What do we want from worship?
Greetings in the name of Jesus:
When we begin to think about the true reasons for our worship of God we will very quickly start to find some very disturbing things. Our ideas of worshiping God seem to surround two areas from the very beginning one is control, and the other is comfort.
There doesn't seem to be any urgency in our worship or in seeking after guns will for our life as a priority. Because we are not pushed in any way by God's word to worship him we tend to put everything on the back burner when it comes to our attitudes about worship. Instead we tend to clean more to tradition in the way our churches guide our worship of God instead of seeking the truth from God's word. It is easy for us to look at worship from the standpoint of church law and regulation rather than from a personal need to communicate and build a relationship with God. We have an attitude therefore to look for our emotional comfort in worship before we look for personal sacrifice in worship.
There can be no real worship of God without having a prayer life as well, and most of us when pressed about our prayer life must admit that our conversations with God tends to center around a grocery list of wants instead of an exchange of ideas and the development of relationship. We have long relied upon the doctrines and the traditions of our various church denominations to control our worship which has been a huge mistake in our personal relationship with Christ. Doctrines and traditions relate to comfort and control while sacrifice and transformation leads to an un-comfortable journey.
There are many differences between the first church established when Jesus brought us the good news of God's new covenant and what we see in today's church. The seeker sensitive concepts of today's churches have very few similarities to the true purpose that God had in establishing the church. God's purpose for the church was to establish a family on earth for the safe growth and teachings of the good news that Jesus Christ has brought to us. The church should a place where we can encourage, mentor and teach new Christians by those who are the most mature and who can be trusted to teach God's word through the Holy Spirit. There is a tremendous difference between the development of a family of believers and that that of developing an organization of Christians. There is a tremendous difference in making a physical investment in a church building versus making a spiritual investment in the kingdom of God and in our faith in Jesus Christ. There is also a marked difference between following a message and following a man. As we follow Jesus Christ we need to deal with the intent of our heart as to whether we are following Jesus the man, or if we are following the message that Jesus was sent to deliver to us. This is an important difference because on one hand we tend to follow God's teachings based upon following a messenger. We tend to follow someone who we feel is right, and who agrees with our own thoughts. In our own minds if it makes sense to us we will follow a man who makes us feel comfortable within ourselves. The world around us tends to follow the man Jesus because they can refuse to accept him as the son of God, and thus get around believing the message that God is giving us. Do visions within the church have always been brought about by the development of doctrines that have been written by men. Jesus was mostly concerned about the message that God the father had given to him to deliver. The teachings of Christ have always directly followed the message of God concerning the good news while the message of most churches today are centered around doctrines which have been written to create denominational barriers and divisions. If we allow the teachings of Christ alone in our churches there will be no room for division between us as brothers and sisters in Christ. I want to continue along these lines of thought in our discussions in the next blog. May you richly bless God through your life in him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
When we begin to think about the true reasons for our worship of God we will very quickly start to find some very disturbing things. Our ideas of worshiping God seem to surround two areas from the very beginning one is control, and the other is comfort.
There doesn't seem to be any urgency in our worship or in seeking after guns will for our life as a priority. Because we are not pushed in any way by God's word to worship him we tend to put everything on the back burner when it comes to our attitudes about worship. Instead we tend to clean more to tradition in the way our churches guide our worship of God instead of seeking the truth from God's word. It is easy for us to look at worship from the standpoint of church law and regulation rather than from a personal need to communicate and build a relationship with God. We have an attitude therefore to look for our emotional comfort in worship before we look for personal sacrifice in worship.
There can be no real worship of God without having a prayer life as well, and most of us when pressed about our prayer life must admit that our conversations with God tends to center around a grocery list of wants instead of an exchange of ideas and the development of relationship. We have long relied upon the doctrines and the traditions of our various church denominations to control our worship which has been a huge mistake in our personal relationship with Christ. Doctrines and traditions relate to comfort and control while sacrifice and transformation leads to an un-comfortable journey.
There are many differences between the first church established when Jesus brought us the good news of God's new covenant and what we see in today's church. The seeker sensitive concepts of today's churches have very few similarities to the true purpose that God had in establishing the church. God's purpose for the church was to establish a family on earth for the safe growth and teachings of the good news that Jesus Christ has brought to us. The church should a place where we can encourage, mentor and teach new Christians by those who are the most mature and who can be trusted to teach God's word through the Holy Spirit. There is a tremendous difference between the development of a family of believers and that that of developing an organization of Christians. There is a tremendous difference in making a physical investment in a church building versus making a spiritual investment in the kingdom of God and in our faith in Jesus Christ. There is also a marked difference between following a message and following a man. As we follow Jesus Christ we need to deal with the intent of our heart as to whether we are following Jesus the man, or if we are following the message that Jesus was sent to deliver to us. This is an important difference because on one hand we tend to follow God's teachings based upon following a messenger. We tend to follow someone who we feel is right, and who agrees with our own thoughts. In our own minds if it makes sense to us we will follow a man who makes us feel comfortable within ourselves. The world around us tends to follow the man Jesus because they can refuse to accept him as the son of God, and thus get around believing the message that God is giving us. Do visions within the church have always been brought about by the development of doctrines that have been written by men. Jesus was mostly concerned about the message that God the father had given to him to deliver. The teachings of Christ have always directly followed the message of God concerning the good news while the message of most churches today are centered around doctrines which have been written to create denominational barriers and divisions. If we allow the teachings of Christ alone in our churches there will be no room for division between us as brothers and sisters in Christ. I want to continue along these lines of thought in our discussions in the next blog. May you richly bless God through your life in him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
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