Why Christ came to earth, in his own words Luke’s Gospel, written to gentiles, tells us why Jesus came to earth. His words are a mixture of joy and fear. Joy, because Jesus is my only hope. Fear, because Jesus describes exactly who I am without his mercy. If you do not think of yourself as a poor, blind slave apart from the grace of Christ, you think too much of yourself and too little of Christ. In these verses Christ tells us why he came. Praise be to the glorious grace of God! He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was […]
Worship
159 posts
In the aftermath of the Newtown shootings one question continues unanswered – Why? Some say mental illness, others say medications and personality disorder. Many are at a loss even attempting to answer the question of why. The Governor of Connecticut simply but accurately said, “Evil has visited this community today”. If we are to accept evil as the answer to why these deaths occurred, then we must ask where does evil come from. Is evil a random force that wanders the world looking for someone to attack? Or is evil more personal? Is evil something that you and I are intimately acquainted with? G.K. Chesterton, the noted British author, is said to have responded to the question, […]
Heart Music Worship is centered in the heart. Paul says that the word of Christ is to dwell in your heart, your inmost being. We know that God is not interested in sharing heart space with anyone or anything other than himself. A heart where the splendor of God shares space with the worries of life is a heart that will be hindered in its ability to worship. As you teach and admonish your children, God commands that his music is to play in your heart. Colossians 3:16 is not a suggestion, it is a command that we need so that we can prioritize our life and thoughts. Ignoring this command is just as destructive as ignoring the command not […]
In Psalm 73 the psalmist proclaims that “the nearness of God is my good”. He comes to this realization after he has considered what the world has to offer. He realizes the foolishness of looking at life and valuing it the way the world does. He even goes so far as to say that he was a senseless and ignorant beast to be attracted by the world’s treasures. This Lord’s Day, what is your good? Would your children say that you live as if the nearness of God is your good? May you and I repent and weep and then seek the mercy and grace of God so that he alone is our good and our refuge.
Psalm 72 proclaims that it is God alone who does wondrous things. If there is anything good and wonderful in this world, it comes from God and none other. The holiday season can obscure this truth in at least two ways. The first way is to attribute the gift of good things to someone other than God. Even when you receive a wonderful gift from someone it is important to realize that the mercy of God is ultimately behind this blessing. For example, the bounty under the tree should not be seen as gifts from mythical characters. Good fortune, fate, karma, or Santa all can masquerade as the reason for good things. If something is truly good, it comes from […]
When the people of God come to worship, our vision and our trust must be singular. God and God alone is to be the object of our trust. Too often we live and worship with other options on the table. We say, sing, and pray that God is all that matters, but in the hidden corners of our heart we value, trust, hope in something other than God. We trust in God to make our circumstances what we want them to be. But this is not trust, it is doubt. We trust in God to make other people appreciate us. But this is not trust, it is idolatry. Jesus knew that the heart of man is not to be trusted. […]
Psalm 100 says that we are enter into the presence of God with thanksgiving and praise. If we lived with an appropriate understanding of the mercy of God this command would be no problem for us to joyfully obey. Yet, often we find ourselves asking “do I feel thankful”. This type of response means that you seeing your world through the lens of your circumstances. This means that you have a distorted view of reality and a diminished appreciation for the grace of God. To be thankful we must first view our circumstances throughout the lens of the glory of God expressed in his word! Thankfulness is not ultimately dependent upon the actions of others. Thankfulness is based upon the […]
How special is God to you this day? Do your thoughts of God mirror those of David in Psalm 63? Would your children say that you view God as David does in this psalm? These words of David teach us just how deeply we should value the privilege of knowing God. May we all long for God each day, for surely we live in a dry and weary land. O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you;my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you,in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify […]
People were designed by God to worship. The tragic reality of the fall is that we have lost our ability to know whom to worship. So, we worship what Tim Keller calls counterfeit gods. This is the worship we were born to as fallen creatures. It is the enemy’s scheme that when we participate in corporate worship we do so to earn God’s favor. Even when we sing and offer praise our hearts often yearn for the counterfeit. But our God is a jealous God. He will not share his glory with our counterfeit pretenders. May we see God for who he is, not for what we want him to be. May we say with the […]