Service. Praise & Worship vs Our Mindsets (Constant battle. Winner: God!)

     Pastor Andria taught last night. I loved it. She had a lot of God stuff to share. She did so with surety and confidence and with some funny quips. It was a powerful message. It was about applying Pastor's message from last week, about arising and being called to higher levels, to praise and worship. How God's glory coming down, or us being pulled up, is a by-product of our praise and worship. Basically, it was about the heart of our faith walks. That means it was about attitudes and choices. It really fell in line with the direction the Church is going in. It was about gates and doors and just about different ways to transition.

     I loved learning about thanksgiving. About the struggle that comes with sacrificing for God. I loved that it led into praise and worship. She also talked about how it worked against the false humility that comes up against us. I love how services come together like that. The work described in entering the Tabernacle is tedious, but worth all. I like the verse that Pastor Andria dwelt on:

Leviticus 22:29
"When you sacrifice a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord, you shall sacrifice it so that you may be accepted."

--> God sees our hearts. We can't be surface Christians because that's not being a Christian at all! It's an all or nothing faith. It's hard work, but we were made for it. Like Pastor Andria said, this verse is in the middle of directions and regulations regarding the Tabernacle. They couldn't pretend. We can't pretend. No good works will come out of that, they'll be empty. We would be empty.

Psalm 100:3-5
"Know that the Lord Himself is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving
And His courts with praise.
Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
For the Lord is good;
His lovingkindness is everlasting
And His faithfulness to all generations."

--> I liked the way this was brought up too. We can only get closer to God by following directions, by being obedient. We get closer through thanksgiving and then further with praise. There is a defined path to God. There's a book that was written to help us pattern our life to move towards Him. Why would we have the Bible if not to work towards understanding truth?

     At the end of the service we listened to Jason Upton's 'Come Up Here' song. It was so powerful. There was a line in it that cemented the service in my head. It's so silly, but it was the idea of wanting to fly like an eagle through the doorway in the sky. I just started thinking about it during the song and the songs that played afterwards, praying about it really. The thing is, there is no longer a past to go back to. The only thing I think of when thinking about turning away from God (Ew... I don't even like writing that) is that it would be death. It would be. Here's the thing about eagles, about birds really, if they stopped flying mid-air they would fall and they would die. We can't land safely after deciding to live for God. We're in the air and there's no good way down from that, only death. If we're walking along thinking why believe and stand for God, we're already losing the desire to live for Him. At that point, we're falling towards the ground. The wings would be useless, because flying is only for those after God. It's a use them or lose them type of situation, which is true of many gifts we are given by God. We have to make the choice to live for Him daily to keep a level flight, but we were meant for more. We're supposed to test the boundaries we put on our walks, our flights. We're supposed to want to go up. Through the doorways in the sky. To new and ever-increasing levels of faith. We're supposed to work towards God. Not with our timing, but His.

     The other thing that it made me think about was the natural inclination of things. Pastor Andria mentioned Myles Munroe's (I think that's how it's spelled) thoughts about how a fish swimming is glorifying God by doing what it's supposed to do joyfully. The obedience necessary to do this in our own lives was a good hit. I liked it. Anyways, all that to say flying is natural to eagles. Glorifying God is natural to us. Sure, sin came in and screwed things up. We broke away in the Garden, but we've been redeemed. The whole Bible is about Jesus laying down His life so that we could have the OPTION of living for God. Scary big things. There's no choice left in it for me. I will live for Him. Again with the tangents. We were created by God for God. Our whole lives are about deciding to exalt Him. It's not as scary to give Him everything when we recognize that we're doing what we were created to do. Yes, the world has a different idea about what life is about, really about how much they can take from the time they have on the Earth, but that's not the real way to go. We were all meant for more. The truth is coming. I know this. We need to stand for it in the meantime. We are the light and salt. We need to represent Christ (funny voice... you better say that in a funny voice... right now... out loud... hint: LOUD)!

Isaiah 40:31
"Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary."

--> His timing. His strength. His glory. He's worth it.

Anyways, off to get ready for my day at No Frills :P

Coming Soon (at like 8pm): Mr. Si shout out!