Worship

The Lord is speaking to me a lot tonight about a restoration and renewal in community with a rededication of the Temple in WORSHIP. 1 Chron 29-30

Bring it Lord, New beginnings, purifying the Levites and the worship leaders and a renewal.


Worship is the submission of all of our nature to God.

It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness, nourishment of mind by His truth, purifying of imagination by His beauty, opening of the heart to His love, and submission of will to His purpose.

And all this gathered up in adoration is the greatest of human expressions of which we are capable.

I rejoice when the Lord is worshiped wholeheartedly.

I give priority to the public worship of the Lord through music.

I am careful to keep my life pure and available for the Lord's use at any time.

New beginnings!

Purify and rededicate the Temple.

I respond quickly to the call to serve the Lord and lead his people in worship.

I come with other leaders to repent and worship before the Lord.

I ask the Lord to forgive the sins of my nation.

Being radical means going back to the root

I encourage the leaders of God's people to purify their lives for worship and service.

I openly admit the sins of my family and forefathers.

1 Chron 29

My sons, do not neglect your duties any longer! The Lord has chosen you to stand in his presence, to minister to him, and to lead the people in worship and present offerings to him.”

These men called together their fellow Levites, and they all purified themselves. Then they began to cleanse the Temple of the Lord, just as the king had commanded. They were careful to follow all the Lord’s instructions in their work. ¹⁶ The priests went into the sanctuary of the Temple of the Lord to cleanse it, and they took out to the Temple courtyard all the defiled things they found. From there the Levites carted it all out to the Kidron Valley.

¹⁷ They began the work in early spring, on the first day of the new year,^[a] and in eight days they had reached the entry room of the Lord’s Temple. Then they purified the Temple of the Lord itself, which took another eight days. So the entire task was completed in sixteen days.

The Temple Rededication

¹⁸ Then the Levites went to King Hezekiah and gave him this report: “We have cleansed the entire Temple of the Lord, the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the table of the Bread of the Presence with all its utensils. ¹⁹ We have also recovered all the items discarded by King Ahaz when he was unfaithful and closed the Temple. They are now in front of the altar of the Lord, purified and ready for use.”

King Hezekiah then stationed the Levites at the Temple of the Lord with cymbals, lyres, and harps. He obeyed all the commands that the Lord had given to King David through Gad, the king’s seer, and the prophet Nathan. ²⁶ The Levites then took their positions around the Temple with the instruments of David, and the priests took their positions with the trumpets.

²⁷ Then Hezekiah ordered that the burnt offering be placed on the altar. As the burnt offering was presented, songs of praise to the Lord were begun, accompanied by the trumpets and other instruments of David, the former king of Israel. ²⁸ The entire assembly worshiped the Lord as the singers sang and the trumpets blew, until all the burnt offerings were finished. ²⁹ Then the king and everyone with him bowed down in worship. ³⁰ King Hezekiah and the officials ordered the Levites to praise the Lord with the psalms written by David and by Asaph the seer. So they offered joyous praise and bowed down in worship.

³¹ Then Hezekiah declared, “Now that you have consecrated yourselves to the Lord, bring your sacrifices and thanksgiving offerings to the Temple of the Lord.” So the people brought their sacrifices and thanksgiving offerings, and all whose hearts were willing brought burnt offerings, too. ³² The people brought to the Lord 70 bulls, 100 rams, and 200 male lambs for burnt offerings. ³³ They also brought 600 cattle and 3,000 sheep and goats as sacred offerings.

³⁴ But there were too few priests to prepare all the burnt offerings. So their relatives the Levites helped them until the work was finished and more priests had been purified, for the Levites had been more conscientious about purifying themselves than the priests had been. ³⁵ There was an abundance of burnt offerings, along with the usual liquid offerings, and a great deal of fat from the many peace offerings.

So the Temple of the Lord was restored to service. ³⁶ And Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced because of what God had done for the people, for everything had been accomplished so quickly.

1 Chron 30

Do not be stubborn, as they were, but submit yourselves to the Lord. Come to his Temple, which he has set apart as holy forever. Worship the Lord your God so that his fierce anger will turn away from you.
⁹ “For if you return to the Lord, your relatives and your children will be treated mercifully by their captors, and they will be able to return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful. If you return to him, he will not continue to turn his face from you.”

The two words, spirit and truth, correspond to the how and the whom of worship. Worshiping in spirit is the opposite of worshiping in mere external ways. It's the opposite of formalism and traditionalism. Worshiping in truth is the opposite of worship based on an inadequate view of God. Together the words "spirit and truth" mean that real worship comes from the spirit within and is based on true views of God. Worship must have heart and worship must have head. Worship must engage your emotions and worship must engage your thought. Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and a church full of unspiritual fighters. Emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates flaky people who reject the discipline of rigorous thought. True worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine.

The fuel of worship is the truth of a gracious, sovereign God; the furnace of worship is your spirit; and the heat of worship is the vital affections of reverence, fear, adoration, contrition, trust, joy, gratitude, and hope.

But something is missing from that analogy, namely, fire. The fuel of truth in the furnace of your spirit does not automatically produce the heat of worship. There has to be fire, which I think is the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus says in v. 23, "True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth," some take him to mean "in the Holy Spirit." I've taken him to mean that worship must come from your spirit within, instead of being merely formal and external. But in John 3:6 Jesus connects God's Spirit and our spirit in a remarkable way. He says, "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit." In other words, until the Holy Spirit touches our spirit with the flame of life, our spirit is so dead it does not even qualify as spirit. Only that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. So when Jesus says that true worshipers worship in spirit, he must mean that true worship only comes from spirits that are made alive and sensitive and vital by the touch of the Holy Spirit.

So now we can complete the analogy: the fuel of worship is the grand truth of a gracious and sovereign God; the fire that makes the fuel burn white hot is the quickening of the Holy Spirit; the furnace made alive and warm by the flame of truth is our renewed spirit; and the resulting heat of our affections is worship, pushing its way out in tears, confessions, prayers, praises, acclamations, lifting of hands, bowing low, and obedient lives. Notice verse 34. When his disciples come back with food, Jesus says, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work." The work of God is to seek real worshipers. Jesus was sent to accomplish this work. Therefore we should see the whole interchange with the Samaritan woman as the work of God in Jesus seeking a real worshiper. In verse 35 Jesus applies his example to us, "Do you not say there are yet four months and then comes the harvest? I tell you, lift up your eyes and see how the fields are already white for harvest." There is a white harvest of harlots in Samaria. I have just made one into a real worshiper. That's why the Father sent me; so send I you. God seeks people to worship him in spirit and truth. Here comes the city of Sychar white unto harvest. If you love the glory of God, make ready to reap.

New life

why does your heart feel insecure?
do you have clarity on that?
it's probably partially the Lord highlighting things for healing and freedom, and partially satan being a stinky pants.
Sent at 10:45 AM on Tuesday
me: yeah
Sent at 10:48 AM on Tuesday
Monica: as you're able today, spend time with Jesus - not doing a bible study, but meditating on the Word that He leads you to read. spend time receiving His heart about it and for you.
and spend time seeking His heart for others
basically - draw near to His heart. he'll fill you and teach you to love more out of the overflow of His heart
Sent at 10:49 AM on Tuesday
Monica: be blessed in that. Papa, draw krissy near to Your heart today, and show her the wealth of affection that You have for her. Show her new revelation of Your mercy and kindness
and touch/fill her heart with a new measure of understanding and delight in You.
bring light to any warfare of the enemy, especially as he would seek to bring discouragement and attack against the reality of who she is in Christ.
and break her free from it and wash all residue of nasty crap away, Holy Spirit.
I pray you'd encounter her today with the abundance of You, Lord.

Faith in what GOD has done!

"We cannot succeed without stepping out in faith,not in our works. If we believe our acceptance is based on our doing, we will always feel rejected when we fail to do the right thing. But if we see that our acceptance is based on what God has done, we will truly be free."

Why Facebook (and Your Church) Might Be Making You Sad

We've been warned that social media can distract us, shorten our attention spans, disconnect us from real-life relationships. Now a new study suggests that Facebook might also be making us miserable. I suspect there's something to this, and it's not just about Facebook. It's about our churches.

Slate magazine cites a paper in a social psychology journal that started with an observation about how college students felt more dejected after logging on to Facebook. There was something saddening about "scrolling through others' attractive photos, accomplished bios, and chipper status updates." The students' moods were darkened because they believed everyone else was happier than they are.

Journalist Libby Copeland speculates that Facebook might "have a special power to make us sadder and lonelier." How can this be, though, when Facebook is generally so, well, happy, brimming with smiling faces and beautiful families? Well, that's just the point.

"By showcasing the most witty, joyful, bullet-pointed versions of people's lives, and inviting constant comparisons in which we tend to see ourselves as the losers, Facebook appears to exploit an Achilles' heel of human nature," Copeland writes. "And women—an especially unhappy bunch of late—may be especially vulnerable to keeping up with what they imagine is the happiness of the Joneses."

Yes, Copeland writes, Facebook can chronicle cute kids, and warm moments, but that is never the whole, or even most, of the story of anyone's life. "Tearful falls and tantrums are rarely recorded, nor are the stretches of sheer mind-blowing," she writes.

Now, in one sense, I want to say, who really cares about Facebook. If you are that absorbed in comparing yourselves to others in this way, shut the computer screen and detox from the blue glow. But, it seems to me, the very same phenomenon is present in the pews of our Christian churches.

Jesus Blood

Jesus’ Blood Keeps On Cleansing You

1 John 1:7 7But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

During the day, the devil may whisper in your head, “You cannot go into God’s presence because you have not been reading your Bible and serving in church.” Or he will tell you that it is because of the sin which you have just committed. The devil will always make you feel that you are not qualified or clean enough to go near God. But the truth is, regardless of how you feel and what you have done, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. In the original Greek text, the tense for the word “cleanses” denotes a present continuous action. This means that once you are a believer, the blood of Jesus Christ keeps on cleansing you from every sin! So you can rest knowing that you are always forgiven in this continuous “wash cycle” of Jesus’ blood. Because you are continually cleansed, you are always in the light. Of course, you will fail here and there, but you are still in the light because the blood is continuously washing you! The Bible says that we overcome the devil, the accuser of our brethren, by the blood of the Lamb. (Revelation 12:11) If you have sinned, remind yourself that Jesus’ blood keeps on cleansing you from every sin — 24 hours a day, seven days a week — and move on with God! The devil cannot defeat you when your faith is in the blood that cleanses you continuously. Some Christians are guilt-ridden because their consciousness of their sins condemns them. Although Jesus’ blood continuously cleanses them, they would rather hold on to their past mistakes and feel bad about them, thinking that they are being humble and holy when they do this. But this is nothing more than self-righteousness. My friend, the eternal blood of Jesus Christ offers you eternal redemption andeverlasting righteousness. Accept the payment of His blood as the final, perfect and only sacrifice you will ever need!

People Pleasing sucks.

I think the Lord used today to overload me with people I couldn't please and then when I did please them it didn't satisfy me so that I would be so sick of trying to earn affection by people pleasing. I'm tired of running around frantically wondering what people think of me on a certain whim. I'm tired of caring whether they will invite me or reject me. I'm just tired of it. I want to love because you love Jesus. I want to work for you. I want to give because of you. Not because of people's reactions. I want to know that I am beautiful. That I am wanted. That I have a necessary part. That You love me. GOD!! Scream in my ears again and shake me that you LOVE ME!!! I need to know that you have forgiven me and love me. I don't feel it. I feel sick and unwanted. Daddy, it feels so empty. I want to repent of my unforgiveness toward A and A. Daddy, Please help me to love them like you do. To stop loving them because I want their stupid approval. Jesus, Please help me with work tomorrow!! I can't do this on my own. I NEED YOU. Please help me. Please help me. Jesus I can't do this on my own. I don't have the strength. Help me with the photos. Help me with serving. Help me with my family. I feel so alone and I feel so sick. I need you and I just want to be babyed and loved. I feel so awful. God ease my head and my mind and all of my thoughts. I give them all up to you. I believe that you forgive me and that you love me.

HOLD ME TIL YOU ARE DONE.

HOLD ME TIL YOU ARE DONE.

HOLD ME TIL YOU ARE DONE.

"Hold onto the truth that I love you. Hold onto the fact that I will NEVER leave you. Hold onto my word that is always true. Hold onto the promise that I am the friend that sticks closer than a brother. Hold onto the fact that I know every thought in your head and why you think it and what to do about it. I am not confused or befuddled by your problems. They are not overwhelming to me. They are not "too much" for me to handle. I have handled worse, Kristina. Hold onto my promise that you are NOT in this alone. You will never be in this battle alone. I am so PROUD of you for not giving into self pity and just sitting in it. It is much harder to fight it. You looked outside of yourself and looked to others. You gave and gave til you had nothing left. My darling, my precious sweetheart, REST IN ME. I have many great things in store for you. Sometimes you have to come to the end of yourself to reach the beginning of recognizing my provision in your utter weakness. This gospel is not one for the strong. It is for those who realize that their dependance holds the key to the greatest power that is available. Hold onto me. My darling, I have never let go of you. You fight me, but I will still hold you. I will still hold you. I am still loving you. You are precious to me and I will shout and shout and shout until all the lies swirling around your being are silenced and only love remains. Rest in my Love. Hold onto my Truth. I will not give you more than you can handle. We are a team and My Team always wins. Be assured that you are well taken care of. Goodnight darling. I sing over you."

I love you Jesus. Thank you. You always know what to say when I need it. Goodnight my love. :)

Dream

So I was in this room with other people I think from community taking a test and I was frustrated because I thought I kept marking the wrong answers. So I ended up leaving the room and running to my car, all the while I had a thought in the back of my head that the answers might not have been actually wrong, they were just not the same that everyone else had. I saw Rosi out by my car and he was frustrated with the same thing and we bonded a little about that and then I got in my car and started driving and Zak and a van of community people was beside me while I was driving the same place as them and I saw 2 deer on the side of the road and I was like awwwwwww deer on the side of the road, so I slowed down and opened my window and was touched by their beauty and I was really excited but then I started going because I realized the other van was going to leave me behind but before I could get going a BABY FAWN jumped right into my car through my passenger side window!!! I was flabbergasted and amazed and excited and scared all at the same time that my car did a little loop and I took a different road than the van was taking. I was really upset because I wanted to be with the van and I didn't know where this other road was leading me. So we went down this road and I saw some dark foreboding corn fields but heck if I was going to let my little fawn treasure of a deer go out in that creepy place even though it looked safe from cars so then we kept going down the road and ended up going to this empty mall type place but there were no stores. I ended up losing the deer when I was getting back in the car and then met up with Zak again in the van somehow and he said that he and Tyler had a word from God for me and prophesied with exactness what I had eaten and bought ... and I knew they weren't there, so I knew it was from God ....and THEN they told me that I was upset about the test but I didn't have to be because God LOVED me and that it was all right. THEN I was transported and I was at my mom/dad's house and I was watching a movie about spiritual things I think and it was talking about shopping at one point I remember, it kinda looked like that shut up poster in the prayer room at the gladstone in the dream but it was describing different parts of personalities and how it was all fitting together and even though there were lots of parts, they all formed to make one word and somehow it was good and joining relationship with others. Then my mom stormed in the room in her angry scary mode and she said, "WHY do you always have to watch movies all the time?!?!??!" And I felt so much shame, condemnation and then I felt resolve to keep it on just to spite her. So she left the room and I felt like that at any time she was going to bust down the doors that I was standing against with my foot near the door to try to keep it closed. The doors on the room I was in don't keep locked and someone can easily open them. I was upset that I couldn't watch the rest of the movie but I felt shame that maybe I do watch too many movies and maybe I shouldn't see Narnia because my mom would disapprove. I was also upset because I thought my mom was better but she seemed to be reverting back to old patterns. Then my dream ended!!!