Spiritual Disciplines: Worship

We continue our reading of Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life together this week by turning our time and attention to the topic of Worship. If you’d like to know more about what we’re doing, you can read about it here: Will You Read Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life With Me? Last week, we learned how the discipline of prayer helps us grow to be more like Christ. In that post, we discovered that meditation on Scripture is the fuel for our prayer life. 

“The rigid rehearsal of a routine,” Whitney said, “is not the same as rightly practicing a Spiritual Discipline.” Don’t hold onto things too tightly. Hold them loosely instead. Our goal in studying the Spiritual Disciplines is that we might grow in Christlikeness, not that we would morph into strange creatures so weighed down by activities and routines that we completely miss their purpose. Remember that we are after growth in godliness not a growing to do list! 

Summary  

“Worship,” Whitney says, “is focusing on and responding to God.” It’s why we are here, and our purpose for eternity but what does it look like and what does it have to do with our growing in Christlikeness? 

Most picture standing and singing without end when they think of worship and specifically heaven. Popular culture and poor teachers of Scripture have done us a disservice by allowing this image to of worship to remain in our minds. Singing songs to and about God can be worship, but there is more to the worship of God than songs and hymns. 

Nearly any practice can be turned into a moment of worship. “To worship God,” Whitney said, “means to ascribe the proper worth to God, to magnify His worthiness of praise, or better, to approach and address God as He is worthy.” There is no shortage of opportunities to reflect back to God His worth. Drinking a cup of coffee while watching the sun erupt over the horizon can cause praise of the Father to overwhelm your heart. When spontaneous affections for God rise in your heart, you are worshiping God. 

“The more we focus on God,” Whitney said, “the more we understand and appreciate His infinite worth.” It’s not simply that we allow our mind to drift to occasional thoughts of God but rather our intentional focus upon Him that constitutes worship. Focus is key in our understanding of what it means to worship God. Only when God is the center of our attention can He be uppermost in our affection.  

We aren’t to focus our minds towards vague thoughts about God, however, but upon specific attributes and truths about Him found in Scripture. “all worship of God—public, family, and private worship,” Whitney said, “should be based upon and include much of the Bible. The Bible reveals God to us.” God has revealed Himself to us generally through Creation, more specifically in the Bible, and most deliberately in His incarnate Word, Jesus Christ.  

The Bible therefore is central to our proper worship of God. For it is within Scripture that we learn of the life, death, burial and resurrection of Christ. It is Scripture that we find example after example of faithful men who loved God, yet remained heavily tainted by sin. We see how God intentionally pursued them and in turn see how He has done the same with us. “As we meditate on this and begin to discover more of what it means for God to be holy,” Whitney said, “the Holy Spirit causes the desire to worship Him to overwhelm us.”

This brings to mind Jesus words to the women at the well in John 4:23-24. There he reveals this powerful link between worshiping in spirit and truth. “Before we can worship in spirit and truth we must have within us the One who is the ‘Spirit of truth’, (John 14:17), that is, the Holy Spirit.” Apart from the power of the Holy Spirit, true worship can not happen. 

“The Holy Spirit,” Whitney said, “opens minds to the truth of Scripture and awakens hearts that were dead toward God.” He aides us in finding new occasions to praise God each time we open our Bibles. We see new and different things that while present before, did not catch our notice. As we meditate on Scripture the Holy Spirit is at work to kindle our emotions towards worship. 

Worship in truth is worship according to the truth of Scripture.

1.) We worship God as He is revealed in the Bible, not as we might want Him to be. We worship Him according to the truth of who He says He is: a God of both mercy and justice, of love and wrath, who both welcomes into heaven and condemns into hell. 

2.) Worship according to the truth of Scripture means to worship God in the ways to which He has given His approval in Scripture. In other words, we should do in the worship of God what God says in the Bible we should do in worship.”

The title for this and every chapter includes the words “for the purpose of godliness.” Whitney’s book is not concerned merely with our learning new and interesting things about the Spiritual Disciplines. He is more concerned with helping us see how each is given to us by God for our growth in conformity to the image of Christ.

What about worship conforms us to His image? 

“Godliness without the worship of God,” Whitney said, “is unthinkable.” We can’t grow to resemble the character and grace of a God we spend little time beholding. “The worship of God makes believers more godly,” Whitney said, “because people become like their focus.” What we choose to think about shapes us. If we fill our minds with good, pure, honorable things the same will ooze out of us. 

For all we have learned worship to be in this chapter, we must come to grips with the reality that it is both a public and private affair. The one is meant to feed the other. Our private worship of God in meditation upon Scripture and prayer is meant to fuel our corporate worship on Sundays. We will seldom worship a God on Sunday that we haven’t spent time with in private all week long. The opposite is also true. 

Reflection

I’ve often taken worshiping God for granted. I wrongly assumed that all He wanted from me was a few moments each morning and an hour on Sunday. That idea couldn’t be farther from the truth. God not only desires a deeper richer relationship with us, but has gone to great links to secure it. Why would I not meditate on His Word, thank Him for all He has done for me in Christ and all He is doing in my life through the power of the Holy Spirit? My failure to understand how sweet an invitation to spend time with Him is, is shameful. 

Reading this chapter was the kick in the pants I needed. “We minimize our joy,” Whitney said, “when we neglect the daily worship of God in private.” I’ve found the same to be true about the neglect of public worship as well. I rarely miss my private devotional time. It’s part of my morning routine. But too often I allow myself to miss the joy of gathering with other believers for corporate worship. Sure, there are valid reasons why we miss Sundays, but my heart is the real issue. It should bother me to miss seeing and worshiping with my church family. It should be as important to me as my daily time in Scripture. 

Next Week

We will continue with the next chapter (chapter six) of the book next Sunday. We may be in the middle of this series, but it’s never too late to get the book and join in. Click here to see what ground we have covered so far.  

Your Turn

I’d like to hear what stood out to you in this week. Please post your reflections, and thoughts in the comment section below. If you have shared your thoughts on your own blog, please link to it as well. Do not feel the need to be profound or to share something new. Simply share what caught your eye, or stirred your heart as you read. 
 

Spiritual Disciplines: Prayer

We continue our reading of Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life together this week by turning our time and attention to the topic of Prayer. If you’d like to know more about what we’re doing, you can read about it here: Will You Read Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life With Me? Last week, we discussed five different ways we need to be engaging with God’s Word. In that post, we discovered that meditation on Scripture is the secret ingredient to a vibrant walk with Christ. 

We also learned that there is a danger lurking in the waters in which we’re swimming. The Spiritual Disciplines can become entanglements that quickly drown us. While water is a necessity, too much of it isn’t a good thing. At every turn we must keep the goal of godliness before us! In short, we must beware of activity for it’s own sake. 

Summary  

Prayer is on one hand the simplest of disciplines and on the other the most neglected. That wouldn’t be a sobering reality if prayer wasn’t also vitally important to our spiritual growth and health. “Prayer,” Whitney said, “is second only to the intake of God’s Word in importance.” 

Again, again and again we see Jesus withdrawing to pray in the gospels. He gets away from the crowd, and busyness of life to spend time with His Father. A large measure of His effectiveness no doubt derived from this simple habit of communing with The Father. 

The same is expected of us. “In every season,” Whitney said, “God expects every Christian to be devoted to prayer and to pray without ceasing.” If all we had was the example of Christ, it would be enough to drive us to prayer, but it’s not all we have. Scripture makes it clear that prayer is expected of us. Jesus’ words present a straightforward call to prayer. Verse after verse contains a phrase such as “And when you pray…” or “But when you pray..”  In addition to the words of Christ, it is the explicit expression of God from the rest of Scripture that we are to pray.    

“God expects us to use the walkie-talkie of prayer,” Whitney said, “because that is the means He has ordained not only for godliness, but also for the spiritual warfare between His kingdom and the kingdom of His enemy. To abandon prayer is to fight the battle with our own resources at best, and to lose interest in the battle at worst.”

Prayer is the method of our talking with God. We don’t have another means through which we can communicate with Him. If you would talk to God, you must pick up the metaphorical walkie-talkie and speak. 
  
Stuff gets in the way of our prayer life however. Sometimes it’s busyness, others it’s a lack of discipline but mostly it’s a lack of trust. “Often we do not pray,” Whitney said, “because we doubt that anything will actually happen if we pray.” This lack of trust persists despite God’s promise to answer every single word we send His way through prayer. 

“Ask and your shall receive; everyone that asks, receives.” Andrew Murray said, “This is the fixed eternal law of the kingdom: if you ask and receive not, it must be because there is something amiss or wanting in the prayer.” There is not a prayer of yours that has not found an answer from the mouth of God. You may be unaware of His reply, or it’s timing may be different from yours, but make no mistake an answer has been given. 

“He does not lead us to pray in order to frustrate us,” Whitney said, “by slamming Heaven’s door in our face.” God’s call to prayer is for our good. He is like a daddy setting his child upon his knee and asking them to tell all about their day. 

Prayer is a learned thing. Perseverance, consistency and The Spirit’s help are required to grow in prayer. You learn to pray by praying, but there is one resource that will aide you in your journey. Last week, we saw that meditation was the secret to a vibrant walk through God’s word. This week, we discover that it is also the  link between Bible intake and prayer.      
 
“There should be a smooth almost unnoticeable transition,” Whitney said, “between Scripture input and prayer output so that we move even closer to God in those moments.” Meditation is meant to be the bridge that helps us navigate that transition easily. It takes what we’ve read in God’s Word, drives it into our hearts and then turn to God about it. “We enlivened by meditation, prayer,” Whitney said, “becomes more like a real conversation with a real person—which is exactly what prayer is.”

The overarching principle of this chapter this: “Would you be like Christ? Then do as He did—discipline yourself to be a person of prayer.” What does our prayer life look like? Are we devoting ourselves to prayer? Are we letting our meditation on God’s Word drive us to our knees in prayer and worship? Prayer is fueled by meditation on Scripture. Make meditation and prayer part of your daily devotions. Read less if you have to in order to create more time for meditation and prayer.  

Reflection

I was disappointed following my first reading of this chapter. I found it lacking, although I couldn’t quite put my finger on what. Perhaps I was looking for something that would radically transform my prayer life. I came to the page in search of a thought, idea or method that would open the door to growth in this area. I’ve found my prayer life dull, repetitive and lacking in fruit for years. And I hate that. I want a deep, rich, fulfilling prayer life.

In search of some nugget or prayer hack I completely missed the point Whitney was making. I don’t need new tips and tricks, I need more of Christ. And I find more of Christ through meditation upon His Word. “What is the reason that our desires like an arrow shot by a weak bow do not reach the mark?” William Bates said, “But only this, we do not meditate before prayer...The great reason why our prayers are ineffectual, is because we do not meditate before them.” 

The great failure of my pursuit of Christ is here laid bare. I have long neglected to meditate upon The Word. I’m learning page by page that neglecting this one area of the Spiritual Disciplines leaves a gaping hole in the middle of my journey towards Christlikeness.   

Next Week

We will continue with the next chapter (chapter five) of the book next Sunday. Chapter five may sound like we’re in the middle of this series, but we’ve only just begun. There remains plenty of time to get the book and join in. 

Your Turn

I’d like to hear what stood out to you in this week's chapter. Please feel free to post your reflections, and thoughts in the comment section below. If you have shared your thoughts on your own blog, please link to it as well. Do not feel the need to be profound or to share something new. Simply share what caught your eye, or stirred your heart as you read. 
 

Marching Into The Unknown

You’ve Got Mail is one of my favorite movies. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are a powerhouse duo exchanging witty banter wrapped in an Affair To Remember esk story. At least once each year, I beg Hannah to let me dig it out and throw it in the ol’ DVD player. Every time, is almost like the first time all over again. Isn’t it that way with our favorites? No matter how many times we’ve seen them, we never get tired of them. As I sat down to write this morning, it popped into my mind. Scene after scene, line after line. In fact, I’m replaying the scene about the Godfather in my head as I type. Greatness!   

As I sat here replaying it in my head, another scene came to mind. Less funny, more serious, yet something I find immensely helpful in this season of life. Midway through the film, Meg Ryan and a character named Birdie have lunch. Meg Ryan’s character has just made the decision to close her charming little bookstore. In the exchange, Birdie issues a series of lines that have stuck with me. They hit me each and every year.

“You are daring to imagine,” Birdie says, “that you could have a different life. Oh, I know it doesn't feel like that. You feel like a big fat failure now. But you're not. You are marching into the unknown armed with...Nothing. Have a sandwich.”

Everything about those lines is lovely. Meg Ryan’s character is feeling low because the business her mother built and left to her, is closing. In the midst of this deep pain, Birdie reminds her of the immense bravery it takes to face the unknown, to do the thing you find particularly hard and difficult.

I feel Hannah and I are marching into the unknown ourselves. In just a few short days, our first son will arrive. Talk about a life changer. Our whole world is about to be upended, in a good way. While we’ve done everything we can think of to prepare, there remains a great deal we are unaware of.

I’m freaking out inside. There are so many questions swirling around in my head, that it hurts. How little sleep is in my future? How will that stress impact our marriage? Do we have enough diapers? Is there anything I’m forgetting? Do we have everything we need for the nursery? Will I drop him? Will we be good parents? What will this new adventure bring into our lives? So many questions, so little answers.

How do you prepare for unknown situations, when you’re freaked out and haven’t a clue what to expect? I’ve thought about that question and a hundred like it. They’ve kept me up at night, and haunted my dreams. They’ve followed me around and lived with me for months on end. Today, I’d like to share with you the result, and how we are preparing to face the unknown once more.

The truth is, this isn’t the first time we’ve “marched into the unknown” and it certainly won’t be the last. We’ve walked this path before, and so have you. Facing situations, events and circumstances you aren’t entirely sure of, is as common as it gets. You don’t know the future, and as a result everything comes with a side of doubt and uncertainty.

Your level of uncertainty changes minute by minute, day by day. While uncertain of every aspect of most situations, you have a reasonable expectation for how it will go. You’ve had similar experiences before and have formed some idea of what most things on your calendar will look like. Other events however, throw massive amounts of uncertainty your way. The more that stands to change in your life, the more unknowns you have to be stressed over. Whether something big or small, the uncertainty is headed your way.

Abide with Christ

Don’t allow uncertainty and stress to threaten your world, and hold you captive. The surest way I know to throw off the heavy yoke the things of this world attempt to lay upon me is to look to Jesus. “Come to me,” Jesus said, “all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Abiding with Christ is the only path to peace in this life, and joy everlasting. One mark of walking with Him is peace in the midst of chaos. You have no need to worry, because you know who’s in control. There is never a moment in your life, during which the Lord wants you to worry. To worry is sin. It communicates your concern that God might get things wrong and that if you just had control things would turn out alright. How often does this pattern play out? How many of the things you’ve prayed the Lord would spare you from, are the very things that ended up shaping who you are the most?

Abiding with Christ involves spending time with His word and doing what it says. Abiding and obedience are inextricably linked, so what does God’s word tell us to do, with our anxiety and fear?   

Pray

“Don’t be anxious in anything,” Paul said, “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Worry, anxiety and stress are heavy burdens you just don’t have to carry. Cast them off and let Christ deal with it. What keeps us up and costs us sleep, makes Him laugh. He is not worried and He has it under control. Lay your burdens down at the feet of Jesus in prayer because He cares for you. While the burden may be too much for you to bear, it’s not too much for Him. Let Him carry it.

Prayer is a powerful tool God has given you to fight the stress and anxiety uncertainty sends your way. Lay it all out there. "Tell God all that is in your heart,” Francois Fenelon said, “as one unloads one's heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend. Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys, that He may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may purify them; tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you to conquer them; talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them; show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them; lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability. Tell Him how self-love makes you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you to yourself as to others."

God can do something about what’s troubling you and He wants to. What you have in Him is a loving father. Loving fathers are concerned with what’s keeping their kids up at night and want to alleviate their burdens. The Lord is no different. Put it all out there in very real, and raw terms. He loves you and wants to hear what’s on your heart.  

Focus On Truth

“The most important battle you will ever fight,” Todd Wagner said, “is the battle for your mind and the most important weapon in this fight is truth.” Your mind is flooded with a million different thoughts each day, and not all of them are good, helpful or even true. What you do with each of those thoughts will determine everything.

You have to train yourself to think rightly in all circumstances by constantly reminding yourself of what’s true. You facedown what you don’t know by focusing on what you do. You may not know exactly what the future holds, but you can know who holds it. Fix your gaze on Him.

Consistent time in God’s word is the only way this happens. There’s just no way around it. No matter how many times you hear it, daily time in the Bible is the lifeblood of the Christian life. It offers practical and helpful instruction for every aspect of life, especially when staring down anxiety, but most importantly the Bible connects you with the author of life Himself.  

“Finally, brothers,” Paul said, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” Releasing your anxiety is only half the battle, you have to embrace truth in its place. Focus on what is true, honorable, pure and more. This is how you transform your mind, so that you know how to respond rightly no matter what comes your way.

Seek The Wisdom of Others

“The physical presence,” Bonhoeffer said, “of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer.” The Lord has been incredibly kind to you in that He has made you a part of the body of Christ. Within the body are countless men and women who have walked your steps before. What is uncertain to you, may not be to someone else. Ask good questions, seek counsel and wisdom, and avail yourself to the wisdom of others.  

The input and experience of your fellow believers can help alleviate a great deal of stress. Their insights can be huge. Go find someone who's walked the path you’re headed down. Regardless what the road ahead looks like, you can face it. Lock arms with other believers and wade into ambivalent seas ready to tackle what comes together. Remember that we is stronger than me. You don’t have to go it alone.

Christmas 2016

Merry Christmas! It is my sincere hope that you have a marvelous Christmas weekend celebrating the birth of Christ with family and friends. As I was looking through notes and searching for some nugget of truth to share with you today, I came across the beautifully written prayer from Robert Louis Stevenson below. May your heart be encouraged with these words. 

"O God our loving Father, help us rightly to remember the birth of Jesus, that we may share in the song of the angels, the gladness of the shepherds, and the worship of the wise men.  May Christmas morning make us happy to be Thy children and Christmas evening bring us to our beds with grateful thoughts, forgiving and forgiven, for Jesus’ sake, amen." 

Wondrous Help For When Words Fail

Heads bowed, and eyes closed the ups and downs of life weighing heavy on your heart and mind. Knowing you should pray to seek the Lord's will, guidance and way but haven't a clue where to start or what to say. Words fail and soon you muddle through the same repetitive prayer you pray each day. 

Sound familiar? 

Praying God's word can be extremely helpful in breaking up the malaise of your common prayers, and give you the words to express your deepest longings, greatest sources of anxiety and petition for God's miraculous grace to invade every corner of your world. 

Over the last several months, my wife and I have enjoyed reading through The Valley of Vision, a collection of puritan prayers and devotionals. The puritans, while just as flawed and broken as the rest of us, are a great source of joy and encouragement to this pilgrim's weary soul.

Oh how I long to study, think and pray as they did. They swam deep in the waters of God's word and it shows in every line they penned and in every prayer they wrote. God's word drips from their pen and leaves you wanting to know the Lord as intimately as these men from years long past.

Modern man can easily fall prey to believing he is more enlightened than men from ages long ago, but the eloquent writing found within the pages of these prayers displays and intellect well worth pursuing and emulating. Sentences carefully crafted, ideas grounded in both God's word and human experience, and a knowledge of the wickedness of their own hearts yields insights that transcend time.    

Not knowing what or how to pray is a conundrum each of us faces in the course of life. Thankfully God has given us both His word and the words of men carried along by His grace to provide a help to us. Below is one such prayer my wife and I read not too long ago. Notice the rhythm, rhyme, and grace of their words, but more than that notice the biblical truth that informed such a prayer.  

The Divine Will

O Lord,

I hang on thee; I see, believe, live,

when thy will, not mine, is done; 

I can plead nothing in myself

in regard of any worthiness and grace, 

in regard of thy providence and promises, 

but only thy good pleasure. 

If thy mercy make me poor and vile, blessed be thou!

Prayers arising from my needs are preparations for future mercies; 

Help me to honour thee by believing before I feel,

for great is the sin if I make feeling a cause of faith.

Show me what sins hide thee from me

and eclipse thy love;

Help me to humble myself for past evils, 

to be resolved to walk with more care, 

For if I do not walk holily before thee, 

how can I be assured of my salvation?

It is the meek and humble who are shown thy covenant,

know thy will, are pardoned and healed,

who by faith depend and rest upon grace,

who are sanctified and quickened, 

who evidence thy love.

Help me to pray in faith and so find thy will,

by leaning hard on thy rich free mercy,

by believing thou wilt give what thou hast promised;

Strengthen me to pray with the conviction

that whatever I receive is thy gift, 

so that I may pray until prayer be granted;

Teach me to believe that all degrees of mercy arise

from several degrees of prayer;

that when faith is begun it is imperfect and must grow,

as chapped ground opens wider and wider until rain comes.

So shall I wait thy will, pray for it to be done,

and by thy grace become fully obedient.