Category Archives: Worship

Declaration & Praise: Day 2

“Who then is able to stand against Me? Who has a claim against Me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to Me.” – Job 41:11
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” – Revelation 4:11

There is none greater than You! You alone own the heavens and everything under it. Your throne cannot be challenged, Your authority cannot be undone, for You alone are God. You will always have the victory in any battle, You will always have the final Word.

All of life is from You and for You. I have breath because You breathed life into me, and it is by Your will alone that I take my next breath. Life is found in no one else but You.

And no one other than You is worthy of my praise. All glory. All honor. All power. It is all owed to You alone, for You alone created heaven and earth and all that is within them.

My life is in You and belongs to You. Because of You I have been forgiven and redeemed. Because of You I have been made new, and am now free of all condemnation, free of the chains of sin and death that once had me bound. Because of You, I have eternal life.

Today, I will give thanks, You owed me nothing, but You have given me everything. How great Thou art!

what God does with barren

Can I speak to the barren feeling people for a minute? For many of you, it’s not a barren womb, but a barren season that holds your pain. You long for something good to come from the hard and painful places you’ve been living in, but your heart just can’t see it. I can speak to that. I’ve lived with that feeling. I’m talking to the ones looking around for any sign of something growing, those who have come to believe there will be little, if any, fruit from this season. I want to whisper right into the ear of the one who feels empty and unproductive, like something has died (and very well may have) –

God does amazing things in barren places.

Isaac. Jacob. Joseph. Samson. Samuel. John the Baptist. The common thread that runs through each of their stories? Their mothers were barren. Childless.

Isaac. His barren mother was 90. Daddy Abraham was 100.
Isaac. The son of promise. Second patriarch of the Israelites. He grandfathered the twelve tribes of Israel.

Jacob. His mom, Rebekah had been barren for about 20 years when God answered her husband, Isaac’s prayer. Jacob. Third patriarch of the Israelites. Third person in the line of God’s covenant with Abraham. He fathered the twelve tribes of Israel.

Joseph’s mom was Rachel, one of Jacob’s two wives, and she too was barren until God stepped in. Joseph. Sold into slavery as a boy, and became the second most powerful man in Egypt.

Samson. While mother is not named, her barrenness is. Named by an angel who said to her, “You are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son. Samson. Mighty warrior, and one of the twelve leaders who judged Israel.

Samuel. Hannah’s womb was shut by God, and then opened by Him so that Hannah could have the child for which she so fervently prayed. Samuel. Israel’s first prophet and king-maker. He anointed Israel’s first king.

John the Baptist. His mother, Elizabeth was “very old”, and unable to conceive. John the Baptist. Truth speaker. Baptizer.
Forerunner of Jesus.

This was all God, making greatness come from barrenness. That’s His way, you know. He leaves the possible to mortals, while He pulls glory from impossible places.

This is what I believe: In the midst of our most barren places, God is making a way for life.

Is there anyplace more barren than death itself? And yet, He has given us His Word that He brings dead back to life.

  • Two of God’s prophets, Elijah and Elisha each brought women’s sons back to life.
  • A dead man was thrown into Elisha’s tomb and came back to life.
  • At a funeral procession for a widow’s only son, Jesus brought him back to life for her.
  • Jairus, a Jewish leader’s, daughter died. Jesus raised her from the dead.
  • Lazarus, brother to Mary & Martha, died and was buried for 4 days when Jesus called him out of his grave.
  • Jesus. Crucified, dead and buried. Risen to new life after 3 days.

For the love of sinners, God brought forth a Savior from the womb of a virgin, had Him die our death, and then brought Him out of the grave so that we too could be raised to life.

When we were dead in our sins, living the most barren of lives, God gave us our first real breath through Christ.

Because…

From barren places, God brings life.

In our barrenness, God is faithful. Do you believe this?

Genesis 17; Genesis 25:21; Genesis 30:22; Judges 13:2; 1Samuel 1:1; Luke 1:18-23; 1Kings 17:17-24; 2Kings 4:18-37; 2Kings 13:20-21; Luke 7:11-17; Luke 8:49-56; John 11:1-44;

i remember – my soul longs for You

See, there is this yearning on its way. It comes in answer to prayer. A yearning for the more, the deeper, the overwhelmed by God. To long for Him. The wake me up in the middle of the night to speak with me kind of thing. The get out of my way I’m going to meet with Jesus thing that I can’t explain any better than that. That’s my yearning and it’s here, like waves hitting the shores — strong one minute and then it recedes, only to return bigger and stronger.

I asked for this yearning and I feel the urgency to grab it and live in it. Put it on like a robe and allow myself to simply long for more of Jesus everywhere I am.

In the morning, I want to have to extricate myself from His presence so I can go to work. I want to feel the pull and I want it to be strong. I want it to be hard to leave the Word of God, to leave our conversation, you know? 

At work, I want this longing to be the background in every conversation, every task. I’m sick to death of longing for lunchtime, or 5:00, or Friday or some thing. Silly longings that have no meaning except to a flesh soothed by silly things. 

I want to choose Him over my television, over social media, over myself, every single time. I want to wake in the night and seek His voice and have whispered talks with Him until I fall back to sleep.

I want to prefer time with Jesus more than anything else, and right now – I do not. Right now I enjoy being with Him, but my soul has not been yearning for Him. Longing to be with Him. But it’s coming. The waves are hitting the shore of my soul like I knew they would. Because I asked. I asked Him to call me back again to the longing place. 

I have been in His Word in preparation for leading others – in bible studies, in Lifegroup (small group), or in public speaking. But it’s been too long since I’ve come to His Word just to be with Him. Too much to do, for underlining and scribbling notes in the margins. No time for lingering, for the slow turn of pages waiting for Him to speak. Because He takes His time you know. He’s in no hurry. He’s not like me.

But this morning I came, in no rush. Nowhere else to be. I came and I opened a battered, torn, book where I have always found Him waiting for me. In familiar pages I breathed in and caught His breath and I remembered.

I remembered that I love Him and I miss Him and that He feels the same way about me.

I remembered that there is nothing on earth that comes close to soothing my soul like time spent with Him here, in slow turning pages worn from seasons of longing. 

I remembered that I learned the sound of His voice here in this book. I learned who He is here and who I am and that I haven’t learned it all.

I remembered that this is where I sit at the feet of Jesus. It’s where I learned to pray and where I learned to worship. I remembered that this is where I found truth and learned my worth.

I remembered that the nearness of His presence found in these worn pages has no rival. 

And I remembered that being with Him makes me long to be with Him.

I pray you remember that your soul longs for Him.

find me

So a song comes along and doesn’t just move me, it shifts me. It creates a question that dogs my steps, my words, my thoughts.

If He returns today, what will He find me doing?

Choosing to walk in the Spirit, or letting my flesh call the shots?

Loving Him, and my neighbor? Because loving God while hating people isn’t loving God. Will I be found walking out that truth?

Making decisions from a place of faith, or fear?

Actually being a light in the darkness, or just complaining because it’s dark?

Living fully as who I was created to be, or wishing I was someone else?

Just attending a church or being the Church?

Promoting unity, or bringing division?

Full of joy, or full of self-pity? Or bitterness. Or jealousy. Or judgment. Or fill in the blank.

Walking in peace, or looking for a fight?

Living to please Him, or someone else?

Will He find me thankful? Grateful for all He has done, all He has given to me? Or will I be found complaining? Wishing there was more.

I have no control over when He comes back. But should He return today, what He finds is all on me.  And you.

Sidebar:  Do not underestimate God’s ability to use a song to shift your perspective. To change you. 

 

pieces

One song played in my house all weekend. It’s called “Pieces”, sang by Steffany Gretzinger at IHOP’s One Thing 2015. These words got down deep in my soul…

“Your love’s not fractured, it’s not a troubled mind

It isn’t anxious, it’s not the restless kind

Your love’s not passive, it’s never disengaged

It’s always present, it hangs on every word we say”…

For two days this song thumped it’s beat on my heart until my heart began to respond. At first, it was just background music while I did other things, but before long…I couldn’t do other things and I couldn’t stop thinking about Him.

About this Love that I had gone back to earning. As if.Continue reading “pieces”

I know why she kissed His feet

Luke 7:36-50

That story, the one about the woman with the alabaster jar of perfume, blows me away every time. It’s not so much because she reminds me of me, although she does. But so does that pharisee guy.

Today, it’s more that Jesus reminds me of Jesus.Continue reading “I know why she kissed His feet”

chasing what cannot be caught

“You’re chasing after what cannot be caught. You were made for a different pursuit.”

In the midst of the song Relentless Pursuit (Kim Walker-Smith), His voice broke through and brought piercing revelation of what my chase had become. Chasing time, trying to gather enough up in my hands to stop the feeling that my life had gotten ahead of me.  Chasing after feelings, hoping to finally feel qualified to do what I do, to feel like I am right where I belong.

I knew something was wrong, but in the chase of lesser things, nagging feelings are easily outrun.  What cannot be ignored is the worship song that gets caught somewhere between your throat and your heart.

musical notes

It’s a relentless pursuit, relentless pursuit
I will not stop chasing after You
It’s a relentless pursuit, a passion in pursuit
I will not stop chasing after You

But I did. If you saw me running, it would have looked like I was chasing Him, but I wasn’t. I was chasing the work of ministry. The time that got away from me. The look and the feel and the ‘doing’ of Christianity.

Even my time alone with Him and the study of His Word had become more about seeking for what someone else may need to hear.

Chasing revelation rather than the One it reveals.

Chasing what cannot be caught. 

And then these words worked their way through the ache in my heart…

musical notesYou’ve taken the keys and you’ve opened up all of me
And now I’m running,I’m running after you
The love of my life
Oh You… the love of my life

And in the flood of understanding came the echo of a long ago cry from my heart, a cry from the Song of Songs, third chapter third verse…

“Have you seen the one my heart loves?”

And there I stood, panting from my fruitless chase of all things less than and wondering how on earth I had lost sight of the Love of my life.

What broke into my relentless pursuit of the One my heart loves?

It was me. I don’t know the moment, the day, the week it happened, but once my life became about me my feet changed course and I began chasing my own life. What mattered was how I was feeling, what I was doing or not doing, what I wanted, needed, thought, believed.

Because we are all prisoners of war and all of life is a continual act of surrendering ourselves over, and whatever has received our surrender we will follow.  It is only when we refuse the call to surrender to ‘self’ that we are released to run after Jesus.

We cannot surrender to two masters. 

musical notesYou can have all of me
You can have every part of me
And I, I am released to run after You, oh
And I, I am released to run after You

Jesus, You are the One my heart loves. I surrender once again to pursuing, chasing, seeking after You with my whole heart. I was made for this chase, this relentless pursuit of the One who promises to be found by me.

“You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.”  (Jeremiah 29:13)