Worship is not a mindless exercise. First and foremost, worship is a rational activity. It arises from careful reflection on who God is (in the infinite glory of His being) and what He has done… Worship without theology is bound to degenerate into idolatry; hence, the...
Ministry can indeed be a witness to the living truth that the wound, which causes us to suffer now, will be revealed to us later as the place where God intimated his new creation. ———————————————Gender-neutral version: Ministry can indeed be a witness to the living...
Feelings are great liars. If Christians only worshiped when they felt like it there would be precious little worship that went on. Feelings are important in many areas, but completely unreliable in matters of faith… We think that if we don’t FEEL something there can...
If we ask, “How should we worship God?” a healthy Christian and Protestant instinct will be to respond with another question: “What does the Bible say?” Rightly understood, this is a necessary and indeed a sufficient response. We must not, however, presume that we...
We must not worship without study, for ignorant worship is of limited value and can be very dangerous. We may develop “a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge” (Rom.10:2) and do great harm to ourselves and others. But worship must be added to study to complete...
We must become relevant and reverent. Worship must become the meeting place between the eternal and the contemporary. We tend to love the altar so much that we refuse to set it on fire. Yet God comes in the flames. Our God is a consuming fire. Each generation must...
That he seeks worshipers is unparalleled, for nowhere in the entire corpus of Holy Scripture do we read of God’s seeking anything else from a child of God. God desires worship above all else. ————————Gender-neutral version: That God seeks worshipers is unparalleled,...
True Worship is not a peculiar practice in a particular place. True worship is the whole person saying, “Yes, Lord” in response to the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ. from Hearts on Pilgrimage
The ultimate challenge of worship in spirit and truth—worship that pleases God—is not “How do I make a church meeting God-centered?’ but “How do I make my life God-centered?”
Liturgy continually confronts us with the call to sacrifice our preoccupation with self. Because liturgy is intrinsically corporate, it resists any narrowing of the spiritual life to a private relationship between the solitary soul and God. Liturgy places God in the...