Category: Worship Wednesday

worship is how we reflect God

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.  Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror  and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.  But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

James 1:19-27

DO your words and your actions reflect Jesus?

If you looked in  a mirror and a list of your characteristics appeared what would it say? Would you use those words to describe Jesus?

This may seem like a lot of pressure. No one’s perfect, right.

But God doesn’t ask us to reflect Jesus on our own, but to die to ourselves and let Jesus live through us by listening to the guiding of the Holy Spirit.

Reflecting Jesus to others is not meant to be following a list of rules in the Bible, but listening to the Holy Spirit and testing what he is saying against the word of God given in the Bible.

Following Jesus is not a list of Do’s and Don’t but a relationship built by spending time getting to know the character of God so that we know who he is, how he would react and what he would say.

Reflect Jesus by knowing him, not by trying to imitate him.

You can always go to Him

The one thing I always know to be true, beyond a shadow of a doubt is that I can always come to God for anything.

No matter how bad my day is, or what I have done. I can always go to him.

We can always turn our hearts to God.

He is always there. He always wants to talk to us, be near us, comfort us and love us.

So no matter how your day is going just take a moment, close your eyes and listen to this song. Let his love melt over you and take moment to love him back.

Rest to walk upon the waters

Resting in the presence of God is what gives you the trust to walk on water.

How else to would you build that trust.

You wouldn’t do something deemed impossible without some sort of faith in the one who asked you. But where does that faith come from.

It comes from spending time with God, from resting in His presence, from just being content to be with Him. Because you know Him, and you know His character. You can trust Him when He asks you to take those big leaps of faith that to others seem impossible.

Listen to this song and take some time to rest in His presence, and let Him lead you to walk on water.

Why I worship

For I will pour water on the thirsty land,
and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring,
and my blessing on your descendants.

Isaiah 44:3

The thing I love about worshiping God is that it’s an exchange. As you surrender yourself to Jesus and let the Holy Spirit envelope you; as you pour your life out as an offering he fills you up to overflowing more than you gave.

You can’t out give him; so stop worrying about what your giving up and starting focusing on what he’s doing in and through you.


Photo by Courtney Clayton on Unsplash


Love is a choice

God is endless in his pursuit of us, each and everyone of us has our own special place in his heart. We matter to him.

Even when we feel like no one sees us, hears, us or knows us. He does.

He loves us and will pursue us to our last breathe. He will always seek to show us how much he cares, how much he loves and how much he gave to be with us.

But he is never forceful.

The gift he gave us was choice.

What could be more loving then the right to choose?

When we feel broken

No matter how low or lost we feel God is always right there waiting for us to turn to him. 

We can feel worthless and unworthy but that is not how God sees us. He sees who he made us to be. Who he paid the price for us to be.

He sees opportunity to reach people through our healed scars, not our old wounds. He sees us. Not our past, not our mistakes but our future.

 “Behold, I am making all things new.”  Rev 21:5b

Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace, the classic song that most people know, is one of my favorites because of what it means.

God’s amazing grace that saved, a wretch like me. Every time I hear this song, I want to sing it.

Everyone who has ever lived, except Jesus has done something wrong at some point in their life and needs forgiveness for something.

God’s grace does just that. He forgives us for everything we have ever done wrong. He wipes our slate clean and makes us white as snow before God.

I know I’ve done plenty of things wrong in my life, but He forgave me and made me new in Him. Because of His forgiveness I get a do over, a fresh start, I get to be new in Him.

Often I find memories of my past that try to come back to haunt me. But I know that, that person died on the cross with Jesus. I am no longer that person, because Jesus makes me new and clean with His grace and forgiveness.

Next time you find yourself caught up in your past mistakes, surrender them over to Jesus and let Him remind you that, that person died on the cross with Him and that He lives through you.

Praise HIM

The first exegetical (which simple means using the whole text and in context) sermon I ever preached was on Psalm 150, the last of the psalms. It cries out the heart of the book of psalms Praise HIM, no matter what, no matter how you feel, Praise HIM.

Praise HIM everywhere in every way, all the time. With singing, with instruments, with dancing, with focus and undivided attention.

Praising God isn’t about the perfect song or if the band is on key, or if you sit, stand, kneel, dance or jump about. It’s about your heart.

Worship is about God, not us.

Are your words and your actions reflecting God? Are you shining glory on him? Are you taking time to solely focus on God, thanking him, praising him and giving him the glory? That’s what he deserves.

How are you praising HIM?

Psalm 150

Praise the Lord.

Praise God in his sanctuary;

   praise him in his mighty heavens.

Praise him for his acts of power;

   praise him for his surpassing greatness.

 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,

   praise him with the harp and lyre,

 praise him with timbrel and dancing,

   praise him with the strings and pipe,

 praise him with the clash of cymbals,

   praise him with resounding cymbals.

 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

Spiritual thirst

For I will pour water on the thirsty land,
and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring,
and my blessing on your descendants.

Isaiah 44:3

Feeling like you are dry spiritually or not hearing God, is often because we are not making time for Him or listening for the answer. We may be too busy or overwhelmed with all our obligations and responsibilities.


Photo by Vlad Tchompalov on Unsplash

But if we take the time to give God time he makes those obligations and responsibilities easier and even joyful.

Spending time with Him and letting Him fill us up with His presence gives us joy, peace, love and perspective. When we look to Him moment by moment He changes things.

The change He brings may not be a change of location, job or responsibilities, but a change of perspective, of how we view, and react to those same situations.

The thing I love about worshipping God is that it’s an exchange. As you surrender yourself to Jesus and let the Holy Spirit envelope you; as you pour your life out as an offering He fills you up to overflowing more than you gave.

You can’t out give God; so stop worrying about what your giving up and starting focusing on what He’s doing in and through you.

Seek God and let Him transform your life.

God KNOWS You

God’s presence is the place where we find ourselves. He sees the mess and gives us the grace to overcome it and get out of it. He doesn’t want us to shove it aside or stuff it deep inside or try to fix it on our own. He wants it to be resolved and no longer affect us. So we don’t have to be ruled by our past mistakes or even the mistakes of others.

We get to choose.

Choose to let God’s grace be enough for us and for others. When we forgive, we free ourselves from being slaves to bitterness, anger, resentment and rage. It can no longer have power over us; because we won’t let it.

Finding our identity in Jesus makes us more us than we were before. He uniquely designed each of us and He know exactly what gifts and talents He gave us; to be and do what He designed us for.

When we choose to let God’s grace to be enough we are free to be who He intended us to be. To be loved, strong and confident and not held down; but to soar above the storms.

What fills you?

Soaking is a term meaning to literally sit in God’s presence and soak it in. You don’t have to pray or sing or do anything. Just sit and let everything go, all your worries all your concerns, all your pain and frustration and just let him be enough for it all.

If you’ve never tried it, I want to encourage you to put on your favorite worship music station and just let everything go and let God fill you up with his peace, joy, love and presence.

Who influences you?

As the new year begins I encourage to make the same decision I did years ago; to surrender your life to Jesus. It can sound scary and intimating but it is truly the best decision I ever made.

I lived for years trying to do everything on my own, striving to try to achieve what I thought I wanted. But even when I achieved some of my goals they fell short of what I thought they would be.

Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash

But when I surrendered my life to God he changed everything. He gave me love and confidence to be who he made me to be. He gave me career opportunities I never would have picked for myself that turned out to be just what I needed and he picked the perfect husband for me, one that I never would of picked myself but is the perfect match for me. And he has blessed me in so many other ways in my life in ways I never thought I needed or wanted but were just what I needed when I needed it.

When we try to achieve our own goals we are influenced by others that have the same thing, but when we let God guide us he has already prepared a path for us that we probably would never of expected but is better then we ever could of thought.

Give God your dreams, your desires and your life and let him bless you beyond your belief.

But as for me, behold, I am in your hands. Do with me as seems good and right to you.

Jeremiah 26:14

no more fear

We should not be afraid to share our faith in God, we should shout it from the rooftops. There is nothing wrong with it and we should not be afraid to share it. Our faith in Jesus changed our lives and we should share that.

Our fear comes from worry or fear of acceptance, but we are sharing about our God who takes those away from us. He came to give us peace, love and confidence and that’s what we should share.

You can’t earn His love

In life we seek out love, we pursuit it, we desire it from our friends, family, and others but somehow it is never enough.

No matter who it’s from or how much we love someone, their love for us will never be enough. This is because we are meant to only be truly 100% fulfilled by God’s love. He created us and made us with a God shaped hole that can only be fulfilled by Him.

My whole life I pursued unconditional love from friends, family and others, hoping that I would find that person that filled the void.

But I never found that fulfillment from a person. And even though I have an amazing husband, what bonds us together the most is that we both came into our marriage knowing that only God could fulfill us. That’s why I call my husband the cherry on top of my sundae, because he’s the bonus, the blessing above the fulfillment I get from the love of God.

God’s love is the only love that has ever made me feel complete and wanting nothing. In His presence, He is all I want and all I need.

We can’t earn His love because He gives it freely.

God loves you! What could you lose by giving Him a chance to share His love for you with you?

worship in Thanks

Thanksgiving is tomorrow!

One of my favorite days of the year.

I love gathering with family and helping prepare a huge meal for us all.

A thought, is to go into this season with thanksgiving to God for the family and friends he’s given you.

Don’t shy away from talking about him tomorrow, in fact I highly encourage trying to make him the focus of your thanksgiving. Maybe even take time out to sing a song of worship to him.

A family I hold dear to sings “O’Come let us adore him” before family meals.

It sounds weird but it brings so much joy and peace into the atmosphere of the room.

Try something different this year, be bold for Jesus and make him the center of the day of thanksgiving.

Here’s a song to start off

Treat everyday like Christmas morning

Seeking God just for who is, not for what he’s done or what you want him to do but just for who he is.

Spending time with him just because of who he is. Seeking him as a long lost friend you haven’t seen in a long time, with the joy and anticipation of his arrival, the nervous joy that builds up, the disregard for decorum when you embrace them at first sight.

We should seek God the same way each day, when we wake, treat each day like your a kid on Christmas morning, looking for the gifts he has for you that day, the joy of being in his presence the delight in opening up the surprises he has for us and the relief of being able to just rest in his presence.

Thankfulness is about perspective

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
—Psalm 118:24

Thankfulness builds joy. Just saying the word brings a smile to my face. There is always something to be thankful for, the sun on your face, the song of a bird near by, the beauty of the trees turning.

Somewhere in some way in your life God is always looking to bless you, to share his love for you, with you.

Thankfulness is about perspective. We can choose to be miserable and focus on what we don’t have or we can choose to find joy regardless of our circumstances.

We all have had times of need and of abundance, but its how we react that make the difference. We should be thankful in all things big or small blessings. Each day we wake up we can be thankful we have life. Each day is an opportunity to change our perspective.

The Jello effect

The deep intimacy you experience when surrounded by God’s presence can only be called holy. Holy by Jesus Culture perfectly describes how his presence can engulf us, how intoxicating it can be, to the point of never wanting to leave it.

I call it the ‘jello effect’

When his presence is so thick in the room you feel as if you suspended in jello.

Don’t you want to experience that? Don’t you want to know and be with a God that can melt all your cares away, who can give you such peace and joy that it feels as if it will never end.

That’s the God that I worship.

Yes, he is Holy!

And he invites us into his presence, to the place where our whole world changes because he is Holy.

All you have to do is open the door and let him into your life, and believe in Him.

Take a moment to listen to this song and open yourself up to God, take down all the barriers and just focus on him.

Things above

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

Colossians 3:2

Focusing on God and heaven may seem like your taking a break from reality. In some ways you are; being in the presence of God can make you forget about everything else and just focus on him.

But it also helps us to change our perspective.

When we allow ourselves to get caught up in all the things in the world we can lose sight of God and what he has for us.

Focusing your mind on things above isn’t about being disconnected from reality its about changing reality.


Photo by Vignesh T on Unsplash

God is all around us

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
—Psalm 19:1–2

 

God is all around us, he created everything and if we take the time to slow down and look and listen he speaks to us through his creation. Sometimes it’s through nature and sometimes through people. No I’m not crazy.

I’ve just found that if I take the time to ask God to teach me something, he often does it through his creation.

When I first made the decision to turn my life back to God I became an intern at my church. At the start of the internship we went on a retreat to a beautiful lodge in the woods. Once we got settled we each took sometime to be alone with God. I decided to take a walk in the woods.

 

Photo by Matthew Brodeur

I was walking down a slight hill, having to watch where I was stepping because there was no path.

As I walked I noticed all the dead leaves and broken branches. I asked God where he was when I had turned away from him, when I had let so many of the dreams he’d given me die.

He explained that even though I had chosen to ignore him,  he was there the whole time for every bad decision and wrong choice,  but he helped guide me from some major pitfalls, just like I was avoiding stepping into some deep holes in my walk in the woods.

Photo by Sérgio Rola

On my return walk back up the hill God showed me all the plants that were growing up through the leafs. He explained that even though I had chosen to ignore him for so long he had planted seeds along the way and that they would grow and produce now that I had turned back to him.

Photo by Andreas Vendelbo

 

God will use the circumstances around us to teach us if we simple take to the time to acknowledge him and learn.

Peace or anxiety

We often under estimate the impact of resting in Gods presence. When it’s what we need most.

When we are at our most desperate, when we feel lost or unsure. That’s when we need him most.

 We don’t need to fix our problems before we go to him. Going to him is how we fix our problems.

Instead of dwelling and worrying. We should be dwelling in his presence and letting him show us his perspective that melts away the worry and anxiety. For nothing is too big for him to handle.

God is faithful, but are we

God is faithful, he will never leave us, stop loving us or abandon us. We are the ones who leave him, ignore him or straight deny his existence.

He always wants to love us and be with us.

We put him in a box or give him limits by saying he doesn’t care, he’s too busy, or he can’t do that.

Nothing is impossible for God.

For nothing will be impossible with God.”  Luke 1:37

This verse is Elizabeth who became pregnant in her old age talking to, Mary the mother of Jesus, about her miraculous concept of Jesus.

This verse gives me strength because we have been trying to get pregnant since we got married in 2015. And even though I have not been blessed with a baby yet. I still trust God, I still love him and I still worship him. Because he is a good, loving God and I know that he has given me the dream to have children and he will bless me with them. But that doesn’t mean that I abandon him or just curl up in a ball and become bitter and angry because I don’t have what I want when I want it.

Instead I ask him ‘What he has for me right now?’ What do you want to teach me through this?’ ‘What do you want me to do in this time?’

In the six years from surrendering my life to Jesus and when I meet my husband, I wanted a husband through out that time, but God used that time to teach me, to change me and to invest in the lives of others. I could of done all that I did within a marriage but we would of had a lot of issues, we would of fought a lot, hurt each other and I would not of had the time to invest in the others like I did during that time. God knew what he was doing, his timing is perfect.

So I trust him in his timing now. He’s given me the call to write, so I write this blog and I working on getting my first of many books ready to submit for publishing. I preach and speak at any opportunity given, because I love to share what God has done in my life and that he can do the same and more in others. I use the time he’s given me to do what he’s called me to.

What constraints have you put on God? Are you holding yourself back because you think God can’t do it through you? What does God have for you right now in this moment? Ask him.

While You Wait

Just because you don’t have what you asked God for right now, doesn’t mean he’s not giving it to you.

His timing is perfect. He know what we need when we need it. Trusting his timing can be hard if we focus on what we don’t have. But if we focus on what he is doing on our life right now, what we are waiting for won’t take as long as we think it will.