pac Man”: we quickly become bored with that we feel that we have mastered, or figured out). … I feel like my relationship with God is better characterized by the wood-triangle and golf-tee game at “Cracker-Barrel” (frustrating, but I keep trying!) Distraction… …worship ceases when the magnificent becomes mundane; when beauty becomes too familiar. Reflections…
►All worship has at its center a sense of “wonder”. If our worship doesn’t begin with wonder, then it’s too small! * Worship is what “re-orients” us; it keeps us focused on God; it keeps us from running after life on our own.
Example: I introduce you to the wonderful world of ‘juggling’. Juggling re-orients your life and provides a pleasure and passion you’ve never experienced. You juggle everywhere you go. You don’t care if anyone is watching or whether anyone else is interested, you delight in juggling. Then, someone notices that you have ability; you have information which you could make available to others to help encourage future-jugglers. You are invited to do juggling seminars and conferences and camps. Day after day, you juggle…. but it’s just juggling! It’s been stripped of its joy… it becomes about mechanics and techniques and precision. Now it’s just about arm movements and keeping things up in the air. * It happens to us as Christ-followers: we accumulate some information about God and we just can’t wait to tell people what we know! You’ll know that it’s happening when your words sounds more like you’re passing along a recipe than describing a beautiful painting or a spectacular sunset or a life-moment where we become aware of God. GOD IS BEST “DESCRBED”, NOT “DEFINED”! ►Worship happens when you realize that you are in the presence of something “bigger” than yourself. * Worship, rightly understood, is a response to beauty. Beauty always invokes a response (AHHHH!) That’s worship! Our response to beauty is our way of showing God that we “get it”. We are struck with such a sense of awe and wonder that we are speechless! (i.e. mountain peak or sunset: we say that it was “breathtaking”… took our breath away. In death, in birth, in uncertainty (when God is at work)… we are silent! “Have you ever noticed that the most sacred times in our lives invite, almost demand, silence?” “Sacred”…when we recognize God is present and at work; when we notice. * Silence, in those times, is the most appropriate form of worship because our words actually minimize the presence; the beauty. Our speech actually belittles the moment! (like a fuzzy instamatic picture of the Grand Canyon!) ►Often, our worship gets in the way of worship! We talk too much, we try too hard. Ecclesiastes 5:1-2 “Watch your step when you enter God’s house. Enter to learn. That’s far better than mindlessly offering a sacrifice, doing more harm than good. Don’t shoot off your mouth, or speak before you think. Don’t be too quick to tell God what you think he wants to hear. God’s in charge, not you- the less you speak, the better.” ►Even though everything he does he does for his own glory, he refuses to make himself so obvious that he cannot be ignored. * God has apparently, at times in history, made himself more obvious, but mostly he seems to hide! Isaiah 45:15 “Truly you are a God who hides himself”. * God appears almost allusive at times; just when we think we have found his favorite hiding spot, he disappears. “But, where does an omnipresent God go to hide?” * Sometimes in the most obvious places. Sometimes he hides in crisis, or in depression or in illness. Sometimes in the wounded or the lonely or the broken. * I am discovering that… … God longs to be found, but he is mostly so close that we almost trip over him! (Like the guys on the Emmaus road, we only realize it’s him after he’s gone!) …and, most often, he is the seeker and I am the seek-ee! “What if instead of viewing this search as a wild goose-chase, we recognize the need to search as a means of God revealing himself?” “What if we find out that he conceals himself so that he might awaken within us the heart of a seeker?” Jeremiah 29:13-14 “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the LORD,… " We seek that which we desire (heart) and it’s only when we conclude that he’s not worth the effort that we abandon the search. ►As long as there is more to be discovered, the only limits will be my willingness to search. “Where might God he hiding in my life?” “What might be so obvious that I’ve almost tripped over it?” “Is he worth the effort?”
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