Worship
“Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.”
Psalm 100 (NIV)
There is something special about worship. No matter how my day has been or how empty I feel or what is going around me, the moments that I just stop and worship God are the times when I feel absolute peace. Those are the times when my joy is complete and I am fully content with what I am doing. This life is full of things that can satisfy for a moment. I remember when I got my first car, I was a junior in college (Yes, in college). I was overjoyed and excited to drive everyone, anywhere, at any time. I just wanted to use my car. It had great gas mileage, came in a great blue color, and was big enough to carry my friends around. Eventually though, I was no longer satisfied with my car. I got comfortable with it and, although I appreciated having a car, I lost the excitement and novelty of having a vehicle.
Items are great. The things and activities and events in this world can satisfy our pleasures, but only for a temporary period of time. All things in this world will eventually fail us or dissatisfy us, but there is one thing that I have found that always leaves me breathless, in awe, and completely overjoyed and full: Worship.
Now when I say worship, I am not talking just about the times when we sing songs and clap our hands. I am talking about pure and holy worship given by the sacrifice of our lives and our being. When our first response is to worship our Father for every occasion, in every season, we are in a constant state of worship.
Ramesh Richard captures the essence of worship when he observes, “Too often we reduce the Christian faith to a mixture of commands to obey, duties to observe, or laws to endure. Instead, the whole Christian life is but a lover’s responsibility. God wants you to love Him, serve Him, trust Him, and fear Him, with all your heart. God does not want sterility or monotony in that relationship. He wants a relationship into which you put your heart.”
Another wise man, St. Francis of Assisi said “Preach the gospel always and, if necessary, use words.” Let’s not reduce worship for our Father down to the times when we sing, let’s worship with our lives and give praise to the One through all things exists and to which his love pours out for. Let’s Worship.
WOD:
I recently turned on my Facebook after being off of it for 2 years because I thought/think it is worthless. Let’s make it worth something. Take the number of Facebook friends you have and that is the total number of reps you need to work up to. If you have less than 300 friends, just go with 300. You will be doing the following work for time:
10 Clean and Jerk (135#)
20 Pullups
30 Situps
40 Double Unders
Example: 315 friends: 10-20-30-40 x3 rounds then 10 pushups and 5 situps for a total of 315 reps
There is something special about worship. No matter how my day has been or how empty I feel or what is going around me, the moments that I just stop and worship God are the times when I feel absolute peace. Those are the times when my joy is complete and I am fully content with what I am doing. This life is full of things that can satisfy for a moment. I remember when I got my first car, I was a junior in college (Yes, in college). I was overjoyed and excited to drive everyone, anywhere, at any time. I just wanted to use my car. It had great gas mileage, came in a great blue color, and was big enough to carry my friends around. Eventually though, I was no longer satisfied with my car. I got comfortable with it and, although I appreciated having a car, I lost the excitement and novelty of having a vehicle.
Items are great. The things and activities and events in this world can satisfy our pleasures, but only for a temporary period of time. All things in this world will eventually fail us or dissatisfy us, but there is one thing that I have found that always leaves me breathless, in awe, and completely overjoyed and full: Worship.
Now when I say worship, I am not talking just about the times when we sing songs and clap our hands. I am talking about pure and holy worship given by the sacrifice of our lives and our being. When our first response is to worship our Father for every occasion, in every season, we are in a constant state of worship.
Ramesh Richard captures the essence of worship when he observes, “Too often we reduce the Christian faith to a mixture of commands to obey, duties to observe, or laws to endure. Instead, the whole Christian life is but a lover’s responsibility. God wants you to love Him, serve Him, trust Him, and fear Him, with all your heart. God does not want sterility or monotony in that relationship. He wants a relationship into which you put your heart.”
Another wise man, St. Francis of Assisi said “Preach the gospel always and, if necessary, use words.” Let’s not reduce worship for our Father down to the times when we sing, let’s worship with our lives and give praise to the One through all things exists and to which his love pours out for. Let’s Worship.
WOD:
I recently turned on my Facebook after being off of it for 2 years because I thought/think it is worthless. Let’s make it worth something. Take the number of Facebook friends you have and that is the total number of reps you need to work up to. If you have less than 300 friends, just go with 300. You will be doing the following work for time:
10 Clean and Jerk (135#)
20 Pullups
30 Situps
40 Double Unders
Example: 315 friends: 10-20-30-40 x3 rounds then 10 pushups and 5 situps for a total of 315 reps
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