Worshipping the Unknown God-Part 2

“In these bodies, we will live, in these bodies we will die.  Where you invest your love, you invest your life.”  -Marcus Mumford

We are all the objects of a relentless love of the Father.  The beginning of our ability to communicate this message to a world that needs to hear it begins when we understand the passage in Romans 5 where Paul writes, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  (Insert your name here.)  For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  Did you hear that?  While you were still an enemy of the cross, the love of the Father still relentlessly pursued you through the death of Jesus.  As I write these words, my heart is flooded with emotion at the reminder that even when I was bowing before inferior gods, full of sin in my life, God loved me with a love that is unexplainable. 

Paul further explains the inability to understand the depths of the love of God when he writes his desire that God “grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith-that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that SURPASSES KNOWLEDGE, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”  In our attempts to understand in our simplicity the dimensions of the love of God, we are left dumbfounded in that His love is beyond our ability to comprehend. 

If you get nothing else from these ponderings, please hear that you are loved by the Father, and through this love, you and I, though at some point enemies to the gospel, now experience adoption as sons and daughters.  And this, my friends, is the best news imaginable.

With this understanding, however, there is a responsibility.  Our responsibility to the Father is not the cause by which we are loved, but rather the effect and response by us as the recipients of this love.  Or to put it another way, we are not loved because we do, we do because we are loved.  As the object of the love of God, we are called to submit our lives to His Lordship.  To be faithful to the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations, AND to teach them to OBEY all that Christ commanded us. 

In my last post, I shared the two greatest commandments from Christ:  to love God supremely, and to love our neighbors.  This leads me to a question.  Are you a hoarder of God’s love or a sharer?  In our Christian culture today, we have a tendency to spend the majority of our time “hoarding” Christian things:  more knowledge, more connection through worship, more discipleship, etc.  And while these are extremely important to our growth in Christ, we have to see that as we grow in knowledge, worship, and discipleship, we are commanded to “go and make disciples of all nations.”  To share the love of God to those who have yet to experience it. 

So where are you investing your love?  As you are allowing me to think out loud through your reading of this blog on my ponderings of worship, how are you being challenged to demonstrate the love of God in the context of the city and culture that you live in?  My heart breaks to know that there are many who do not understand how deeply they are loved.  May our indifference towards the lives of unbelievers never be the barrier by which this misunderstanding exists. 

Worshipping the Unknown God-Part 1

I have a deep love for music.  Being born and raised in the heart of the South where the sound of music is richer than the Delta dirt along the Mississippi, maybe it should be expected.  Whether it is the timeless melodies of folk music, the knee-slapping rhythm of bluegrass, or the catchy beats of modern tunes, I have an appreciation for the unique gift when an artist is not just singing a song, but instead telling a story.  

Tuesday night, I had the chance to attend a live show by quite possibly my favorite band.  (This is debatable, and subject to change.)  The room was filled with energy from the crowd that is seldom produced or experienced at a live show.  It was amazing to look around the room, and see a wave of people completely engaged with the artists, singing each song word for word at the top of their lungs.  (Although I wish the guy next to me had either refrained or learned the words.)  Groupies were waving their hands, closing their eyes, and simply taking it all in.  And then it hit me harder than the boom of the bass, that for many, what they were experiencing was cheap worship.  Now when I say worship, I don’t mean that this was an authentic, spiritual worship experience, but at that moment, the band and their music were being worshipped by many.  

Worship is defined as a “respect for or devotion to an object of esteem.”  If we take that definition and apply it tangibly to life, then everyone is a worshipper of something.  We worship many things:  family, careers, possessions, and unfortunately self.    We see this when any of these priorities are elevated to a place of supremacy where our lives are lived out in submission to these objects of our worship.  If it is family, we will pattern all of our decisions on what makes sense for family.  If it is our career, we will do anything possible to bring pleasure to our superiors.  If it is possessions and money, we will sacrifice whatever it takes to acquire more and more.  If it is self, we will always do what is best for us, regardless of the affects to other people.  

Despite the fact that we often choose to worship other things, God’s word leaves no room for this choice.  Jesus tells us in Luke 10 that we are to “love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.”  Everything!  When the love of God holistically consumes your whole being, He maintains His proper place as the Lord of our life, and the object of our worship.  When we choose to allow other things to take control of our heart, soul, strength, and mind then we bow before the idol of family, careers, possessions, and self and worship an inferior god.

What do you truly worship in life?  My prayer is that you will find your worship in rhythm with God, and find your life moving to the beat of His calling on your life.  When you do, you will experience truth and worship everlasting.