Devotional and Bible

I would think many regular church attenders these days would agree if you said,”Worship is more than just singing on Sunday morning.”  Many people even would agree that all of our lives should be worship.  But there’s still something wrong.

I think we’ve been so indoctrinated to think of worship as congregational singing, that we’re starting our thinking off at the wrong angle.  Here’s how it works:

First, we start off thinking of worship as Sunday morning singing at church.  Then, we’re told that the preaching is worship too – it must be; after all, we call it a “worship service”.  As a matter of fact, isn’t preaching the Word a rather important part?  So we have to cram that into our definition of worship.

But what about all that other stuff in the “worship service”?  Like the announcements and offering?  Have you ever heard someone leading the service tell you that the offering is part of worship too?  Well, I have.  Many times.  It has to be part of the “worship experience” since it’s part of the “worship service”.  So someone leading the service goes to great lengths to convince us that taking an offering is worship too.  And yes, even the announcements.  Has someone said that to you in a Sunday morning service?

Now they’ve spent all that time convincing us that every part of the Sunday morning service is “worship”.  We’re still confused, because the “worship team” only does the music.  But still we cram all this things, like square pegs into a round hole, into our definition of worship.  Hard to wrap your mind around, but we can do it if we’re reminded enough by the “worship leader”.

But now they want to tell us we can worship every day of the week!  How does that work?  That just takes a little too much mental energy to even imagine.  Perhaps I can pray sometimes during the day.  I might have devotions.  Ok, maybe those things can be worship.

Ok, stop the madness.  I think that we’re having a lot of problems because we’re coming at worship from the wrong angle.  Jesus teaches us that worship is not a location, and it’s not a certain thing we do at certain times.  Our worship is spiritual – in spirit and in truth (Joh 4:21-24).  The temple of the New Testament is not a building – it’s our bodies, filled with the Spirit (1Co 6:19).  Or it’s Jesus Himself (Joh 2:19).  Paul makes it clear – the sacrifice of our entire lives is our worship (Rom 12:1-2).

So don’t keep trying to convince us that the sermon or the offering is worship too.  Of course it is!  Everything we do to glorify God is worship.  We can sing worship, but most of the time we worship in other ways – through our day to day obedience of the Lord.  Our day to day sacrifice of our own will to the Lord’s.  Maybe we first need to be reminded that all our lives should be worship.

Starting from this angle, we may ask why meeting together as believers is even necessary (besides the fact that it’s commanded (Heb 10:25) and demonstrated (Act 2:42) in Scripture).  But actually, now we can really see what it’s all about – why it’s different, why it’s really important.

What’s the difference between worshipping alone and with friends (besides that polished live band on the stage)?  Well, to state the obvious – we’re doing it together.  That’s the key.  Why does God love to see us worship Him together?  Not because He looks down at a bunch of individuals and adds them up and gets a big number.  No, He looks down to see us living in loving relationships, as He taught us.  He sees unity in the Spirit.  He sees us working out our differences, bearing each other’s burdens.  And when we join together to hear His Word or sing to Him or pray, that unity itself is worship.

Ok, so we don’t always reach that ideal.  But don’t tell me I should come into the church building, block out everyone around me and focus on the Lord.  Why would I come to do that?  That’s much easier to do at home, or in a park, or in the fields.  We come to worship as a community – together, being fully aware of the struggles and joys that we all are going through.  We bring those things before the Lord in worship, and He brings it all into perspective.  Is God greater than our challenges?  Is He the centre of our universe?  Is He leading us?

So the next time you’re confused about how you can worship, or why you should, make sure you’re starting at the right angle.  The giving of all our lives is worship (does God deserve any less?) – it all has to fit into that framework.  If not, the “worship leader” is going to have a lot more explaining to do.

Jesus got up, told off the wind and told the sea to calm down. The wind stopped, and all was calm. Then He said to His disciples, Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?

Why was Jesus sleeping in the boat? Ok, He was probably really tired. But was there another reason? I always thought maybe He was testing the disciples, and perhaps He was. But it hit me this morning that there may be another reason.

I think maybe Jesus understood something about God’s power and protection that the rest of us forget. The Bible doesn’t tell us whether or not Jesus slept after the storm, only that He slept in the storm. God doesn’t usually bring us peace by stopping the storms in our lives. The miracle is that He brings us peace within the storm. The miracle is that we can have joy in trying times. Jesus could sleep during a storm because He knew that the Father could take care of Him in the storm.

This fits well with a song I wrote about 12 years ago for a friend – Peace in the Battle…

You might have heard something like this before: We don’t pray for the work, prayer is the work. I’ve heard it said various ways. I think it may have come from Scottish writer Oswald Chambers. He said it various ways too, but here’s a quote: We take for granted that prayer is preparation for work, whereas prayer is the work. Intercessory prayer is God’s chosen way of working.

I thought I’d write a bit here about prayer, and I was wondering what might be helpful to share. What’s prayer really all about?

I agree with what Chambers says here, as far as it goes. And I admit, I haven’t read it in context. But I have heard how it’s used in Christian conversation. There’s no doubt that prayer is important. And there are many people that may be able to do little else. We will find in the end that many of these people did more for the Lord than those who worked long hours in His service in a “visible” way.

At the same time, I’ve always felt a little uneasy about saying prayer is the work. Why? Because prayer isn’t the only work. It’s not as if prayer is the highest calling, and if we all spent all our time in our rooms praying God would be pleased. The fact is that God has called us to other things as well – teaching His Word, making disciples, caring for our families, for example. If God has given us the strength to do these things, we can’t neglect these things, even if we neglect them for prayer.

I wonder if we sometimes make it too much of an either/or. One summer I was at a camp and I had the children write down their questions for me to answer. One question was about finding God’s will. I shared a list of ways that people can begin to understand God’s will in a situation. Prayer was on the list, but it wasn’t just another thing to do. At each step I suggested, I added prayer in as well.

It’s not like prayer is the first thing we should do each day, or like we should spend x number of hours in prayer. Both those things are great. But prayer is more like breathing. It’s something that should be a given all the time – it should be a part of the work always. Whatever we’re doing, wherever we are, we can be conversing with God about. We can talk with God about the TV shows we’re watching, about the people we’re meeting with, about the sermon we’re listening to. I think this is what Paul meant when he said “pray without ceasing” (1Th 5:17).

Perhaps the reason why the Bible doesn’t exhort us to speak with our Lord more than it does is because it’s just assumed. Those of us whose lives have been transformed by His love, who need Him every moment, should be living constantly in His presence – like the branches on the vine (Joh 15:4-8).

This isn’t a lesson I’ve learned, but one I am learning and want to learn. We really can do nothing without Him. What a friend, what a God we have. What transforming power when we let His Spirit into the everyday circumstances of life. Yes, God has chosen to work through prayer. But in His grace He often chooses to work through our prayers and our service. Weak on our own, we can bear fruit if we’re connected to the vine. When we learn that, we’ll see God’s power in our lives as we’ve never seen it before!