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To Worship You I Live!

Sunday mornings, 1969, never late, usually early. Sunday School with the grandparents. Listening to the creaking of the old wooden floor and the familiarity of the hard church pews. Opening our hymnals to page 202a. Nothing changes, there’s a comfort in that.

Down to the basement we go for classes where we learn about Noah and the Great Flood, Adam and Eve, (it was always her fault, but I secretly thought Adam had a part in it).

Jonah and the Big Whale (this is before we were enlightened and told that it was just a Big Fish), and the Three Hebrew Children, which I could never pronounce and you can’t either. Someone always messes up Abednego and says A-BEND-ego…AAGGHHH!!!

My teacher was an angel; she literally floated on air even though she was a plump, grandmotherly angel. As far as I was concerned she could have walked on clouds. I believed she was my guardian angel.

We sang “Yes, Jesus Loves Me”, “He’s Still Workin’ On Me” and “I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy Down in My Heart, Where?!”

We praised Jesus, thanking Him for what He had done for us that week. I was taught to pray over my family and added that to my “Now I lay me down to sleep…” prayer.

I loved it all.

I was safe.

I grew up, I was baptized, received the infilling of His Spirit! Christ in me, the hope of Glory! And I realized there was more than just praising God.

I discovered worship.

We were made to worship but not the things of this world. We were created for HIS purpose: “…everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Isaiah 43:7.

There is a difference in praising God and worshiping Him.

Praise is thanking God for what He has done for you.

Worship is giving Him praise for Who He is!

Halal is the root word for praise and obviously the root of our word “hallelujah”. Its meaning is to “shine, boast, celebrate and to be clamorously foolish”. The literal translation is to “spin like a top”!

King David was clamorously foolish and didn’t care who saw him! “And David danced before the Lord with all his might, wearing a priestly garment. So David and all the people of Israel brought up the Ark of the Lord with shouts of joy and the blowing of rams’ horns.” 2 Samuel 6:14-16 NLT.

Anyone can praise the Lord…but real worship, worship from the heart, comes from a relationship with the Savior.

You must know Him.

“Shachah”, in the Hebrew is to “bow down” or “fall prostrate”.

When we bow before Him and worship, acknowledging that it is all about Him, we become less and He becomes greater!

See, in worship it doesn’t matter what He has done, He doesn’t owe us anything. Of course we praise Him for the good things, and we should. But in worship we love Him regardless of what we get back in return.

I’ve grown up, I live to worship, it is my strength, my relationship depends upon it and I will not give this worship of my Savior to anyone else.

He alone is worthy.

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Faith, Hupostasis and Elegchos, Oh My!

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Who doesn’t love the Faith chapter in the Book of Hebrews?! “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1 NKJV.

We want to believe. Let’s look at it a little more closely: Faith is the substance of things hoped for. The word translated substance comes from the Greek hupostasis, “a placing or setting under, a substructure or foundation”. In Hebrews 3:14 and 2 Corinthians 9:4, it appears as the word confidence.

Hupostasis is a substructure, or foundation that, although it may be hidden, exists beneath and supports what is visible!

Just as the foundation of a building is not seen, but the building above the ground is visible, the foundation, the hupostasis, is very real and is vital in supporting the building!

I became so excited when I discovered this explanation.

Our faith is that foundation, that confidence, that even though we can’t see it, we know that it’s there. It’s what holds everything together. It’s sure, it’s tested.

Now, “…the evidence of things not seen.”

And evidence? The Greek there we won’t attempt to pronounce, elegchos, which is translated “a proof or conviction”

Faith, hupostasis and elegchos, oh my!

So, Faith is the substance, foundation and confidence, of things hoped for, the evidence, or proof and conviction, of things not seen!

The Wycliffe Bible Commentary says, “Faith is trust in the unseen. It is not trust in the unknown, for we may know by faith what we cannot see with the eye.”

Take a look at the picture below of my youngest son, Korey Ross, taken in Jurmala, Latvia, in Eastern Europe. In this world things are not always as they seem. We get caught up in the cares of this life, we want more, think bigger is better and faster is cooler.

But as the picture reveals, we can be easily deceived. This world can trap us quickly and leave us empty. Thankfully Korey wasn’t fooled and didn’t invite the young cardboard lady home for dinner…

Where does your trust lie? Is it in the unseen? Where is your confidence? What do you hope for?“For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.” Hebrews 3:14 NASB.

My hope is built on nothing less

Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness

I dare not trust the sweetest frame

But wholly lean on Jesus’ Name

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The First, The Last, The Chosen

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“’Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?’ So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen.” Matthew 20: 15, 16 NKJV.

Have you read the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard? They were certainly an unhappy group of people. Seems they went to work for a landowner in his vineyard, agreeing on a denarius (or a penny) per day as their pay. Some started early in the morning, others at the third hour, the sixth hour, and others the ninth.

Then at the eleventh hour the owner went out and found even more laborers and asked them why they were not working. They said no one had hired them so he told them to go to work and “…whatever is right you will receive.” Matthew 20:7 NKJV.

When it was time to pay the workers, beginning with those who had come in at the eleventh hour, he gave them a denarius. So when those that came in early in the morning, and worked all day long, they then assumed because they had worked a lot longer than everyone else that they would receive more.

But they also just received a denarius.

So they complained to the landowner saying, “‘Those people worked only one hour, and yet you’ve paid them just as much as you paid us who worked all day in the scorching heat.’”

“But he answered one of them and said, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way…Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good? So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called but few chosen.” Matthew 20: 12-16 NKJV.

There is a great lesson here for us today just as there was for the Jewish population Jesus was teaching. He was telling them that the Gentiles had just as prominent a place in the Kingdom as they did; God’s chosen people. How could that be? But yet it was true…they were being grafted in the Vine!

The same applies to us today…there is no distinction in the Church.

[Tweet “We don’t get to pick and choose who comes into the Kingdom! “]

The Door is wide open, He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and we should be standing close to the Door ushering everyone in, equally and quickly, before it is too late.

There is also another distinction in the first and the last and that is servanthood. If we really want to be found doing the King’s business we will desire to be last in the Kingdom.

Mark 9:35. “And He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.”

What are our true motives as members of the Body of Christ? Do we feel as if we are owed something? That because we have served God all of our lives, because we were raised in The Church, that we should receive a bigger reward?

Do we truly have the heart of a servant?

Are we aware that our only purpose on this earth is to tell others about Jesus Christ?

Go, preach, tell.

We have much to be grateful for, knowing we have been grafted in the Vine! Let us not worry about who came in first, who worked the hardest, the longest or should have a bigger crown.

Let us just be about our Father’s business, sharing the Gospel of the Kingdom to a lost and dying world.

Give hope to the hopeless and strength to the weary; give Jesus.

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