Author: Gloryyah

To Follow Thee More Nearly

As I shared in an earlier blog, my prayer for 2019 is expressed simply in this song:

Day by day, dear Lord of Thee
Three things I pray:
To see Thee more clearly,
To love Thee more dearly,
To follow Thee more nearly,
Day by day.

I have tried to expound on what these three phrases mean to me in three different blogs. If you haven’t already, please read the first two parts – ‘To see Thee more clearly’ and ‘To love Thee more dearly’. The third is –

To follow You more nearly:

The only way to be a true disciple of Christ is to follow Him.

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
(John 10:27 NIV)

Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me…. Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
(Matthew 10:38; 16:24 NIV)

To Love Thee More Dearly

As I shared in an earlier blog, my prayer for 2019 is expressed simply in this song:

Day by day, dear Lord of Thee
Three things I pray:
To see Thee more clearly,
To love Thee more dearly,
To follow Thee more nearly,
Day by day.

I will try to expound on what these three phrases mean to me in three different blogs. The first, ‘To see Thee more clearly’ can be read here. The second is –

To love Thee more dearly:

The picture a lot of us have of God does not allow for a love relationship with Him. We can’t imagine God desiring love from us even if we are able to accept that He loves us. It’s easier for us to think that all He wants from us is obedience to His many rules. Yet even the Old Testament shows God’s heart towards mankind and His desire for His love for us to be reciprocated. All the over Deuteronomy, you find verses similar to these ones:

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To See Thee More Clearly

As I shared in an earlier blog, my prayer for 2019 is expressed simply in this song:

Day by day, dear Lord of Thee
Three things I pray:
To see Thee more clearly,
To love Thee more dearly,
To follow Thee more nearly,
Day by day.

I will try to expound on what these three phrases mean to me in three different blogs. The first is –

To see Thee more clearly:

My prayer for 2019

It’s a brand new year – 2019.

I find that my heartfelt prayer for this year is summarized by a song adapted from a prayer of St. Richard of Chicester. His prayer went thus:

Thanks be to thee, my Lord Jesus Christ,
for all the benefits thou hast given me,
for all the pains and insults thou hast borne for me.
O most merciful redeemer, friend and brother,
may I know thee more clearly,
love thee more dearly,
and follow thee more nearly, day by day.
Amen.

Some of the words of this prayer were adapted for the song ‘Day by Day’ which words form my prayer for 2019:

Why do we praise God?

To a lot of people, ‘praise’ and ‘worship’ mean the same thing. In reality, though, they are not the same thing. So, while I will address both why we praise and why we worship, this article is on the issue of praise.

I guess we should start from what it means to praise.

Dictionary definition:
– to express approval or admiration of; commend; extol;
– to offer grateful homage to (God or a deity), as in words or song.

We praise people for things they do, their abilities, their person (character, behaviour, looks), etc. We praise them directly (“You’re such a kind person!”) or indirectly, to a third party (“She’s such a kind person!”). Why? Simply because we truly admire something about them and can’t help talking about it. We don’t have any ulterior motive and if we did, it would gravitate towards flattery, not praise.

Why should we praise God?

Why we do take communion?

We live in a day when we build doctrines around experiences rather than around the truth of God’s word. Somebody testifies about an experience they had and their experience becomes ‘gospel’. A popular one going around now is that because after giving God some expression of worship, a miracle occurred or an answer to prayer came, worship is now a tool to get a miracle or an answer to prayer. This particular issue will be addressed in another blog but the principle is what I am highlighting here.

In the same vein, because miracles have occurred after some folks took the communion, the communion has now become a key to receiving a miracle or an answer to prayer. At the other extreme, the communion is just another religious rite that is performed in church. The question, though, is who instituted the communion and why?

Why do we evangelize?

If you’re a member of a church, particularly in Lagos, most likely you have been encouraged to go out in groups at some point to speak to people and give them tracts or flyers. In some churches, you might have even been encouraged to speak to people on your own at work or in your neighbourhood. While this sounds commendable at first glance and we might come away from such evangelism efforts beating our chest, let us examine our motives to see if we should actually be beating our chests.

Why do we attend church? (Part 2)

After sharing the post asking the question, ‘Why do we attend church?’, I realized that I can’t rush off to the next question. These days, we are seeing movies having not just a sequel but also a prequel. Well, this post is more like a prequel to the first one, as I would like to go even deeper into the motivation for attending church.

So what are the fundamental reasons for attending church?

Why do we attend church?

Last week, I introduced a series – the ‘Why Series’ – that I will be sharing. If you haven’t read the introductory blog, please read it here. My hope is that this series will cause us to question things we have done as routine without really evaluating why we do them to ensure we are pleasing God in all our doing.

Our question this week is: Why do we attend church?

As many as call themselves Christians attend church at least on Sunday while some attend at least one other day a week. Why? I have come up with some reasons some of us have for attending church:

The Importance of the Question ‘Why’

When we are born, we come into the world without preconceived ideas on how things are done. We are born into a family which has its own way of doing things – its own culture, as it were. Automatically, we imbibe this culture and we do things a particular way because ‘this is how we have always done it’. For instance, I grew up with the family eating meals together at the dining table. Now, as an adult in her own home, we eat at the dining table because that is what is normal to me (and fortunately, to my husband as well). In some homes, teeth are brushed first thing in the morning while in others, they are brushed after breakfast. A husband and wife from these two backgrounds can fight for years about which is the right way because we all feel the way we were brought up must be the right way.