WORSHIP

     Worship is giving God the best that He has given you.  Be careful what you do with the best you have.  Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love-gift.  Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship.  If you hoard it for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded (see Exodus 16:20).  God will never allow you to keep a spiritual blessing completely for yourself.  It must be given back to Him so that He can make it a blessing to others.

     Bethel is the symbol of fellowship with God;  Ai is the symbol of the world.  Abram "pitched his tent" between the two.  The lasting value of our public service for God is measured by the depth of the intimacy of our private times of fellowship and oneness with Him.  Rushing in and out of worship is wrong every time--there is always plenty of time to worship God.  Days set apart for quiet can be a trap, detracting from the need to have daily quiet time with God.  That is why we must "pitch our tents" where we will always have quiet times with Him, however noisy our ties with the world may be.  There are not three levels of spiritual life--worship, waiting, and work.  Yet some of us seem to jump like spiritual frogs from worship to waiting, and from waiting to work.  God's idea is that the three should go together as one.  They were always together in the life of our Lord and in perfect harmony.  It is a discipline that must be developed; it will not happen overnight.

     God does not keep His child immune from trouble; He promises, "I will be with him in trouble..." (Psalm 91:15).  It doesn't matter how real or intense the adversities may be; nothing can ever separate him from his relationship to God.  "In all these things we are more than conquerors..." (Romans 8:37).  Paul was not referring here to imaginary things, but to things that are dangerously real. And he said we are "super-victors" in the midst of them, not because of our own ingenuity, nor because of our courage, but because none of them affects our essential relationship with God in Jesus Christ.  I feel sorry for the Christian who doesn't have something in the circumstances of his life that he wishes were not there.

     "Shall tribulation...?"  Tribulation is never a grand, highly welcomed event; but whatever it may be--whether exhausting, irritating, or simply causing some weakness--it is not able to "separate us from the love of Christ."  Never allow tribulations or the "cares of this world" to separate you from remembering that God loves you (Matthew 13:22).

     "Shall...distress...?"  Can God's love continue to hold fast, even when everyone and everything around us seems to be saying that His love is a lie, and that there is no such thing as justice?

     "Shall...famine...?"  Can we not only believe in the love of God but also be "more than conquerors," even while we are being starved?

     Either Jesus Christ is a deceiver, having deceived even Paul, or else some extraordinary thing happens to someone who holds on to the love of God when the odds are totally against him.  Logic is silenced in the face of each of these things which come against him.  Only one thing can account for it--the  love of  God in Christ Jesus.  "Out of the wreck I rise" every time.

     Asa was not completely obedient in the outward, visible areas of his life.  He was obedient in what he considered the most important areas, but he was not entirely right.  Beware of ever thinking, "Oh, that thing in my life doesn't matter much."  The fact that it doesn't matter much to you may mean that it matters a great deal to God.  Nothing should be considered a trivial matter by a child of God.  How much longer are  we going to prevent God from teaching us even one thing?  But He keeps trying to teach us and He never loses patience.  You say, "I know I am right with God" --yet the "high places" still remain in your life.  There is still an area of disobedience.  Do you protest that your heart is right with God, and yet there is something in your life He causes you to doubt?  Whenever God causes a doubt about something stop it immediately, no matter what it may be.  Nothing in our lives is a mere insignificant detail to God.

     Are there some things regarding your physical or intellectual life to which you have been paying no attention at all?  If so, you may think you are all correct in the important areas, but you are careless--you are failing to concentrate or to focus properly.  You no more need a day off from spiritual concentration on matters in your life than your heart needs a day off from beating.  As you cannot take a day off morally and remain moral, neither can you take a day off spiritually and remain spiritual.  God wants you to be entirely His, and it requires paying close attention to keep yourself fit.  It also takes a tremendous amount of time.  Yet some of us expect to rise above all of our problems, going from one mountaintop experience to another, with only a few minutes' effort.

     For a while, we are fully aware of God's concern for us.  But then, when God begins to use us in His work, we begin to take on a pitiful look and talk only of our trials and difficulties.  And all the while God is trying to make us do our work as hidden people who are not in the spotlight.  None of us would be hidden spiritually if we could help it.  Can we do our work when it seems that God has sealed up heaven? Some of us always want to be brightly illuminated saints with golden halos and with the continual glow of inspiration, and to have other saints of God dealing with us all the time.  A self-assured saint is of no value to God.  He is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and completely unlike God.  We are here, not as immature angels, but as men and women, to do the work of this world.  And we are to do it with an infinitely greater power to withstand the struggle because we have been born from above.

     If we continually try to bring back those exceptional moments of inspiration, it is a sign that it is not God we want.  We are becoming obsessed with the moments when God did come and speak with us, and we are insisting that He do it again.  But what God wants us to do is to  "walk by faith."  How many of us have set ourselves aside as if to say, "I cannot do anything else until God appears to me"?  He will never do it.  We will have to get up on our own, without any inspiration and without any sudden touch from God.  Then comes our surprise and we find ourselves exclaiming, "Why, He was there all the time, and I never knew it!"  Never live for those exceptional moments--they are surprises.  God will give us His touches of inspiration only when He sees that we are not in danger of being led away by them.  We must never consider our moments of inspiration as the standard way of life--our work is our standard.

     Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Jesus.  A great number of Christian workers worship their work.  The only concern of Christian workers should be their concentration on God.  This will mean that all the other boundaries of life, whether they are mental, moral, or spiritual limits, are completely free with the freedom God gives His child; that is, a worshiping child, not a wayward one.  A worker who lacks this serious controlling emphasis of concentration on God is apt to become overly burdened by his work.  He is a slave to his own limits, having no freedom of his body, mind, or spirit.  Consequently, he becomes burned out and defeated.  There is no freedom and no delight in life at all.  His nerves, mind, and heart are so overwhelmed that God 's blessing cannot rest on him.

     But the opposite case is equally true -- once our concentration is on God, all the limits of our life are free and under the control and mastery of God alone.  There is no longer any responsibility on you for the work.  The only responsibility you have is to stay in living constant touch with God, and to see that you allow nothing to hinder your cooperation with Him.  The freedom that comes after sanctification is the freedom of a child, and the things that used to hold your life down are gone.  But be careful to remember that you have been freed for only one thing -- to be absolutely devoted to your co-Worker.

     We have no right to decide where we should be placed, or to have preconceived ideas as to what God is preparing us to do.  God engineers everything; and wherever He places us, our one supreme goal should be to pour out our lives in wholehearted devotion to Him in that particular work.  "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might..." (Ecclesiastes (9:10)

     Co-Resurrection.  The proof that I have experienced crucifixion with Jesus is that I have a defining likeness to Him.  The Spirit of Jesus entering me rearranges my personal life before God.  The resurrection of Jesus has given Him the authority to give the life of God to me, and the experiences of my life must now be built on the foundation of His life.  I can have trhe resurrection life of Jesus here and now, and it will exhibit itself through holiness.

     The idea all through the apostle Paul's writings is that after the decision to be identified with Jesus in His death has been made, the resurrection life of Jesus penetrates every bit of my human nature.  It takes the omnipotence of God -- His complete and effective divinity - to live the life of the Son of God in human flesh.  The Holy Spirit cannot be accepted as a guest in merely one room of the house - He invades all of it.  And once I decide that my "old man"  (that is, my heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, the Holy Spirit invades me.  He takes charge of everything.  My part is to walk in the light and to obey all that He reveals to me.  Once I have made that important decision about sin, it is easy to "reckon" that I am actually "dead indeed to sin," because I find the life of Jesus in me all the time (Romans 6:11).  Just as there is only one kind of humanity, there is only one kind of holiness -- the holiness of Jesus.  And it is His holiness that has been given to me.  God puts the holiness of His Son into me, and I belong to a new spiritual order.

     Whom the LORD loves He chastens..." (Hebrews 12:6).  How petty our complaining is!  Our LORD begins to bring us to the point where we can have fellowship with Him, only to hear us moan and groan, saying, "Oh LORD, just let me be like other people!"  Jesus is asking us to get beside Him and take one end of the yoke, so that we can pull together.  That's why Jesus says to us, "My yoke is easy and My burden is light" (Matthew 11:30).  Are you closely identified with the Lord Jesus like that?  If so, you will thank God when you feel the pressure of His hand upon you.

     "...to those who have no might He increases strength" (Isaiah 40:29).  God comes and takes us out of our emotionalism, and then our complaining turns into a hymn of praise.  The only way to know the strength of God is to take the yoke of Jesus upon us and to learn from Him.

     "...the joy of the LORD is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10).  Where do the saints get their joy?  If we did not know some Christians well, we might think from just observing them that they have no burdens at all to bear.  But we must lift the veil from our eyes.  The fact that the peace, light, and joy of God is in them is proof that a burden is there as well.  The burden that God places on us squeezes the grapes in our lives and produces the wine, but most of us see only the wine and not the burden.  No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God living within the human spirit; it creates an inner invincibility.

     If your life is producing only a whine, instead of the wine, then ruthlessly kick it out.  It is definitely a crime for a Christian to be weak in God's strength.

     Our Solitude with Him.  Jesus doesn't take us aside and explain things to us all the time; He explains things to us as we are able to understand them.   The lives of others are examples for us, but God requires us to examine our own souls.  It is slow work -- so slow that it takes God all of time and eternity to make a man or woman conform to His purpose.  We can only be used by God after we allow Him to show us the deep, hidden areas of our own character.  It is astounding how ignorant we are about ourselves!  We don't even recognize the envy, laziness, or pride within us when we see it.  But Jesus will reveal to us everything we have held within ourselves before His grace began to work.  How many of us have learned to look inwardly with courage?

     We have to get rid of the idea that we understand ourselves.  That is always the last bit of pride to go.  The only One who understands us is God.  The greatest curse in our spiritual life is pride.  If we have ever had a glimpse of what we are like in the sight of God, we will never say, "Oh, I'm so unworthy."  We will understand that this goes without saying.  But as long as there is any doubt that we are unworthy, God will continue to close us in until He gets us alone.  Whenever there is any element of pride or conceit remaining, Jesus cant' teach us anything.  He will allow us to experience heartbreak or the disappointment we feel when our intellectual pride is wounded.  He will reveal numerous misplaced affections or desires -- things over which we never thought He would have to get us alone.  Many things are shown to us, often without effect.  But when God gets us alone over them, they will be clear.

     I am accountable to God for the way I control my body under His authority.  Paul said he did not "set aside the grace of God" -- make it ineffective (Galatians 2: 21).  The grace of God is absolute and limitless, and the work of salvation through Jesus is complete and finished forever.  I am not being saved -- I am saved.  Salvation is as eternal as God's throne, but I must put to work or use what God has placed within me.  To "work out [my] own salvation" (Philippians 2: 12) means that I am responsible for using what He has given me.  It also means that I must exhibit in my own body the life of the Lord Jesus, not mysteriously or secretly, but openly and boldly.  "I discipline my body and bring it into subjection..." 

(1 Corinthians 9: 27).  Every Christian can have his body under absolute control for God.  God has given us the responsibility to rule over all "the temple of the Holy Spirit," including our thoughts and desires 

(1 Corinthians 6: 19).  We are responsible for these, and we must never give way to improper ones.  But most of us are much more severe in our judgment of others than we are in judging ourselves.  We make excuses for things in ourselves, while we condemn things in the lives of others simply because we are not naturally inclined to do them.

     Paul said, "I beseech you... that you present your bodies a living sacrifice..." (Romans 12: 1).  What I must decide is whether or not I will agree with my Lord and Master that my body will indeed be His temple.   Once I agree, all the rules, regulations, and requirements of the law concerning the body are summed up for me in this revealed truth -- my body is "the temple of the Holy Spirit."