At my church we started reading a book together and I just wanted to share some of the snippets that resonnated well with me. All are from "what on earth am I here for" by Rick Warren .....side note - I was super heasitant to read the book but I have been able to look past that and pull out some great nuggets of truth - end of side note. Oh ya, and sorry if it's a pinch long BUT it is a week's worth of reading.
- Worship is far more than music. For many people, worship is just a synonym for music. They say 'At our church we have the worship first, and then the teaching.' This is a big misunderstanding. EVERY party of a church service is an act of worship: praying, Scripture reading, singing, confession, silence, being still, listening to a sermon, taking notes, giving an offering, baptism, communion, singing a commitmentt card, and even greeting other worshipers.
- Worship has nothing to do with the style or volume or speed of a song. God loves all kinds of music because he inveted it all - fast and slow, loud and sofr, old and new. You probably don't like it all, but God does! If it is offered to God in sprirt and truth, it is an acr of worship....there is no biblical style! ....Frankly, the music style you likse best says more abour you- your background and personality- than it does about God. ...THere is no such thing as 'Christian' music; there are only Christian lyrics. It is the words that make a song sacred not the tune.
- Worship is NOT for your benefit
- In Isaiah 29 God complains about worship that is half hearted and hypocritical. THe people were offering GOd stale prayers, insincere praise, empty words, and man-made rituals without even thinking baout the meaning. God's heart is not touched by tradition in worship, but in passion and commitment.
-Trusting GOd completely: Notice that Noah obeyed completely (no instruction was overlooked), and he obeyed exactly (in the way and time GOd wanted it done). That is wholeheartedness....Paraphrase: THere were 3 things that could have kept Noah from obeying. 1- He had never seen rain b/c God irrigated the earth from the ground up. 2. Noah lived 100's of miles from the nearest ocean. 3. Rounding up AND caring for the animals. But Noah did not let ANY of those stand in his way for the next 120 YEARS
- Delayed obedience is really disobedience.
-You don't bring glory or pleasure to God by Hiding your abilities or by trying to be someone else. You only bring him enjoyment by being you. Anytime you reject any part of yourself, you are rejecting God's wisdom and sovereignty in creating you.
-Trust is an essential ingredient to surrender. You won't surrender to God unless you trust him, but you can't trust him until you know him better. Fear keeps us from surrendering, but love casts out all fear. THe more you realize howmuch God loves you, the easier surrender becomes.
-That desire- to have complete control - is the cause of so much stress in our lives.
- A.W.Tozar said 'The reeson why many are still troubled, still seeking, still making little forward progress is because they haven't yet come to the end of themselves. We're still trying to give our orders, and interfering with God's work within us.'
-It is when we try to be God that we end up most like Satan, who desired the same thing. *ouch*
-C.S. Lewis observed, 'The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become - because he made us. He invented all the different people tha tyou and I were inteded to be...It is when I turn to Christ, when i give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.
- You also know you're surrendered when you don't react to criticism and rush to defend yourself. Surrendered hearts show up best in relationships. you don't edge others out, you don't demand your rights, and you aren't self-serving when you're surrendered.
- The problem with a living sacrifice is tha tit can crawl off the altar....so you may have to resurrender your life fifty times a day. You must make it a daily habit.
- Jesus said, 'I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.' The word friend in this verse does not mean a casual acwuaintance but a close, trusted personal relationship. The same word is used to refer to the best man at a wedding and a king's inner circle of intimate, trusted friends. In royal courts, servants must keep their distance from the king, but the inner circle of trusted friends enjoyed close contact, direct access, and confidential information.
-Today we often feel we must 'get away' from our daily routine in order to worship God, but that is only because we haven't learned to practice his presence all the time. THe key to friendship with GOd, Brother Lawerence said, is not changing what you do, but changing your attitude toward what you do. What you normally do for yourself you begin doing for God, whether it is eating, bathing, working, relaxing or taking out the trash.
- Sometimes you will sense God's presence; other times you won'. If you are seeking an experience of his presence through all of this, you have missed the point. We don't praise God to feel good, but to do good. You goal is not a feeling, but a continual awaremess of the reality that God is always presnt. That is the lifestyle of worship
-When you think about a problem over and over in your mind, that's called worry. When you think about God's word over and over in your mind, that's meditation. If you know how to worry, you already know how to meditate!
- Thirty years of pleasing God were summed up in two words: Lived obediently (Luke 2:51)
-Where you worship is not as important as why you worship and how much of yourself you offer to God when you worship.
- Real worship costs. David knew this and said: 'I will not offer to the lord my God sacrifices that have cost me nothing.
- When you praise God even when you don't feel like it, when you get out of bed to worship when you're tired, or when you helo others when you are worn out, you are offering a sacrigice of worship to God. That pleases God.
- We grieve God's Spirit and quench our fellowship with him by disobedience, conflict with others, busyness, friendship with the world and other sins.
- NEVER DOUBT IN THE DARK WHAT GOD TOLD YOU IN THE LIGHT - V. Raymond Edman
