The Lord Himself personally forgave you, and brought you out of that darkness into His Light, believer—it was so that you'd be blessed, righteous, holy, and might proclaim His praises. If we feel like it or not, biblcial worship of the Lord is ministry number one for each of us. You were made for the praise of God's glory!
Yes you, you were actually created by God for a great purpose. You were made for the praise of His glory. Not for yourself. And His responding to us, man, that just makes me wanna go say something and brag on Jesus!
"...we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the Gospel of your salvation--having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.." Eph. 1:12*
I respectfully challenge you today.. to check out all that happened worship-wise.. in the book of Acts. Check out how the Lord blessed those believers for simply obeying Him. Let's major on doing the basics, and not doing what hinders the work of the Spirit. Let's sow to the Spirit wholeheartedly.. daily, and not sow to our old fleshly nature. I pray that we can see what happened in the Book of Acts ..happen all over again ..in our Land as God answers our prayers of faith and pours out of His Holy Spirit here. Please do it again Jesus. With right motives, right attitudes, and Your right Message ..please use us Lord kinda like You did with the early church. Send real revival and awakening. God, let us be in the middle of what You are doing on earth in a good Way, but not even one minute hindering other believers. We trust You to do Your thing in and through us for Christ. Amen. The Word says...
"So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved." Acts 2:46-47
How can you, me, or anyone become an effective soul-winner without first bein' a sincere worshipper of Christ? Worship is to be an ongoing lifestyle. Think about it. I personally don't know how anyone in God's Kingdom.. could make an impact anywhere without such a habit of worship. Yes, our love for sinners actually springs from our earnest and expressed love of the Lord. Something really great happens when God's people get together in His Spirit and study His Word. Something really wonderful happens when God's people get together and sing His praises! Real Christians love to worship Him ..either when alone or with the Body of Christ. Jesus said, "For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them."
The early church, man!.. they loved to gather. They loved to thank, praise and worship Jesus! As a result they loved to witness of Christ and His Gospel ..with anointing from the Spirit! Acts 2:46–47 tells us, "They ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people." The phrase "gladness and simplicity of heart" literally means "with unaffected joy." There was huge JOY in the early church that gave vibrancy and passion. We too need to have such obedience, J O Y, and reverence inside for the Lord ,,and guess what... this all has a positive outgrowth. We wanna go tell people about Christ and His Gospel! And sinners will turn and trust Him..they'll get added to our (the Church's) number by the Lord.
The Bible says, "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!" (1 Chron. 16:34). Sometimes worship can feel like a sacrifice.. like when Christians are hurting after being lied about or being ripped off. But we should still worship even when we don't feel like it. Here's some fun homework for ya ..for when you get some moments free: Go do a study on all the people in the Bible who worshipped the Lord ...while not feeling like it and see how God responded and even used them. Need a good place to start? Look at Job 1:20.
*Please make it your habit to check what I say contextually. Yes, even meditate upon the context of Ephesians 1:12 this week.
