I was reading in Proverbs the other night and this scripture just jumped out at me:

" I went past the field of the sluggard, past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgement; thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins. I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw: A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest---and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man."

Proverbs 24:30-34

Spiritual lazyness sneaks up on you and before you know it you are in a spiritual wasteland. Thorns and weeds choke out all the new growth that was once fostered during a time of great discipline. I don't want that to happen anymore. Just like training a muscle for months on end and then taking a year off. What happens...atrophy to the point of not only destroying the new growth, but taking us back even further. There is no time to sit, slumber, and sleep spriritually. If I do, I am not only ineffective but I become a roadblock to ministry.

How do we keep the worship experience from being merely an emotional experience?
With great music and an awesome band it is difficult to keep from allowing yourself to be pulled in by simply the emotion of the event. We in the church have at times(and especially now in the last several years)put entirely too much emphasis on the music that we worship with. Our tastes and desires are secondary to the purpose of worhsip. We don't worship to get something, but to give something. Don't get me wrong, I think that it is in those times of true worship that the Holy Spirit comes to us and ministers to us in a very real way.

However, the purpose is not to be ministered to, but to minister to our Lord and Creator. It is when the music takes an inflated role that our worship becomes nothing more than an emotional experience spawned by the "great sound" or "talented band" that we use as a tool for entering worship. The music has to be seen for what it is: a tool with which we can worship.
The Word says we are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God, this is our spiritual act of worship.
Romans 12:1

We are to worship with our very lives. If we rely too heavily on the music to bring out our emotion I think we become lazy in worship.
A good exercise in worship is to worship by yourself, no one else to spark your emotion, just you and your God. More than this though is to make sure and worship especially when you don't feel like it.

Remember it is not about us but about Him. Our feelings at the time are irrelevent...if we will make the sacrifice even when we don't feel like it we will experience true worship.

Lord help us to become better worshippers

Here is a good article on worship: worshiping in spirit (part 2)

Hear is a deafly cycle(yes I meant to spell it that way...read on)
It seems that we tend to seek the Lord with every fiber of our being when we have a crisis, a problem, or tough decision to be made. I am as guilty as the next person in this. When will we ever figure out that our hearing(spiritual hearing) is something that has to be practiced. Not just when we need something from God, but all of the time. By the time the next crisis, problem, or tough decision comes along we have already forgotten what His voice sounds like and our ears are so plugged up with junk that we couldn't hear it anyway. Then we go through all of the purging again and clear out all of the junk until we begin to become familiar with His voice again.
In this state of spirituality God is reduced to nothing more than a vending machine.

I am tired of living that cycle. I want to become familiar enough with His voice that I can hear it even through all of the junk in my ears.
The practice schedule is pretty simple...a daily time of quiet...stillness...solitude...waiting to hear...listening...reading His word...
Sounds easy...until you make yourself set time aside to accomplish it. I have found that I am willing to give up a lot of things on this earth: food, sleep, personal comforts, money, even my own possesions, just don't ask me to give up my time.

Do I really want to better hear His voice? Am I willing to put the time in to make it happen? Am I just all talk and no action? Am I willing to sacrifice things I enjoy for it?

Those are the questions...sometimes I am not sure of the answers, but I am working on them.

If you seek the Lord with all of your heart, you will find Him.
Sometimes He waits to tell us what we need to hear until He knows He has our undivided attention.
Sometimes He tries to tell us, but we are so consumed by the details of our circumstance that we can't hear Him.
Fasting and prayer help us focus in on His desires for our lives and allow us to see clearly the things He is trying to say.
Times of solitude while fasting and praying are good for our spiritual ears. It tends to clean the wax out. Do you need a hearing check?

I think I just had a couple of pounds of wax removed from mine!!!

Check out this great article on the Lord's Supper, it has really challenged my whole view of that sacriment!!

The Last Snack

Shaun Groves new song Move Me has really gripped me lately. It says what I think a lot of us need to hear sometimes. We get so wrapped up in ourselves it is sometimes hard to hear the voice of God so we have to cry out MOVE ME LORD!!!
Here are a few of the words:

My cup is never empty, my eyes are never dry
I'd be drunk by now if selfishness were wine
Seems like a million years that I've been standing here
Holding on to all that holds me down

Come and move me, In a holy dance
Through my circumstance
Come and move me, from my hiding place
Into Your embrace
Where the whole human race sees You
Move me

Shaun Groves

The Steven Curtis Chapman song:

"God is God and I am not."

Simple words with a profound personal meaning.
It is funny though, even though I know I am not God, I still try to act like I am.
It is when you find yourself in a situation that is beyond your control that you usually come to grips with the above statement.

Although now I find myself in a situation where I am in control of the decisions I have to make yet I don't want be in control of them. I want to have them made for me...hard choices that will effect the rest of mine and my families life.

"Be still and know that I am God" In my stillness I wait to hear from the one that will determine my steps. Sometimes the quiet, stillness, and waiting is the hardest part of making a decision, yet those are the times we grow the most. Not always because we want to, but sometimes just because we have to.

Prayer for today from the group Selah:

"Oh draw me Lord
Oh draw me Lord
Oh draw me Lord
And I'll run after You"

Words by David Baroni

Lord reveal Your will to me, that I may be doing exactly what You have called me to.

To be humble is paramount to our cause.

"'For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted.'"
Luke 18:14

"All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because,
'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.'
I Peter 5:5

How far are we willing to go to be humble? Are we willing to look like a fool, weak, timid, or stupid? Being humble goes against our very nature and is something that has to be deliberately thought and worked out.

Humble is defined as being low in rank.
Some synonyms are : modest,low, lowly, submissive.

If we do not humble ourselves we are in effect recieving glory that belongs to Christ. To be humble is to point to the source of our gifts, talents, and abilities so that all glory and honor would go to the rightful owner of such praise.
Lord, move me out of the way so that You recieve all glory, honor, and praise that is due You.

The simple life...spending time in worship, with family, with friends, and living out ministry. I want this to be the desire of my heart.

Check out this article on worship:

worshiping in truth

This world throws so much at us it is hard not to begin to buy into it.
For instance:

World: truth is up to me

Faith: truth is from God and is absolute

World: live the American Dream

Faith: live a simple life

World: if it feels good do it and don't worry yourself with the consequences

Faith: be self-controlled

World: I'll do it my way

Faith: I die daily to my own ambitions



The world says me, me, me, me... all the time everyday. We try to create too many shades of gray and fail to see the black and white of these issues. We can't live out the messages of the world and faith at the same time, they are counterproductive. If people see us as just "regular everyday people" then we must be doing something wrong. If we live the way our faith tells us to live people won't be able to help but notice something different about us. When is the last time someone came up to you and said, "there is just something different about you"? I can't remember the last time... Ouch, that hurts.

The words to the Ten Shekel Shirt song "Healer" are my prayer for today.
They say so much in so few words.

"Healer heal me, Savior save me
Maker change me, Lover love me

I'm so tired of living for the kind of love that only lasts for a while
The pain, the shame, tear me up inside

So I fall on my knees to get back on my feet again
And I cry out for You
Would You please speak to me"


Lamont Hiebert c 2000 Intergrity's Hosanna!

The reason most people want to resist any true belief in God is because the people that represent Him don't do a very good job showing those around them what He looks like by the way they live.
I want to look enough like Him that people will recognize Him through me.

Check out these links on worship and living:
sacrificial living
mans programs vs. gods presence

Something to think about:
Why does it seem the Church has become the place where Christians minister to Christians instead of serving those outside the Church? Have we lost our true focus? Jesus ministered to those who needed to be ministered to, yet we continue to cottle each other in the Church without a thought of what is going on around us. We as a whole do not exist in the way the Church(Christ's Body) was intended to exist. How do you get back? When will we become outward focused instead of inward? Lord help us.