Thursday, January 08, 2009

Worship

On Tuesday I went to have my quiet time and was slowly amazed at how the Lord reveals things to me. Even days later, I am still thinking about this, meditating on the truth of it.

In "My Utmost for His Highest", Worship, was the topic.

"He moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord "—Genesis 12:8

Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love-gift. Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship. If you hoard it for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded (see Exodus 16:20 ). God will never allow you to keep a spiritual blessing completely for yourself. It must be given back to Him so that He can make it a blessing to others.

Bethel is the symbol of fellowship with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abram "pitched his tent" between the two. The lasting value of our public service for God is measured by the depth of the intimacy of our private times of fellowship and oneness with Him. Rushing in and out of worship is wrong every time— there is always plenty of time to worship God. Days set apart for quiet can be a trap, detracting from the need to have daily quiet time with God. That is why we must "pitch our tents" where we will always have quiet times with Him, however noisy our times with the world may be. There are not three levels of spiritual life— worship, waiting, and work. Yet some of us seem to jump like spiritual frogs from worship to waiting, and from waiting to work. God’s idea is that the three should go together as one. They were always together in the life of our Lord and in perfect harmony. It is a discipline that must be developed; it will not happen overnight.


This is seriously making me take a step back and look at everything I do.....What things do I do that block out time with God? What thoughts are constantly replacing thoughts of my Lord, and how perfect His love is? It's not that I shouldn't be serving my family, my husband and children, but are there other activities that have me so consumed that I forego my time with the most important relationship I have? I know there are times during my day that I sometimes spend worrying, thinking "what if" thoughts, when I could be in worship! No matter how "busy" my life may be, my worship can be a constant flowing, but it's up to me to retrain my mind and thoughts and attitude to one of worship.