Epistle I
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ and all who read my blog!
I hope this online-letter might encourage you in your expressed worship to God during coporate worship sessions.
Last Sunday I achieved breakthrough during the worship session at the Youth Service.
At the start of it Pastor Cuixian exhorted the congregation to engage God in the time of worship saying that we make the difference, and I was like, what do you mean we make the difference?
If I can be radical and say, God will only do as much as you allow Him to do in your being. He created us with freewill and He respects our freewill thus I feel it is safe to say that He will not force us to do something that we do not want to do.
That being said, we as His children cannot expect Him to touch us just because we desire it, He is sovereign and His ways are higher than ours (Is. 55:9) but know that He will give us the desires of our heart if we first delight in Him (Ps. 37:4)
I believe that God in His infinite wisdom knows what is best for us and He will bless us if we are ready to receive that blessing, sometimes we might be seeking the gifts rather than to please the Giver!
So while I was worshipping, there was a stirring within me that made me want to just shout out God's praises, and still it felt like it wasn't enough! Luke 19 rang in my head, if we His children do not praise Him even the stones will cry out! And so I went for it, danced, jumped, sang at the top of my lungs and worshipped the LORD with my whole being!
And God ministered to me! It was a good time of worship for me but more than that I pray that God was pleased with my worship, the more I praised the more I felt it wasn't enough because we serve such an Awesome God who deserves all our worship and all our praise!
Please note that I am by no means saying that what I did is the standard of worship and that is the other revelation (note small 'r'), there is no standard worship, sometimes we're required to keep really still (Ps. 46:10) while at other times we are exhorted to shout to the Lord in joy! (Ps. 100:1) A correct assesment of our worship will be to see if we are loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength! So don't look at your neighbour to see what he is doing, focus on God, one on One!
We are to love the Lord our God with our heart, soul, mind and strength! That's the most important commandment! (Mk. 12:29) That means in all that we do, we worship Him. Even on Sundays when we express our worship through songs, we do it with passion, with emotions, with might (strength), and with our minds! We must know the God we worship so that we can worship Him in spirit and in truth! (Jn. 4:23)
In truth! Where's the truth? The truth is the Word of God, amen? .)
I leave you with these verses!
This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. (Jos. 1:8)
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16-17)
P/S: I hope you've been blessed by this little 'epistle'/essay of sorts and if any of you disagree with what I said, do comment! I'm open for correction! If you were blessed, comment too! Thanks! I wanna know how my writing is lah, so yah, thanks!
God bless you all!
I hope this online-letter might encourage you in your expressed worship to God during coporate worship sessions.
Last Sunday I achieved breakthrough during the worship session at the Youth Service.
At the start of it Pastor Cuixian exhorted the congregation to engage God in the time of worship saying that we make the difference, and I was like, what do you mean we make the difference?
If I can be radical and say, God will only do as much as you allow Him to do in your being. He created us with freewill and He respects our freewill thus I feel it is safe to say that He will not force us to do something that we do not want to do.
That being said, we as His children cannot expect Him to touch us just because we desire it, He is sovereign and His ways are higher than ours (Is. 55:9) but know that He will give us the desires of our heart if we first delight in Him (Ps. 37:4)
I believe that God in His infinite wisdom knows what is best for us and He will bless us if we are ready to receive that blessing, sometimes we might be seeking the gifts rather than to please the Giver!
So while I was worshipping, there was a stirring within me that made me want to just shout out God's praises, and still it felt like it wasn't enough! Luke 19 rang in my head, if we His children do not praise Him even the stones will cry out! And so I went for it, danced, jumped, sang at the top of my lungs and worshipped the LORD with my whole being!
And God ministered to me! It was a good time of worship for me but more than that I pray that God was pleased with my worship, the more I praised the more I felt it wasn't enough because we serve such an Awesome God who deserves all our worship and all our praise!
Please note that I am by no means saying that what I did is the standard of worship and that is the other revelation (note small 'r'), there is no standard worship, sometimes we're required to keep really still (Ps. 46:10) while at other times we are exhorted to shout to the Lord in joy! (Ps. 100:1) A correct assesment of our worship will be to see if we are loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength! So don't look at your neighbour to see what he is doing, focus on God, one on One!
We are to love the Lord our God with our heart, soul, mind and strength! That's the most important commandment! (Mk. 12:29) That means in all that we do, we worship Him. Even on Sundays when we express our worship through songs, we do it with passion, with emotions, with might (strength), and with our minds! We must know the God we worship so that we can worship Him in spirit and in truth! (Jn. 4:23)
In truth! Where's the truth? The truth is the Word of God, amen? .)
I leave you with these verses!
This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. (Jos. 1:8)
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16-17)
P/S: I hope you've been blessed by this little 'epistle'/essay of sorts and if any of you disagree with what I said, do comment! I'm open for correction! If you were blessed, comment too! Thanks! I wanna know how my writing is lah, so yah, thanks!
God bless you all!
posted by Jeremiah Ng at 07:32
4 Comments:
The reason why your worship to God was such an awesome experience was because you know who u worship. You worship the Lord based on the character of God in nature and in the scriptures and not on some imaginiary-feel-good kind of theology. That is why I am assured of your whole-heartedness.
Does that mean that those who do not know God's truth are worshipping in vain? By no means, because such experiences can be used by the Holy Spirit to lead them to the Father. The spirit as the bible shows, always points to the Father and remind us of scriptures that will strengthen us.
That being said, there are some who could have a great experience but still have no change in their attitude towards God and sin. They are the spiritually dead. No matter how great a sermon will be as long as their heart is hard as stone, every word bounces off it.
This reminds me about the parable of the sower. The soil represents the heart of people who recieve the gospel. Let's be the soil that produces fruits. Thanks be to God, even God can change the hardest of hearts. I believe that God give us infinite chances until we finally decide to reject him one final time like Judas did. The Lord reached out to him. He was sitted next to him in the seat of honor at the last supper, when Jesus gave him the bread to signify communion with Christ, Judas still rejected Jesus even as he recieve the bread. May we never reject the Lord like Judas did. But see the grace and mercy of God that he offered to us and recieve it in gladness.
I am glad that you had a breakthrough. Ur maturity in faith is balanced. That is why I am not worried when u explained about how God touched u during the Worship.
I really liked that epistle!!! :) I love it!!! Thanks for encouraging me tru it...and many others of us, i am sure! I was like nodding the whole way while reading it...haha more, more! Preach it, brudder! :) -jeanie-
yo!! no disagreements here. just a loud AMEN!
Amen, amen bro! God is good and He is so worthy to be praised. :D
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