You learn to love.Īnd, eventually, if you also have faith and hope, you may find freedom. In trying to give your heart to God, you learn what the heart is, and what is in it, and what it is to give it. Is she sleepy? Depressed? Suffering from indigestion? Is she simply distracted, with the concerns of life that had been running through her mind earlier now returning, unwanted, during prayer? That she feels as though she is still seeking God is an important clue it indicates that her will is engaged with God even if her mind is clouded and confused.Īfter you have been a Christian for a while, after you have spent time trying to figure out how to live for Christ (and fallen), or how Christ can live in you (and failed), or how to be obedient (and were frustrated), you come to the heart of the matter. Here she is unable to do so.ĭiscernment is necessary. June seems to think that when she sits down for prayer and meditates on a Bible passage, if it goes well, she will concentrate, and think clear chains of thoughts, and perhaps figure out or learn something about God or the Christian life or the world. What strikes you about the prayer? What is it that June is seeking? How is this prayer likely to form the soul? I may be thinking about good things, but I just can’t make my mind focus on what I’m reading. When I pray, and I start out meditating on a Bible passage, sometimes I can’t concentrate. You ask June to describe her prayer, and she responds thus: Case 10 You are meeting with a directee, June, who is a Christian, who is seeking God, who has gone so far as to seek out a spiritual director. At the end of the day worship is all about the heart, when your heart falls in love with Jesus worship is all that you can do.Imagine you are a spiritual director. Without revelation all you are doing is singing a song. Worship comes from revelation or understanding. Singing about intimacy means nothing without revelation.You cannot live a carnal or worldly lifestyle and sing songs about intimacy and call that worship. Over the last several years there has been a popular trend in worship music singing about intimacy, the River, or something like the breath of God. Is it not a sin to be tickling men’s ears with sounds when we profess to be adoring the Lord? What has a sensuous delight in organs, anthems, etc., to do with devotion? Do not men mistake physical effects for spiritual impulses? Do they not often offer to God strains far more calculated for human amusement than for divine acceptance? An understanding enlightened of the Holy Spirit is then and then only fully capable of offering worthy praise.” On the other hand, from the great attention paid by some to the mere music, we feel sadly sure that the sense has no effect upon them. It is to be feared from the slovenly way in which some make a noise in singing, that they fancy any sound will do. Even under the economy of types and ceremonies, it is clear that the Lord had regard to the spirituality of worship, and would be praised thoughtfully, intelligently, and with deep appreciation of the reason for song. Here is how Charles Spurgeon describes this verse. He was seeking worshippers, worshippers are created by a revelation of Jesus through the Holy Spirit. That’s why Jesus told the woman at the well that if she knew who Jesus was she would have asked Him for living water. It is revelation that creates true worship. You can sing all the right worship songs but without a personal revelation of Jesus that song is only a song. True worship is birthed out of a revelation of the greatness of God. That’s another way of saying what David is saying in this verse, worship the Lord with understanding. Jesus told the woman at the well in Samaria that we worship what we know. Ps.47:7 – For God is the King of all the earth
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |