Another Time and Another Place

Very rarely am I moved to tears anymore. I was sitting in the office doing homework (Hebrew/boo, hiss) with the radio on in the background. An older song came on by Sandi Patti, so I decided to continue ignoring it. Then came the chorus:
So, I'm waiting for another time and another placeWhere all my hopes and dreams will be capturedWith one look at Jesus' faceOh, my heart's been burnin'My soul keeps yearnin'Sometimes I can't hardly waitFor that sweet, sweet somedayWhen I'll be swept awayTo another time and another place
These words drove me to my knees. Suddenly i couldn't contain the tears. Praise God that one day there won't be this body with its sinful desires to deal with anymore! Praise God that every relationship in Heaven will be perfect, not because it is Heaven but because we will be in the overpowering presence of the Almighty God! Praise God that through His grace, He qualified us to be shareholders in the inheritance of the the saints of light. To begin to understand what our reward will be is to begin down a path of complete misunderstanding, but I'm going to try, because it feels so good. Thank You God!

Full Knowledge

So I was reading Colossians the other day and I found something interesting. Paul prayed, in 1:9, that they would be "filled with the knowledge of His will". The word in the Greek means the "full knowledge" or "complete understanding". We can know fully what God has for us in His will each day!!! He wanted them to know fully the will of God so that they could "increase in the knowledge of God". This literally means in the Greek to "grow in the FULL KNOWLEDGE (same word, you guessed it) of God". This tells me that we have not yet come to a place where we can know God fully. In Romans, it says, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us". That glory is when we meet Christ and see Him as He is because we will be like Him!!!

So often, we treat knowing the will of God the same as knowing God. So many people in the church of today do very little because they "don't know enough" or "aren't spiritual enough". We cannot be expected to know God enough, but we can know His will and His will is for each member of His Body to be doing something for Him. Seek the will of God and you will find it.

Worship

I think a lot about worship, having spent many hours leading "worship" services. Until I began to study, I believed I had a clue about what it really is. Worship, in the Scriptures, always tells of falling down before thing, be it God or something else. The Old Testament word tells of depressing yourself down to the ground, and the New Testament word tells of falling prostrate. It was interesting to me that nearly every time someone worshiped God in the Old Testament, it was a direct cause to something God had just done. God would give a victory in battle, cause a revival, or show His goodness in some way. One particular time in the scripture, a certain man did not worship in response to God's actions. In fact, he worshiped at a time of very little action on God's part.
Job was a good man that suddenly lost everything: his cattle, servants, and children. In the trying moments after this devastating loss Job "rent his mantle, shaved his head, fell down on the ground, and worshiped the LORD." He understood a certain truth about God. We like to make our worship conditional, choosing to worship when God blesses us or shows us His glory. Job truly understood God's sovereignty. "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the LORD."
Let us pray this week that God would prove His sovereignty to us in such a way that we will worship His holy name with or without a "pie in the sky" life.

A Crack in the Armor

Bruce made a comment the other day that has had me thinking quite a bit on Satan. From the vantage point of a pastor, we can see many different issues going on in the church. It is obvious that Satan is running rampant since we showed our new vision for the church. At first, it caused both of us great grief; but after some thought, we realized this should be no surprise. Satan is always at work, walking around as a hungry lion seeking whom he may devour. On August 1st, the I 35w bridge collapsed in Minnesota, killing 13 people. It was caused by a defect in the structure. This defect was seen in 1990 but the warnings went unheeded. Over time, crew continued to add weight to the bridge, concrete on concrete. The weak area was pushed to its limit, and down came the bridge.
While Satan is not all-knowing, he makes it his business to search out our weak points. He will find what is vulnerable and exploit it. The lion does not seek the gazelle in the middle of the herd. He seeks the one on the outside, alone. There is power in numbers; this is what Christians call accountability. No matter how strong you are, we are moving into the next phase of our church's history. Satan will seek out your weak points, your secret sins. Find someone that can be trusted to know these sins and can hold you accountable. Remember, that great bridge would still be standing if only they would have put one more piece of steel on top of the one that failed.