The Everyday

Do people often overlook the simple beauty in everyday? Absolutely.

Many times every moment becomes a moment to think about the next vacation that is in a far away location, or some way to convince another person we are truly somehow exciting or different than others. When that happens, all focus or attention is lost to the beauty in simple things that is sitting there.

It's time though to accept, appreciate, and really invest in the blessings that we already have. People love to make everyday life seem dull and trivial--by calling it mundane or ordinary or assuming every day taken off of work should be to a far away location. It's also a good time to watch our words in this area and realize why complaining is detrimental.

It takes a little bit of work to love the details of simple days. If you take a walk, you can just enjoy the sun or the color or the reflection of light. It's amazing to think about how all of it works and is beyond what humans can create. A nice, caring touch of our creator.

Cooking, one of the most routine tasks, can be a time of interesting reflection. So much variations in color and texture and taste. God could have created it all to be one color, but we have so much to look at and try.

Worship, or being grateful to and thinking of God, can happen there, in the everyday. Taking time to notice the little things that make life a little easier and praising God for them.

Respect in Worship

When we enter into the presence of God we should have a sense of reverence. It is easy to feel that our relationship with God should be carefree or have no need for reverence because of the close familial relationship which we are brought up in.

There are many churches who seem to accept the reverence needed before God and reject the close familial relationship or visa verse. The reality is that both are needed and should be accepted.

God asks us to come into a close familial relationship with himself. However the relationship is one where we need reverence and respect.

Often it is the case in scripture that ideas are found together which are not found in the world. This does not make the bible wrong but rather that God's ways are not our ways.

Fallen humanity often loses a sense of what is possible in life and goes into extremes. Life is either like this or like that.

An example is the idea of having a good life or obeying God as if obeying God is an obstacle to a good life rather than a path to a good life. Respect in worship goes hand in hand with the familial relationship we are invited into through the life and work of Jesus.

The Sincerest Form of Worship

The sincerest form of worship is to wish to be like Jesus. We can sing praises to God and attend many events of the right sort and do all sorts of things, but these all fall short of the highest form of worship. They are critical to worship, but not the highest form.

The highest form of worship is to desire to be like Jesus. You see he commands that we love others as he has loved us. To desire to imitate and be like Jesus is the highest form of worship.

Often we think that worship is singing or maybe the entire service on a Sunday morning. The reality is that worship should be all of life. Whatever we do we should do to God.

There is not an inch of the earth over which God does not claim sovereign reign. Each moment we should live to God.

We will of course fail. The bible has no rosy-eyed view of human nature. The bible everywhere presupposes that Christians fail and need to repent. Most of the biblical hero's failed at one point or another in various ways.

You see the bible is realistic. God comes to save mankind and he knows exactly how bad the condition of man is. God is under no false delusions of what he is getting himself into in saving and then slowly sanctifying men.

Much of the church expects progress of a degree which is nearly impossible. Usually they find the progress by failing to understand the degree of the law.

By anticipating great holiness in life past what is reasonable they do not create real holiness but rather re-define holiness into something far less radical than it is.

We are saved by grace and each moment live by grace past, present, and future.

The Danger of Academic Theology

There is always a certain danger in the academic study of theology. The danger is not so much that there is a danger in systematic study of the bible but in the nature of the modern academic process.

You see in the bible man meets God and God has a word for man. In the presence of God the only appropriate response is to worship.

The difficult of academic study is that the interests in scripture are often very obscure. Word studies and vague hypothesis the value of which and application are vary vague dominate academic study.

You see it can be very easy to disconnect study from worship. At this moment academic theology becomes a danger to the person doing it.

It is a sort of occupational hazard that is very subtle but real. When the word of God comes to man and man does not respond you see that man is poorer from it.

Man's heart becomes darker the more he know of God and the less he responds. This is why Jesus says for us not to cast our pearls to the swine.

There is a sense in which we should leave those actively hostile to the gospel alone and not damage them by trying to convince them to the truth. Of course this too runs counter to academia.

Worship in Spirit and Truth

Scripture says we should worship God in spirit and truth. To worship God in spirit is to have emotion involved in worship.

To worship in truth means the emotion is based on and not apart from facts. You see worshiping in "spirit" where there is no content being worshiped upon is not biblical since truth is missing.

Always truth and spirit are linked. Truth without the right emotional response is lacking. Spirit without truth is also lacking.

God wishes for us to know him and our response of worship is based on knowing. It is like a couple who meets for the first time.

You see an emotional connection upon meeting someone often means nothing. You see the connection is based upon no knowledge.

Sometimes the connection remains after knowledge about the person but often not. More often we find that true connections are not at first sight and often knowledge about a person occurs before connection.

You see knowledge is connected to relation. Our love for God is not apart from knowledge of him.

The grace of God is that he chooses to love us despite knowing our nature. This is the deepest love, that God's love transcends our lack of worthiness.

Why I Used Many Commas in Prayers

I used a lot of commas in the prayers below. The reason is that prayers are best when we savor God though them. You cannot really savor God well if you rush worship. God takes an infinite time to truly savor well. He deserve an infinite time. He is worth an infinite time. And we will always find new and superior delights if we spend an infinite time to see and savor Him.

God's Chief End Is to Glorify God and Enjoy Himself Forever

God's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy himself forever.

God does all things for his namesake.  The problem with people believing this is not that the bible does not speak of it, but that we as humans hate the of self glorification.  We find great displeasure in people who seek and demand that we praise them. But, should we feel this way toward God?  If God is the essence of beauty, then he does something beautiful, when he demands to have all of our hearts love .  God's desire to be glorified in all aspects of our lives is what brings him glory and it brings us our pleasure.  If God's good plan is to delight in himself then his plan is fulfilled in worship fulfilled saints.  He does not commit idolatry by being pleased in their praise as he is delighting in his own excellences that he sees in them.  The Father delights in these excellences that he has brought about in them through the work of his Spirit, paid for by the blood of his Son, and that He by His good pleasure brings to pass.  So when God glorifies himself in our lives he takes joy in himself.  This is the most loving thing he can do because our joy in God is routed in his ever overflowing delight in himself.  We become beneficiaries of this delight as we seek to glorify God by enjoying him forever.

Humbling Ourselves Before God

Many Christians have great difficulty in humbling themselves before God.  Many college professors often settle for analyzing God rather than worshiping him.  This is an incredibly difficult thing to do and only an academic or a fool can pull it off.  Pulling away the worship aspect from knowledge about God or making the study of the bible dull is quite a difficult task.  It is difficult to make the infinitely enjoyable dull.

Anyway back to humbling yourself before God.  Being forced to kneeling down, empty, devoid of anything to commend yourself by is a great fear of our culture.  But consider it like this God is a mountain brook.  We come in great need of quenching thirst, we come without anything to give the brook, we keel down and deeply gulp and enjoy it.  If there is no one righteous no not one and there is no one who does good should we despair?  No because God is most pleased when we come to him empty ready to be filled with his love.  He is most happy in this because this is the way he is most glorified and we should be happy in this because this will be the way our thirst is finally quenched.