In Spirit and Truth

Worship - 1 : to honor or reverence as a divine being or supernatural power 2 : to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion intransitive senses : to perform or take part in worship or an act of worship. That is what Merriam Webster says, but allow me to give you my personal definition of worship. Worship is “extolling the characteristics and the acts of God in thought, word, and deed.” It is magnifying WHO God is and WHAT God does, by what we think, say, and do. In other words, worship as singing is only part of the equation. We give worship to God by being men and women of integrity in our places of work. We give worship to God by serving those around us – providing food for the hungry, clothing for the naked, shelter for wanderer, etc. God is praised even in the small things, as when a cup of cold water is given in his name. He is praised when we acknowledge Him as the reason for our serving. Yet even in our singing, worship is not so much about the music we

O Love divine, what has thou done! The immortal God hath died for me! The Father's coeternal Son bore all my sins upon the tree. Th' immortal God for me hath died: My Lord, my Love, is crucified! – Charles Wesley We live in a culture that is obsessed with happiness and general good vibes. We have a great set-up! Generally movies, television, radio, fast food, etc. cater to our desire for a happy life. But if they don’t, and someone slips through the cracks, we have Prozac! The Christian life, however, asks something very different of us. It asks us to remember the cross. It asks us to consider the crucified Christ. So for the 40 days of Lent, we abstain from something close to us so that we may become closer to him. Lent is a time of somber remembrance; both of the heaviness of our sins, and the weight of God’s “search and rescue” mission. It seems odd that we would voluntarily subject ourselves to this “downer.” But the truth of the matter is, it is through this introsp

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:5-6 Allow me to paraphrase. “But he was impaled because of our sin; he was crushed because of our propensity to sin; he was punished in our place, and because of his punishment, we are given peace; and we are emotionally, spiritually, physically, and mentally healed by his wounds. Every one of us decided to follow our own crookedness, and God placed on him the crookedness of us all.” This Sunday we are having a healing service. It is a time when we can freely acknowledge our weakness before the Almighty who put on weakness for us; it is a time when we can place our fears, worries, aches, pains, sins, emotional wounds, and diseases into the hands of the one whose hands were pierced for us