Worship His Name

“Come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come to him with thanksgiving. Let us sing psalms of praise to him. For the Lord is a great God, a great King above all gods.He holds in his hands the depths of the earth and the mightiest mountains. The sea belongs to him, for he made it. His hands formed the dry land, too. Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker,” – Psalm 96:1-6. 

Praise is an essential part of worshipping God. We don’t approach our heavenly Father only to ask more of Him, but also to remember not only what He has already given us, but also Who He is. We praise Him simply for being God, our faithful Father, our loving Creator, our righteous King. Warren Wiersbe says that “Worship is the believer’s response of all that they are – mind, emotions, will, body – to what God is and says and does.” 

Worship comes from within the heart and is expressed out of a heart of love to Jesus because He loved us first. Worship is not limited to a music style or genre, or tradition. It is not based on where one worships. It comes from the heart and it’s all about Jesus.  One of the best Biblical examples of worship is David. 

David made worship a priority. Even as a young man, the Lord was with him. He had a heart after God’s own heart. “But now your kingdom must end, for the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart. The Lord has already appointed him to be the leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.” (1 Samuel 13:14) Samuel tells Saul that his lack of obedience cost him the kingship. Having a “heart after God’s own heart” is tied to obedience. This idea is repeated in Acts: “But God removed Saul and replaced him with David, a man about whom God said, ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart. He will do everything I want him to do.” (Acts 13:22)  

In Psalm 96 David makes a list of all of the things that the Lord does for us. He forgives your sins, and He heals your diseases. He redeems your life and crowns you with love and compassion. And then, David reminds us who the Lord is. He is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, and overflowing with love for all of us. Reading David’s instruction manual on praise will help you understand how to worship our all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing heavenly Father. 

One way to engage in worship is to begin by opening our hearts and asking the Holy Spirit to help us receive God’s love for us. Read a Psalm or a part of the gospel that will remind you of how much God loves you. Ask God to speak to you and pour His love out on you.  

For David, worship was a natural reflex, and in a way, as vital as breathing. His example can help all of us grow in both our worship and faith lives.

Discussion Questions:

  1. What exactly is worship and why do we do it?
  2. What can we do this week to improve the level of our worship? 

Connect to God

We live life enjoyably and effectively only when we are connected with God. – Glenn C. Stewart. 

A personal relationship with God is just like a relationship with anyone else in your life. It is fellowship, love, and trust between you and Him. It means to know Him and to be known by Him. It’s much more than just going to church or even reading our Bibles. We were created for relationship with God. In fact, it’s our primary purpose in life. You may have known about God all your life through church and your Christian community, but connecting with Him on an intimate level is different. 

One of the most important ways to grow your relationship with Him is to be serious about intentional communication. No relationship succeeds without communication and our relationship with God is no exception. Our expectation is that spending time with God will be an emotional and spiritual high. It may not always be that exciting, but every conversation with your spouse is not exciting all the time but it is necessary and meaningful for those relationships to grow. Quiet time, praying, and studying the Bible may not always be exciting, but it’s the building block to a better connection with God.  

The good news is we can pray or simply talk to God no matter where we are. Scripture tells us to “pray continually?” This suggests a prayer mindset and the connection to God should be active all day. So, when you have a tough situation going on in your life, talk to God, seek his guidance. Our relationship with others is important for developing our relationship with God. “As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.” (Proverbs 27:17) We need each other. Learning and growing together with like-minded Christians help us to grow closer to God.

Finally, if we want a personal relationship with God, we need to learn how to depend on Him. We all want to be self-reliant, to have the outcomes of our lives in our hands. That is why we need to learn to depend on God;  praying and asking Him for guidance before making a decision, asking Him to be with us throughout the day, or asking Him to give us wisdom in our day-to-day interactions. Depending on God is crucial for developing a strong relationship with Him. 

Developing a real connection with God is a process. It won’t happen all at once and sometimes you’ll think your relationship with Him is strong one day and the next day you may wonder if He’s even there. But, that’s a part of the journey. Like any relationship, a relationship with God is complex. You’ll learn more about Him and encounter Him in a deeper, more meaningful way as you go along. As you draw closer to Him, He’ll reveal more of himself to you and teach you more about what He is like. 

My prayer is that you experienced a small group that strengthened your faith and closeness to God. If not, I encourage you to join one. Otherwise, you will never know just how much a relationship with Christians around you might strengthen your own personal relationship with God.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Does connecting to God help you connect with other people?
  2. What can we do this week to better connect with God? 

We Need A Little Unity

“I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.” –  John 17:20-23.  

One of the phrases in the pledge of allegiance is “one nation under God.” But turn on your TV, watch the news or read anything online or on social media, and it certainly doesn’t feel that way. It seems that we are far less like the United States and a lot more like divided States. We are not so much under God, but under the banner of all different kinds of camps and parties and movements and agendas moving in different directions and all claiming to be the way. Not only are we moving in different directions, but we have become opposed to each other. 

Hopefully, we as the church look and act and sound different. In John 17, on the day before Jesus will first be arrested and then will go to the cross to be put to death for the sin of all mankind, Jesus gathers His disciples together, and He prays a prayer. Jesus is praying, not just for His disciples who were with Him, but also for you and me and all Christians everywhere who would believe in Him. Think about that for a second: long before you ever had a thought about God, God was thinking about you. Long before you ever asked for Him, Jesus was asking the Father for you. That’s how much you’re loved and wanted by God. Jesus says my prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message. 

What you repeatedly hear in Jesus’ prayer is that God wants unity for His people. Unity can mean different things for different people. Jesus says that our unity is to be like the unity that He has with His Father. In other words, our unity as brothers and sisters in Christ is meant to be a replica, a reflection of the kind of unity that exists in the Trinity, where God the Father and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit dwell together in oneness. And yet, at the same time, they are three distinct persons. 

So unity is not uniformity in the sense that we’re the same, because we’re not the same. There is to be diversity in our unity. It’s good that we’re different. God knew that we would look different and think differently. We might like some different things, have some different preferences. We might do some different things, and get this, we might vote differently. And yet, we are according to God to be one. 

Jesus’ prayer for His church, Jesus’ prayer for us, was for our unity. A united church is a powerful tool. Paul says we exist as a church so, “…all of you can join together with one voice, giving praise and glory to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 15:6) When the world sees love and unity, it is a powerful testimony to the truth of the gospel. Let us work even harder to improve our unity by the love we show in the communities we serve.  

Discussion Questions:

  1. How important is living in harmony?
  2. How would you describe the power and impact of unity? When or where have you experienced that?
  3. What can you do to become more of a force for unity?

Rejoice In All Things

“Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 4:4-7.

We are just a few weeks into the new year. And with the new year comes a new slate and a new mindset to face the challenges from last year and new challenges the new year will present. We feel rejuvenated and ready to take on whatever the new year throws our way. But, just like resolutions, that take-on-the-world attitude will probably fade soon. We are already facing a tough challenge from last year and added some new ones such as the divisiveness we face as a nation.  

Learning how to rejoice in all things is the Biblical mandate, but it is not a statement, it is an exercise. It is a faith stretching exercise, one that is all about perspective. Maybe you were just laid off or had an unplanned major expense pop up out of nowhere. It is counter intuitive to think you could rejoice in those things, but that is what God command us to do.

Maybe you haven’t been hit by “hard times” but you are overwhelmed by all the small things going wrong in your life. Maybe you have too many balls in the air and the little things at work and at home with the kids has you flustered and overwhelmed. How are you supposed to rejoice?

The answer is you don’t. You rejoice in the Lord. Philippians 4:4 (ESV) says, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” This command doesn’t mean to find joy in your hard time, but in the Lord during your hard times. Your hope is in God, not your marital or job status. He has a future for you, not your bank statement or your ring finger. You don’t embrace health concerns, you embrace God. Thank Him for being there and walking with you and giving you the ability to overcome the world because He “…have overcome the world.” He is also not calling me to rejoice in the overwhelming feelings I have, He is calling me to rejoice in Him.

This is how you learn how to rejoice in all things, you find yourself in Him so much that your situation doesn’t compare to His plan for you and His glory. No, it is not easy. It is easy to give into despair but God is calling you to do it. He is calling you higher, He is calling you to find your everything in Him (Acts 17:28).

Discussion Questions:

  1. What would daily life look like if we rejoiced in all things? 
  2. What can we do this week to start rejoicing in the Lord?  

Stuck In A Rut?

“But forget all that –  it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.” – Isaiah 43:18-19.

Spiritual ruts, dry spells, periods of stagnancy: most Christians experience these at one time in their lives. Whether it is a season of busyness or a time of negative circumstances, you wake up and realize that we are not as close to God as we want to be. Day after day, sermon after sermon, small group after small group, prayer after prayer, we find ourselves discouraged and frightened by a widening gap between our desired relationship with God and the one we are actually experiencing. 

Ruts often occur because we default to thinking that God is big, and therefore removed, distant, and has better things to do than care about our daily anxieties. “Yes, I know He cares about me. He cares about everyone. But right now I feel like there is a chasm between God and me.” The beauty of God’s love is that it survives spiritual dry times. Don’t let the lie sink into your mind that spiritual dryness indicates that God has lost interest in you or has decided that you are expendable. Nothing could be further from the truth. The most faithful and happiest Christians in history have experienced days of being in a spiritual rut. 

It is at these times that we need to remember that God loves you so much. He loves you and He is with you on the mountaintop and in the valley. Zephaniah 3:17 says, “For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”

The first thing I need to do when I’m in a spiritual rut is to pick up my Bible and read it. The Word of God is living and active. It is there to help grow and strengthen us. Too often, we complicate it and act like Bible reading is only helpful if we have the right study method or reading plan or are in the right frame of mind when we open the Bible. But the beautiful thing about God’s Word is, it doesn’t depend on us – it depends on Him. He is faithful to work when we are half asleep in the morning or when we can’t sleep in the early hours of the night. Make daily time in the Word of God a priority when you are in a spiritual rut. 

Then pray to reopen communication. Your words, they don’t need to be perfect. You do not need eloquence and you certainly don’t need an audience. Because when it is quiet, your audience of One, the One who knows each hair on your head and moment, unrecognized by anyone else, when your heartbeat it first beat and filled your veins with life-sustaining blood, knows you are there. Prayer isn’t to acquaint God with what’s happening in our lives, it’s to remind yourself that God is desperately involved in each moment of our existence. Remind yourself of that and take time, perhaps every morning before you get out of bed and at the end of each day, to begin a habit of prayer. 

When you are in periods of spiritual stagnancy when you feel stuck in a rut, press into God. Ask Him to reveal Himself anew to you and to strengthen you with His mercy. We are promised that His mercy is new every morning and that He will come to those who call on Him. 

Discussion Questions:

  1. What constitutes being in a spiritual rut in your mind? 
  2. Do you feel spiritually stuck in a rut, stagnant, going through the motions, too comfortable? How did you move past it?
  3. How can prayer be a catalyst for moving out of a spiritual rut? 

Is Your Joy In Jail?

“You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever.” – Psalm 16:11

People come from all across the country and the world to see the sugar sand beaches of the Emerald Coast. One of my guilty pleasures is going to the beach. I go to the beach to relax. It is the best place to chill and to feel the most joy and peace. It never gets old, looking out at the vastness of the Gulf. It reminds me of how little I am and how big and powerful God is. On the beach, the pressures of life that are wearing on my heart don’t feel as heavy. The beach is where I go to find joy and reconnect with God.

There are so many things coming at us these days that we spend a lot of time and emotional energy feeling guilty, sad, or confused about our lives. We have lost our joy in the midst of trying to figure it all out. We have all had to make difficult choices for our families and careers. We worry about the circumstances we have no control over. Our joy is in jail.

This is not the life we wanted.  We wanted something more. Something different. Something better. But there are things that keep my joy in jail and I have a hard time passing go. We worry we are not getting things right and as a result we hold our happiness hostage. Living this way gets tiring, and it is not what God intends for us. It’s the enemy’s plan, according to Jesus: “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” (John 10:10).

God wants you to live in His grace. He wants you to reset your expectations to let go of guilt and reclaim your joy out of jail. The Apostle Paul mentions joy or rejoicing sixteen times in the four chapters of Philippians, even when he was in jail. Paul actually wrote this book from jail. No matter what life threw at him, Paul kept discovering joy. Philippians 1:1-2. says, “Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul mentions Jesus 3 times in these 2 verses. I heard a preacher say that joy is your present possession when Christ is your constant obsession.

Jesus is our purpose and our source of joy. So what can we do to keep Jesus on our mind constantly? Paul was obsessed with pursing the One who had pursued him. We can do the same thing. Joy comes from knowing that when we are weak, Jesus is strong. Or when we are confused and unsure, Jesus provides wisdom. Joy comes from knowing that in Christ I have a relationship that will last and even when I fail Him, His mercy endures forever.

Find that joy this week. You don’t have to wait for the next major event in life. You can rejoice that you woke up this morning. You can rejoice that God has plans for you that are good.  You can rejoice that He is always with you.  There is nothing conditional about the joy from Jesus Christ, and nothing better to rejoice about.    

Discussion Questions:

  1. I Thessalonians 5: 16 says, “Always be joyful.” Is that realistic? How do we turn sorrow into joy?
  2. Romans 15:13 says, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” What is the difference between hope and joy? Pray that God would make joy a realistic, constant and overflowing part of your life.

God Is The Source Of My Joy

“Let joy be your continual feast.Make your life a prayer. And in the midst of everything be always giving thanks, for this is God’s perfect plan for you in Christ Jesus.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (TPT). 

How often do you experience the joy of the Lord? When the Bible talks about the joy of the Lord being my strength, I have a hard time relating to it. I think a lot of it has to do with my circumstances. I struggle with finding joy in the negative. My rose colored glasses often have a grey tinge to them. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to experience the joy of the Lord that He wants me to experience. As David said in Psalm 43:4: “There I will go to the altar of God, to God—the source of all my joy. I will praise you with my harp, O God, my God!” David said that God was his exceeding joy and I want the same thing.  

First, we need to understand what the joy of the Lord is, and what it is not. The joy of the Lord is not primarily a feeling of happiness.  It’s not the warm fuzzy feeling you get when watching a sunset on the Gulf Coast. It’s more than a feeling. A feeling will not get you through life’s negative circumstances. No, the joy of the Lord is much more sturdy and unbreakable.

Ultimately, this joy comes from Jesus himself. I experience the joy of the Lord specifically because I am united to Jesus Christ. John Piper had this to say on the subject: “The reason your joy can now be as full as it is and moving toward perfect fullness when all our battle with sin is over is because in union with me, the branch in the vine, you no longer enjoy merely your joy. You now have my joy in you and you enjoy what I enjoy as your joy, as you abide in me.” 

The joy of the Lord is the firm, unshakeable belief that God loves me and the unbendable belief is working everything for my good. So again, how do I experience and grow in the joy of the Lord? First we experience the joy of the Lord through prayer. Prayer is our lifeline to Jesus. When I come to the throne of grace, I am filled with the joy of the Lord that is my strength. We also experience the joy of the Lord through scripture. If I want to be able to say, “The joy of the Lord is my strength,” then I need to go to the fountain where that joy is found. I need to immerse myself in God’s word. To drink deeply of it and savor the fellowship with God I experience through it.

And finally we experience the joy of the Lord through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the one who reveals Christ to us. The Spirit opens our eyes so that we can comprehend the glorious things to which we’ve been called. And when the Spirit opens our eyes, we truly are filled with the overwhelming joy of the Lord. How can we not be bursting with joy when we’re filled with all the fullness of God.

Discussion Questions:

  1. When people say that God has a wonderful plan for their lives, what do they usually mean?
  2. What can we do this week to trust and accept God’s plan for the future?

Read The Bible In 2021

“Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.” -Charles Spurgeon

The Bibles we have in our homes and hold in our hands are nothing less than divinely-inspired, revelations of God. Every story, every Psalm, every historic event, law and prophetic word join together to paint one picture of the God who set the world in motion and orchestrated this present reality. But while we know some of the more famous verses and stories, we should not miss the opportunity to read this mysteriously living and active revelation of God in its entirety. Is 2021 the year you read the bible from cover to cover? 

You have your favorite parts of the Bible. We all do. The Gospels teach us about Jesus, Paul’s epistles deepen our theological understanding, and the historical books provide insight into the lives of real people as they followed God. But other parts of the Bible are important. When we read the Bible in a year, it naturally takes us to the places we may not usually go, allowing us opportunities to reflect upon the full counsel of God. Reading the Bible cover to cover also enables us to see the big picture of redemptive history. 

Taking a year to read the Bible in its entirety allows us the opportunity to see the big picture, the full story. We see the larger story of creation, fall, and redemption develop in all the stories and context of the complete Bible. It enables us to connect what we learned in Genesis with what we learn in the book of Revelation. You will glean insights that you might have missed without the full story.  You will learn some new and unexpected things about God. 

Regardless of what season of life you are in, there is still so much to learn about God. Reading the Bible reminds me that my knowledge of God is insufficient and can always be improved. Reading the Bible completely forces us to reflect upon all aspects of God’s character and allows us to know Him in new ways.  

Reading the Bible cover to cover enables you to experience the gospel in a new way. God will meet you each and every time you read through the Bible in a year. Some days, the Psalm for that day helped me to pray for a friend in need. Other days, the passage convicted me of sin and led me to repentance. The Lord will meet you in surprising ways as you place yourself in His word.

One of the best things about reading the Bible through in a year is that it builds a regular habit of daily Bible reading. Having a certain amount apportioned for the day makes it easier to pick it up and read. Following a yearly plan also acts as a built in accountability marker. If you have never read the Bible through, let me challenge you to make 2021 your year. There are many great resources to help you out.

Discussion Question:

  1. So what is keeping you from committing to a Bible plan in 2021?  

Let’s Talk About Submission

“Submit to God, and you will have peace; then things will go well for you.” – Job 22:21.

Submission is one of those subjects that make Christians uncomfortable, even squirm a little bit. In it’s most basic context, submission means trusting God; Trusting God with my whole life and trusting God has a plan for my life. Trusting where I am in my life, at this moment, is where God wants me to be. And trusting to the level that we are not continually trying to take control back from God.

Biblical submission does not mean checking your brain at the door and becoming a robot. True biblical submission as I understand it is this: willfully allowing the desires of another to dictate my behavior and attitude. Biblical submission always involves the full use of a person’s will. Consider the fact that a few of God’s most ardent followers disagreed with Him or asked Him to change His mind. Abraham for example. 

 Genesis 18:20-21 says, “So the Lord told Abraham, “I have heard a great outcry from Sodom and Gomorrah, because their sin is so flagrant. I am going down to see if their actions are as wicked as I have heard. If not, I want to know.” in verse 23-24. Abraham asked God , “Will you sweep away both the righteous and the wicked? Suppose you find fifty righteous people living there in the city—will you still sweep it away and not spare it for their sakes? In verse 26 we get the answer: “And the Lord replied, “If I find fifty righteous people in Sodom, I will spare the entire city for their sake.”

Remember that Abraham is the person who was so willing to submit to God’s will that he was ready to kill his own son Isaac as a sacrifice when God asked him once to do it. This same Abraham is considered righteous and faithful to God even when he begs God to reconsider the judgment on Sodom. And of course there is Jesus’s submission.  In the Garden of Gethsemane before Jesus was taken from the cross, he pleads with his Heavenly Father to if possible take away the cup of responsibility before Him. “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” — Luke 22:42. This passage accurately depicts what biblical submission really looks like. Even though Jesus fully expresses His own desires, He makes a willing choice to put the desires of God above His own.

Submission is not easy. We run from it. We try to ignore it. But because of the submissive example of Christ, I should submit all that I am to Him and allow Him to work in me, through me, and around me. The bottom line is that God deserves our submission, the world works better when humans submit to God, and God wants the kind of loving loyalty that the Bible sometimes calls submission.

Discussion Questions

  1. Is God the hardest to submit to in your life? Why or why not?
  2. What are the benefits to submitting ourselves to God? Obstacles?

What Is Your Exit Strategy?

“It’s time to begin righting the story of your life.” – David Jeremiah

Regular fliers don’t typically pay attention to pre-flight safety announcements. The “we request your full attention as the flight attendants demonstrate the safety features of this aircraft” goes in one ear and out the other. So we typically don’t know where the exits are in this particular aircraft and as a result, we won’t know instantly how to evacuate a plane. The solution is to listen to the pre-flight safety announcements or familiarizing ourselves with briefing cards after boarding the airplane and before takeoff. If there is going to be a mass exodus from the plane, you don’t want to be the one left behind because you didn’t know where the exits are. 

It makes one think about all our plans for the New Year and whether we need some exits. We spend all our time on the entrance strategies in the form of New Year’s resolutions and don’t pay enough attention to putting exit strategies in place. Exit strategies demand that we be prepared. We also have to be observant and make mental notes of the exits we have in mind. And we have to be aware of our surroundings. Now that you are probably confused, let me give you a few examples of exit strategies:  

First, submitting to God: “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”  (James 4:7) What does submitting to God look like at the end of the year compared to the beginning of the year? Have a strong prayer life: “Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” (Matthew 26:41) What will my prayer life look like when I exit 2021?  Know God’s Word: “For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” (Hebrews 4:12)  And be more like Christ. “Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires.” (Romans 13:14) What will be different when 2021 ends? 

As we go through life, there are so many things that we get overly focused on, or that we spend so much time and effort on that really aren’t going to count when it comes to eternity. If there is any good news in 2020 it is this: Crisis brings focus. The pandemic reminded us of what’s most important. We used this year to stop doing the things we didn’t need to be doing. This new year is the opportunity to take what we learned and make any necessary changes.  

It would be pretty easy to follow those things if we could see the red lights in the aisles or the exit signs flashing the location of the exits. When spiritual emergencies arise, we just need to run to one of the exits and make sure they are predominant in our lives.

So, what are your exit strategies for 2021?

Discussion Question:

  1. In what areas do you need to have an exit strategy?
  2. What can you do this week to develop an exit strategy for that area?