I have observed that there are two types of Christians – the ones with the cart before the horse and the others with the horse before the cart. The objective of this post is to enable us see which we are and encourage us to put things in their right position.
Revelation 4:9-11 describes living creatures and elders in Heaven bowing and worshipping God. Why do the angels and elders worship God?
Gratitude: a feeling of appreciation or thanks; the quality or feeling of being grateful or thankful.
Robert Emmons, perhaps the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude, argues that gratitude has two key components, which he describes in a Greater Good essay, ‘Why Gratitude Is Good.’
“First,” he writes, “it’s an affirmation of goodness. We affirm that there are good things in the world, gifts and benefits we’ve received.” In the second part of gratitude, he explains, “we recognize that the sources of this goodness are outside of ourselves. … We acknowledge that other people—or even higher powers, if you’re of a spiritual mindset—gave us many gifts, big and small, to help us achieve the goodness in our lives.” Emmons and other researchers see gratitude as “a relationship-strengthening emotion, because it requires us to see how we’ve been supported and affirmed by other people” and it is felt that gratitude encourages us not only to appreciate gifts but to repay them (or pay them forward).
I’ve always heard the phrase ‘audience of one’ used in terms of music and God, and it’s used to mean that when we’re worshipping in a crowd or ministering from the stage, we should do it solely for God’s pleasure. Generally, when used in Christian circles, it refers to our preaching, teaching, singing, dancing, praying,….some activity we tag as being ‘spiritual’. I agree 100% but may I challenge us to take it deeper than that? What if we live our everyday lives conscious of pleasing that same ‘audience of One’?
My husband fell ill in the first half of 2007 but ended up in hospital in September and was basically in hospitals for 4 months before he was given a ‘death sentence’ of terminal cancer. After returning home and battling to nurse him by myself and then with home-care nursing, believing that he would get up from his sick bed, he fell into a coma on the night of Friday, March 28, 2008 and was moved to the hospital on Saturday. With the home-care nurse at his side, I left that night with my sister. The mood wasn’t great at her home because my father had died of a sudden heart attack there on Easter Sunday, March 23, but I was able to sleep and recharge.
“The word of God came to Solomon saying, “About this Temple you are building—what’s important is that you live the way I’ve set out for you and do what I tell you, following my instructions carefully and obediently. Then I’ll complete in you the promise I made to David your father. I’ll personally take up my residence among the Israelites—I won’t desert my people Israel.” (1 Kings 6:11-13, MSG)
With God, it’s not about the externals but about the internals – the heart before all else because everything else flows out of the heart. “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23, NCV)
As a parent, I’m constantly trying to balance being loving (or rather, being nice, since giving discipline is actually being loving) and being stern. Some of us go to either extreme and need either God or someone else to point it out to us and then grace to balance it out.
There’s a song made popular by Michael W. Smith titled ‘The Heart of Worship’ which chorus states, ‘I’m coming back to the heart of worship….it’s all about You, Jesus.’
I’ve always just taken that to mean that having been distracted by life generally and having lost focus somewhat, I have realised where I’m at and I’m returning to what worship truly is – to the core of worship or as we would say in Nigeria, to the ‘koko’ of worship. And that ‘koko’ is Jesus, the Saviour of the world and my Lord. This is important because of what we’ve turned worship into.
We’ve made it about us: The subconscious (and sometimes conscious) motive for coming into God’s presence and saying the loving, adoring things to Him a lot of times is to then sneak in some request for our needs. To use a term found in organisations, it is more like ‘sucking up’ to God so that He will be favourably disposed towards us……or so we think. Now, there’s nothing wrong with asking your Father for stuff but as a parent, it doesn’t feel nice when you think your child is snuggling up to you and enjoying your company just to discover she just wanted to ask you for something and was ‘softening the ground’. The difference with God is that He sees right through to our heart and knows exactly what we’re after, whether we’re after Him (His face) or some ‘blessing’ (His hands).
There is a song I remember from way back that goes:
‘Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.
Break me, melt me, mold me, fill me.
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.’
[‘Spirit of the Living God’ by Daniel Iverson & Michael Baughen]
A more recent (but still old) song says something quite similar:
‘Take me and mold me, use me, fill me
I give my life to the Potter’s hand
Call me, You guide me, lead me, walk beside me
I give my life to the Potter’s hand.’
[‘The Potter’s Hand’ by Hillsong]
The foundation for these two songs is the understanding that we belong to God and not to ourselves. This holds true on two levels:
For those who don’t know, in 2008, I founded a worship ministry – At The Master’s Feet (ATMF) – although our first outreach held in 2009. ATMF serves to fulfil the mandate to raise true worshippers who worship God in spirit and in truth by organizing annual 2-hour worship gatherings in Nigeria and in Ghana (with the plan to go into other African nations) and an annual outreach to women in Nigeria – Alabaster Box. In between outreaches/worship gatherings, we keep sending out messages by sms, online and e-newsletter to help worshippers grow in their lifestyle of true worship.
I’ve always heard it said that the attainment of earthly pursuits never truly satisfies, that no matter how rich you get, the riches can’t satiate the hunger that’s deep inside. Well, I’ve agreed and said same to others but you know what, I’ve never had ‘more than enough’ money, so I can’t say I’ve spoken from an experiential knowing.
Yesterday, though, I got a taste of that emptiness that comes after reaching a goal that is shallow.