"Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." (Ro. 12:2)
In my devotional thought today I introduced this idea and I would like for us to tackle a discussion about it. With all of the new praise music available, and the lively introduction of a contemporarly style to the service some have talked about the "revival of worship." My interest today is not a debate about the style of worship. Worship style as far as traditional, country, contemporary, hip-hop or whatever is a conversation for a different day. My interest is in whether we are substituting an outward form for reality.
Regardless of style, I want us to think about what Paul says in Rom. 12. The word used for "worship" is the word that we get our word "liturgy" from. So in essence Paul says, true liturgy is found in living out every moment of your day in total surrender to Christ. He says it is the only "acceptable" form of worship to a God who has done so much for us. Does that mean, I think it does, that anything we offer to God from less than a position of total surrender is not acceptable?
If someone comes and participates fully in a worship celebration in any church, but leaves and there life is unchanged, did they worship? Paul wrote tot he Corinthians one time that they came together for worship and left worse off than when they came. If we come and pray, and sing, and hear a lesson, and go through all that is involved in a weekly celebration, but our life is unchanged, are we actually leaving in a worse condition than the way we arrived? At the very least, are we not just a little more hardened to the message of God? Is God really interested in how many Bible Study programs we have attended? Is He concerned about how much information we retain? Is He not all about life transformation?
Jump in, weigh in, raise your questions, voice your position. Let's do it.
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spot on my friend ,
ReplyDeletea warm , feel good kind of service vs a life transformation kind of message --when you look out into the service you have new christians [ feeding on milk ] , non-christians and sound belivers being fed [ meat & potato's ] --so you need to gently feed the new , draw in the non's and feed & grow the stedfast belivers all in a 30 minute message + some music , etc ---wow
This goes back to Yesterday's Blog. We need to continue to Praise God, leave the Service, with a deeper feeling of Commitment to do God's work.God's word is the word We should cling to, if We come with a sence of learning from the message and applying it to do "All" God is saying We should do growing, and planting seeds for others to Grow in Faith and desire to tell others. We truly in this day and time need to continue to tell other's. I'm appalled at the way this World is going. We as God's children need to take from every message nourishment, in which to reach all those who don't know or who have turned from God. God gives so much and We give so little back to Him. With that being said I also believe that We grow in Bible studies, but I know what You mean about it.
ReplyDeleteWhat if the problem is our sense of taking from the service a deeper feeling of commitment? Commitment still leaves the control in our hands. When do we surrender? When do we turn it all over to God and then let Him do in us and through us what He desires? Isn't it really easier once we are all in?
ReplyDeleteBrad... you are not being very PC at all! In this new world we live in... church is just something you do on Sundays... right? To wash out all the sin from the week, right?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you know I'm saying this tongue-in-cheek... but unfortunately, that's how a lot of people view church.
Your thought today is spot-on. Now, how do you deliver it to the Masses so that they believe. Because if anyone watches TV at all... their thinking will be deluted away from this truth.
BB Paul starts verse 1 "I urge you therefore..."; the "therefore" is a reference back to everything Paul had written up to that point in Romans: Man's sin, God's Righteousness,
ReplyDeleteGod's provision through Christ's obedience and
atoning death, justification by faith, etc.
Having laid the foundation he culminates his argument by saying, in effect, since God has done
all of this for us the only rational response you can make is to give yourself TOTALLY in service to Him. If we have been called by God
and have answered that call and become children of God then we must behave as obedient children.
Both of my boy's used to love helping Dad and would imitate me every chace they got. If we love God then we do the works he has created before hand for us to do and Jesus is our example. Everything he did he did to gloriyfy the Father, so it should be with us. This verse is more,
much more than an instruction on Sunday worship. It is a call to surrender our selves totally to the Lord's service in our moment by moment every day life.
Hebrews 13: 16 "But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." Anon
Brad do you think Jesus worshiped all the time. It seems to me that he worshipped during the quiet times. Yes, I love the music but that is more celebration than worship. To really worship we need to get out of our selves and into another plane where we can truly worship. I think more worship goes on away from church sometimes.
ReplyDeleteWorship can also be a VERB. The actions of people are a form of worship.