worship

There is a little plant called reverence
in the corner of my soul's garden, which
I love to have watered once a week.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

If God's people hunger deeply enough, God will hear and send revival.
God requires more than casual prayers for revival. He wants His people
to hunger and thirst for His mighty working. To seek God's face is far more
than occasionally mentioning revival in our prayer. It involves repeated
and prolonged prayer. It requires holy determination in prayer,
examining ourselves to see if anything in our lives is hindering God.

Wesley Duewel
  

Those to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, have not
yet visited the house of their souls whose windows are open from dawn to dawn.

Khalil Gibran

  
  

A boy was born 'mid little things
Between a little world and sky--
And dreamed not of the cosmic rings
Round which the circling planets fly.
He lived in little works and thoughts,
Where little ventures grow and plod,
And paced and plowed his little plots
And prayed unto his little God.
But as the mighty systems grew,
His faith grew faint with many scars;
His Cosmos widened in his view--
But God was lost among His stars.

Another boy in lowly days
As he, to little things was born,
And gathered lore in woodland ways
And from the glory of the morn.
As wider skies broke on his view
God greatened in his growing mind;
Each year he dreamed his God anew
And left his older God behind.
He saw the boundless scheme dilate
In star and blossom, sky and clod;
And as the universe grew great
He dreamed for it a greater God.

Sam Foss

  

Before there can be fullness there must
be emptiness.  Before God can fill us with
Himself we must first be emptied of ourselves.

A.W. Tozer
  
  
The church can have light only as
it is full of the Spirit, and it can be
full only as the members that
compose it are filled individually.

A.W. Tozer

  
I worship best when I'm climbing a mountain, or walking along a river, or sitting at the edge of a lake, for then all of God's glory is before me and about me; it all becomes a part of me as my senses expand to accept it all.  There always comes a moment of exultation when I realize that this is what it's all about--the beauty of the world in which we live, the beauty that was created for us to enjoy, to marvel at, to live in.  God must be very sad indeed to watch us turn our backs on the beauty of the world in order to work longer hours so that we can gain more material goods.  The moment of exultation that comes upon me in such places is followed almost immediately by a state of exultation, in which I feel that I'm a vital part of this world, of the universe, of God.

And that's when I worship best, for that's when my faith is the strongest--the mountains and trees and rivers don't worry about the passage of time, about aging, about changes, about whether or not I have the latest in digital technology or whether I have a cool car or a geeky car.  The mountains simply are, and the desert simply is--and that's how I see God at those times of worship.  God simply is, and though we can explain away the presence of the mountains through the action of tectonic plates, that doesn't diminish by one iota their majesty or beauty or power. At those times, I love life fully, and I love God fully, for the surroundings with which he's blessed me are truly wonderful.

In the city, I have a slightly more difficult time worshipping.  Tailgaters, cynics, nay-sayers, critics--these kinds of people tend to take our focus off of the glory of the lives we have and force us to deal with unpleasantness in our lives.  I don't like that, and though I'm getting better at dealing with it, I still focus a bit too much on the negative.  I need to keep my mind focused on the fact that I am an eternal being, and that this life on earth is a temporary state, and once it ends, I won't be asked how often I was right or wrong or what I had for possessions, but how much time I spent in worship, how much time I spent helping my fellow human beings as a form of worship.

I want to answer truly that I tried to live my life in a constant state of worship, with my eyes open to the beauty just as a child's eyes are open to the beauty and wonder of the world.  And that each time I saw beauty, I gave thanks to God that that beauty was a part of my life.  That's worship.

I want to answer truly that I spent my time in corporate worship, in church or in prayer groups, helping other people in their faith, supporting them as much as I could, teaching them the little I knew, and learning from them of what they knew.

I want to answer truly that there was a point in my life at which I gave my life to God as a form of worship--after all, he created me, so why should I hold back from Him something that he himself made?

Worship is beautiful if we allow it to be.  If it's stagnant, repetitive ceremony and nothing more, then it's worth little, to God or to us.  Find those things that you find beautiful, and devote yourself to finding the wonder in them.  Even more challenging, find those things you don't find beautiful, and look deeply to find the beauty and wonder--that which can and should be worshipped--in all things.
  

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My times of silence before God are very important to me now.  I put everything
else down, every word away, and I am with the Lord.  When I'm quiet, life falls
into perspective for me.  I have a very active mind and I'm a worrier, but in
those moments when I choose to put that away, I rest beside the Shepherd
in still places.  Why don't you give yourself a gift today?  Turn off the television
or the car stereo, put down the newspaper or the business plan, and in the
quietness, rest for a while beside the Shepherd of your soul.

Sheila Walsh

   
 
Worship is yet another paradox of the religious life:  it is simultaneously
the greatest duty and the greatest pleasure of faith.  Worship is the act
of truly loving God.  Believe in this brilliant Being, this magnificent
“higher power,” who not only created us but nurtures us with care
and intelligence beyond our imagination, and obviously we are called to worship Him.

M. Scott Peck
  

The law of giving and receiving is fundamental, and relates just as much
to God as it does to us.  As we go through the door of giving ourselves
to God in worship we find that God comes through that same door
and gives Himself to us.  God’s insistence that we worship Him is not really
a demand at all but an offer—an offer to share Himself with us.  When God
asks us to worship Him, He is asking us to fulfill the deepest longing in Himself,
which is His passionate desire to give Himself to us.
It is what Martin Luther called “the joyful exchange.”

Selwyn Hughes

  
   
The soul suffers when we lack reverence.  We live in an age that
understands respect--respect earned through achievement, power,
or actions.  We live in an age that understands rights, obligations,
and sets of commitments.  But we have difficulty experiencing
reverence because it comes from a deeper place.  Reverence requires
an experience of "otherness," the "thou-ness" of that other who crosses our path.

D. Stephenson Bond

   

What else can I do, a lame old man, but sing hymns to God?
If I were a nightingale, I would do the nightingale's part;
if I were a swan, I would do as a swan.  But now I am a
rational creature, and I ought to praise God.  This is my work.  I do it,
nor will I desert my post, so long as I am allowed to keep it.
And I ask you to join me in this same song.

Epictetus

   
   

 

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