Category: Worship

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Light of the world

“When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12 NIV

When we first look at this verse, many people focus on the ‘light of the world’ part of it. I want to focus on the ‘I am’ part of the verse to begin with. When God was speaking to Moses on the mountain at the burning bush, He told him to tell the Israelites that I AM sent him. That’s because I AM was the explanation of Who God was and still is. God is and has just always been. Jesus is using I AM in the same way here, He is and has always been.

When He added ‘the light of the world’, He was conveying that He was the way to salvation. The Jewish people considered light to be goodness, intellect and salvation. He is in essence saying ‘I am and have always been and I am the salvation you need.’

For the Gentiles that may not have had the idea of goodness connected to light, it is important to acknowledge that when Jesus spoke these sentences into existence, it was during a festival. Festivals, back then and even today, are known for the different lights that are present throughout them. Most people like going to festivals at night because the lights create a welcoming environment. There were not as many different styles of lights in Jesus’s time as there are now, but still the idea of light is welcoming. You can see everything that is lit, there are no surprises because you know what is in front of you.

When the Israelites were in the desert, God provided a pillar of fire to lead them during the night as they were walking. Jesus wants everyone to know that as ‘the Light of the world’, He illuminates everything and is the One we should follow. He is telling us that He is not just any light but the light.

Jesus illuminates the darkness that is present everywhere in our world. By following Jesus we will not walk in darkness any longer. If we choose to step away from Jesus we will return to the darkness, but as long as we choose to follow Him, remain close to Him, we will walk in light.

The question then is, do you choose light or darkness, Jesus or the world?

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A prayer for all

“Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.” Psalms 86:11 NIV

When we first are saved, we tend to be excited to learn as much as we can about Jesus and the unconditional love that He offers. As time passes and we spend that time as a Christian in this world, we have choices to make. We can either choose to continue following God or we can choose to revert back to our old ways of doing things, the way the world does things.

To me, this verse that is contained in the 86th psalm, is a prayer. A prayer that every believer can pray at any time. It expresses to God our desire to get closer to Him than we are at that present moment. That means that Christians who are still early in their walk can pray this prayer and embrace it as a prayer to help them grow. It also means that Christians who are seasoned are able to pray this prayer as a way of getting even closer to God than they are.

This verse or prayer, however you wish to view it, is the essence of what we long for. We long to know the way that our Lord Jesus wants us to walk, so our walk looks like His. We long to have the comfort of knowing that He is eternally faithful to us even though we do not deserve it, even on our best days. We long to have a heart that is only focused on Jesus. Not one that is divided between pleasing Him and those around us. Not divided between following God’s plan for our lives and fulfilling our own plan.

Fearing God’s name is not quaking in our boots, it is reverential respect. Knowing that we can do nothing without God and that He has given us free will to pursue whatever we want, whether it is following Him or not, is the ultimate act of love. As Christians we should want to show the level of respect that that kind of love deserves.

Heavenly Father, teach me your way, Lord. Teach me so that I can follow Your will and know that You are always faithful. Give me an undivided heart, so I am always focused on You. Help me to give You the respect that You deserve. In Jesus’s precious name. Amen

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Seek First

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33 NIV

As with a lot of the direction and guidance given by Jesus, this verse is misunderstood and misquoted a lot of the time. There are people who use this verse to say that God will provide any materialistic thing you ask for if you seek Him first. That is not what this verse means at all.

Even though the meaning of “these things” in this verse is our basic needs such as food and clothing. Jesus has taught His disciples and believers that we are not to live with our minds filled with worry about how we will make sure we have food and clothing but instead He tells us to trust God the Father. By looking at the beginning of the verse, we need to realize that seeking God’s kingdom and righteousness first, is what our minds should be focused on.

When we use our time to explore God’s word, ask for His will to be done in our lives, trust that He is in charge and wants what is best for us, we come to realize how much God values us. This should be our priority, making sure that we are open to hearing what God wants us to do to fulfill His will and then being obedient to the call to do our part. By making this our priority, we are not just adding it to our list of priorities for the day or week or month, but we are to live with this priority of seeking God as our main priority.

The idea of seeking God’s kingdom and His righteousness means deciding to live in a state of continual repentance because of our sin. This can lead us to live a life that is devoted to God. Seeking God’s kingdom and His righteousness is making sure our heart is in the right state. One that is devoted to God, that wants what God wants for us. God will make sure that we have what we need to fulfill His will as long as we are sincerely seeking to do His will for our lives. Our motives matter.

Take time today to examine why you ask God for the things you ask God for. Are they things that will fulfil His will or your will?

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Who do you honor and worship?

“Lord our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone do we honor.” Isaiah 26:13 NIV

Israelites knew what captivity looked and felt like. They knew what it was like to have others rule over them. Their people had been led away in captivity several times resulting in hundreds of years of living in foreign lands. They were instructed to honor the kings, emperors, and idols of whatever land they found themselves in. Some followed those instructions and others did not, usually at the risk of harm.

The prophet Isaiah is stating that he and those who were faithful to God, were only going to honor God. He acknowledges that there were times during their months and years of captivity that they could have chosen to do what their captors wanted but they decided to not honor, bow down to, or worship anyone or anything other than their God, their Creator and their Protector. Isaiah is proclaiming that the people of Israel are only worshipping one God, the One True God.

We face the choice of who to honor and worship even today. We are not captive in foreign lands with foreign kings or emperors but we have other ‘rulers, idols, kings’ that can draw our attention away from God. Rulers, masters and kings come in all shapes and sizes and do not need to actually be people. As a society, there are those who spend a lot of time trying to have as much money as they can get, obtaining as many belongings as they can, proving to others that they are worthy enough to be liked.

As we go into the week before Christmas, where we celebrate the actual Lord, I encourage you to look at where you focus your attention. Is it on God or something else?

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Our lifeline

“Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:12-13 NIV

The prophet Jeremiah was completed his book during the time that the Israelites were in captivity in Babylon. They were in a foreign land and could not perform their religious ceremonies. Yet God was talking to them through Jeremiah and wanted them to know that when they call on Him, come to Him and pray to Him, that He will listen.

At that moment, the ceremonies and rituals didn’t matter. Their desire to be connected to Him is what mattered, so He was willing to listen to them if they sought Him, came to Him and prayed to Him. Their commitment to wanting to be connected was important in this relationship.

As we celebrate Christmas and remember the first arrival of Jesus to earth, we are not bound by religious ceremonies or rituals either when it comes to seeking God, going to God and praying to God. We can be connected to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit when we genuinely seek God.

God knows our hearts and when we place value on our relationship with God, going to Him, He will listen. I am not saying that having traditions is a bad thing, it is a great way, but don’t let the idea of not being able to complete a tradition, ritual or ceremony get in the way of connecting with God. This is the time of year when we are to remember that Jesus left His heavenly kingdom and came down to us as a helpless babe who would grow up to save the world.

Remain connected to Jesus, He is our lifeline.

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Sacrifice of praise

“Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.” Hebrews 13:15 NIV

When I studied this seemingly simple verse, I found that it is saying a lot. First there is the idea that the word ‘through’ is talking about how the only way to remove the wall that separates us from God is to acknowledge Jesus as the final and permanent sacrificial offering. Acknowledge that He is the One who came to save the world by removing that wall that separates us from God, giving us the ability to communicate with God.

The next part, “Let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise” is thought to be Paul talking about how, as Christians, we are sacrificing all that we are each and every day in order to follow God’s will for our lives. We know that God’s will is better than ours, but the idea of dying to self is hard at times as our desires are strongly rooted in us. However, the willful submission of them in order to follow God’s plan for our lives is our sacrifice of praise.

The last part, “the fruit of lips that openly profess His name.” conveys that we should be willing to speak out to God. That we should not be only thinking thoughts of praise to God but we should be vocalizing them, in song, poems, reciting of scripture or our own created prayers of praise. We are to be voicing our connection to God and expressing out loud how much thankful we are, how much we love our Lord and how much we want to be like Jesus.

So, as I read this verse, at first glance I didn’t take in all that it has to say about how important our public profession of faith in God is. However, knowing that the Christian path begins with knowing that Jesus is the path by which we are able to communicate with the Father, and the sacrifices of our desires for His desires is how we follow, then the idea of publicly professing our belief in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is the natural conclusion.

If we are willing to give up our desires to follow God’s will for our lives, then we should be willing to say all of that in public for others to hear and possibly decide for themselves if they wish to do the same. This is a way of life that is too good not to share and to important to be kept to ourselves.

Do you openly profess God’s name?