Have you ever found yourself sitting in the middle of the desert? You're beyond parched, beyond tired and just lack any desire to search for water or anything really to get beyond the desert-land? I think we have all at one time or another found ourselves wandering aimlessly. We have no mission, no drive or ambition, we are simply just existing. We are in a spot where we lack the strength to pick ourselves up and move on. There are so many things that we can allow to get us here.....stress of life, job or maybe the lack of, discouragement from family or friends, unforgiveness...and little by little we allow these things to creep in and take over. They begin cutting off our supply of living water as we stop reading God's word, maybe even quit praying because let's face it, God knows everything right? So why pray, if He knows, He should just go ahead and get us out of there. This is NOT at all how it works. God continues pursuing us, yes, but it is ultimately up to us to accept that pursuance, the rescue rope, to get us out of the desert-land.
A coupe weeks ago, our former pastor came to preach. He spoke on how one day it really hit him that he was just going through the motions of worship. He came in without any time of preparing his heart before God, without true worship. If we all are completely honest with ourselves, we have all been here at one time or another, or maybe more often than we wish to admit. I often find myself just going through the motions because I "expect" God to just come work in my life and to speak to me. I completely push aside that worship is an action. It's not just this "magical" time to sit back and let God work in everyone, speak to everyone, convict everyone.....but it's a time for us to give our hearts, praise and concerns to Him. It's a time to gather together, to learn together, pray together, sing together, but also to give each of our own hearts and gifts of praise and admiration to the One who created us all. We've got to get off the pew and carry out our act of worship everyday. It's an action, not a sit back and then have a reaction after hopes of a conviction. He will convict, but we have to open our hearts to even see the areas of life we need to work on. Our relationship is not a sit back and let God do it all kind of thing.
After listening to this sermon, I was thinking, "Yeah, that's me...I've been just going through the motions of worship". But why? This is my last semester of classes and it's much less of a workload. I've been busy, but not like I have in the past. I have time at home to read and to study. How come I seem to be too busy to spend quality time with Him? I seem to always have an excuse. I find things to take up my time. Why am I making excuses? I've realized all I'm doing each day I'm pushing Christ out for the worldly things that do absolutely nothing for me, is I'm putting more and more strain on my relationship with the God who gave everything for my life. He's given me absolutely everything I need and so much that I want and don't deserve, and all I can do is sit back expecting Him to continue to spoon-feed me everything else. Everyday I'm met with blessings from Him, and I fail to give Him thanks. I come across challenges that because of my lack of spiritual strength, they consume me. Discouragement or hurtful words just cripple me and I want to quit. All of this is because I have failed to stay connected. I've failed to actively worship, day in and day out, 7 days of the week. I've failed to start my day with His strength, and let's face it, 5 minutes into morning news and you're day is already starting negative.
"When you're standing firmly on the truth of God as revealed in His Word--when His truth is at the core of your existence--strength flows into every other area of your life."-Priscilla Shirer
The strength God provides us through His Word, prayer with Him, worship.....these flow over and can ultimately bear witness to the power of God at work in us. These things become "a beneficiary of divine favor and wisdom. Your firm confidence in His promises gives you not only a holy courage, but also the spiritual muscle to carry out whatever He calls you to do." I am big time lacking spiritual muscle. Just like regaining actual muscle, spiritual muscle takes time and training. We must exercise daily (prayer, study, worship). God gives us everything we need, it's absolutely free, and our Trainer walks right with us daily. He knows exactly what we are up against and exactly how to tackle our everyday battles. We have got to regain our strength so the weight of any of the world's challenges will not cause us to buckle and fall.
I have found personally that the weight I'm carrying is unforgiveness. I am still carrying burdens from how things have changed since my mom passed away. Some of the hurt of when she was sick and how I had expectations of people and circumstances. Dynamics changed, relationships changed and it hurt. I had expectations of growing closer with certain family and friends and it didn't happen. But with mom's sickness and passing, we all changed in some way or another. We all had our own battles and feelings to deal with. I've let those feelings and words of others tear me down and instead of taking it to God, I've let it harbor anger. All this has done is hurt me. This unforgiveness has crippled me. It has continue to tear me down and hurt my relationship with Christ. I am the only one to blame for this and it hit me hard this morning. "Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil" (Eph. 4:26-27). Each day I continue to allow this "anger" to build, I am giving the devil opportunity to use that against me. I'm actively giving him weapons to use against me. We have to stop this! The devil is crafty in how he attacks us, but we have been given so much to protect ourselves and fight back. But we cannot fight back when we aren't connected to the source of our strength. We've got to stand up tall, put on our armor and allow the power of God to flow through us. We ultimately are victorious with Christ, but through our actions and life we can let God's love shine through us and build our team bigger and bigger. God's army is strong and powerful. We are secure in Him. We must trust Him, connect with Him, and walk upright as we fight our way through the sinfulness of this world. Let's go Home running! He's waiting for us!
A coupe weeks ago, our former pastor came to preach. He spoke on how one day it really hit him that he was just going through the motions of worship. He came in without any time of preparing his heart before God, without true worship. If we all are completely honest with ourselves, we have all been here at one time or another, or maybe more often than we wish to admit. I often find myself just going through the motions because I "expect" God to just come work in my life and to speak to me. I completely push aside that worship is an action. It's not just this "magical" time to sit back and let God work in everyone, speak to everyone, convict everyone.....but it's a time for us to give our hearts, praise and concerns to Him. It's a time to gather together, to learn together, pray together, sing together, but also to give each of our own hearts and gifts of praise and admiration to the One who created us all. We've got to get off the pew and carry out our act of worship everyday. It's an action, not a sit back and then have a reaction after hopes of a conviction. He will convict, but we have to open our hearts to even see the areas of life we need to work on. Our relationship is not a sit back and let God do it all kind of thing.
After listening to this sermon, I was thinking, "Yeah, that's me...I've been just going through the motions of worship". But why? This is my last semester of classes and it's much less of a workload. I've been busy, but not like I have in the past. I have time at home to read and to study. How come I seem to be too busy to spend quality time with Him? I seem to always have an excuse. I find things to take up my time. Why am I making excuses? I've realized all I'm doing each day I'm pushing Christ out for the worldly things that do absolutely nothing for me, is I'm putting more and more strain on my relationship with the God who gave everything for my life. He's given me absolutely everything I need and so much that I want and don't deserve, and all I can do is sit back expecting Him to continue to spoon-feed me everything else. Everyday I'm met with blessings from Him, and I fail to give Him thanks. I come across challenges that because of my lack of spiritual strength, they consume me. Discouragement or hurtful words just cripple me and I want to quit. All of this is because I have failed to stay connected. I've failed to actively worship, day in and day out, 7 days of the week. I've failed to start my day with His strength, and let's face it, 5 minutes into morning news and you're day is already starting negative.
"When you're standing firmly on the truth of God as revealed in His Word--when His truth is at the core of your existence--strength flows into every other area of your life."-Priscilla Shirer
The strength God provides us through His Word, prayer with Him, worship.....these flow over and can ultimately bear witness to the power of God at work in us. These things become "a beneficiary of divine favor and wisdom. Your firm confidence in His promises gives you not only a holy courage, but also the spiritual muscle to carry out whatever He calls you to do." I am big time lacking spiritual muscle. Just like regaining actual muscle, spiritual muscle takes time and training. We must exercise daily (prayer, study, worship). God gives us everything we need, it's absolutely free, and our Trainer walks right with us daily. He knows exactly what we are up against and exactly how to tackle our everyday battles. We have got to regain our strength so the weight of any of the world's challenges will not cause us to buckle and fall.
I have found personally that the weight I'm carrying is unforgiveness. I am still carrying burdens from how things have changed since my mom passed away. Some of the hurt of when she was sick and how I had expectations of people and circumstances. Dynamics changed, relationships changed and it hurt. I had expectations of growing closer with certain family and friends and it didn't happen. But with mom's sickness and passing, we all changed in some way or another. We all had our own battles and feelings to deal with. I've let those feelings and words of others tear me down and instead of taking it to God, I've let it harbor anger. All this has done is hurt me. This unforgiveness has crippled me. It has continue to tear me down and hurt my relationship with Christ. I am the only one to blame for this and it hit me hard this morning. "Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil" (Eph. 4:26-27). Each day I continue to allow this "anger" to build, I am giving the devil opportunity to use that against me. I'm actively giving him weapons to use against me. We have to stop this! The devil is crafty in how he attacks us, but we have been given so much to protect ourselves and fight back. But we cannot fight back when we aren't connected to the source of our strength. We've got to stand up tall, put on our armor and allow the power of God to flow through us. We ultimately are victorious with Christ, but through our actions and life we can let God's love shine through us and build our team bigger and bigger. God's army is strong and powerful. We are secure in Him. We must trust Him, connect with Him, and walk upright as we fight our way through the sinfulness of this world. Let's go Home running! He's waiting for us!