There are lots of ways to honor God. Some simple, some hard, but He is worthy. It's not up to me to decide whether or not I'm going to honor Him, it's just my job to do it! We honor Him through our words, our actions, and our thoughts. The way we live our lives can bring so much honor to Him. I am realizing more and more that one of the greatest ways I honor God is by being a faithful steward with what He's given me to do. What do you have in your hand? What are you doing with it? God has given us each unique talents and gifts. He made us a certain way on purpose. My husband put it so well the other night. He said, "isn't it interesting that the thing God put in you to do and gave you a gifting and a passion for is often times the thing that can bring so much frustration in your life?" The frustration comes when we are not doing what He's given us to do! When we let that thing just stay cooped up inside of us, and we don't let it out, it's easy to get frustrated! Life is busy. It is for everyone. But we have a choice of what we're going to do with our lives. We can choose to let the days, weeks, and months go by and before we know it, we can look up and realize we've been sitting on our gift. Or we can choose to carve out time. Drop the things that are keeping us busy that have no kingdom value. Get rid of the life-suckers and the time-wasters and just get on with it! Honor God with the gift that He first gave to you. Don't bury that thing in the ground. When He comes back He doesn't want to wait while you go dig up that old thing. Limp and lifeless, suffocating in the ground with no water, no food, no time or energy invested in it. He wants to see the fruit that your gift has produced. He wants to see your growing, sprouting gift from a mile off! Just bursting with fruit and life. Are you honoring God today? Look in your hand. Search deep inside your heart. What has He given you to do? What has He asked you to do? Make something great out of whatever God has given you. Honor brings favor, so don't be surprised when your gift begins to increase the more you do with it. Opportunities and increase are waiting on the other side of your obedience and honor to Him!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Honor
Honor is an interesting word. What does it mean to honor someone? To honor God? To honor your parents? your boss? your spouse? Every relationship we have probably contains some level of honor. Often times they contain very little honor. It is a difficult thing to honor someone who has hurt us or who has betrayed our trust. As I sit and think about honor and what that truly means, I go back to my childhood. I learned at an early age the verse, "Honor your father and mother." I don't know that I understood what all that entailed as a child, I just knew it was one of the 10 Commandments and the little Bible Bee-er in me had that one memorized! Now that I'm an adult, I've come to realize that my ability to honor others is greatly affected by how much I am honoring God.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Worship Culture
This weekend kicks off a new era for the praise and worship ministry of Church on the Rock. I am so honored to be a part of what God is doing! As He is stirring my heart with greater passion and purpose I am excited to share some of the things He is teaching me about worship in this blog!
A little background: about 3 months ago I was seeking the Lord pretty heavily on a few certain things. Instead of finding the answers I was looking for, He downloaded some fresh revelation straight to my heart...and worship culture came alive inside of me.
What is culture? Is it the society around you? The environment that has been created and established in your upbringing? Is it the thing that influences and makes up your thoughts and belief system? By definition, culture is many things. Here are a few of the definitions I found:
Culture (noun)
the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent
that which is excellent in the arts
development or improvement of the mind by education or training.
the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group (ex: the youth culture; the drug culture.)
Anthropology. the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another.
Wow! These definitions say so much about one small word. One small idea. Culture. A regard and concern for excellence. Excellence in the arts. Developing and improving through education and training. The beliefs and behaviors of a like-minded group of people. How you live your life and how you model that for the next generation. A few weeks ago, God dropped the phrase "Worship Culture" into my spirit. This led to my research and study of these words, so let's break this culture thing down, but with a reflection on worship.
Worship culture:
- Can we worship God without excellence? Can we play our instruments and sing our songs to Him without first giving a sacrifice and making a commitment to total and complete excellence? I think people can get on a stage and sing songs and raise their hands and pray to God, but without the commitment to excellence, I dare say, it is only a show. Just going through the motions. It doesn't take a sacrifice to remain mediocre. It's actually quite easy. Just rely on yourself and your own small amount of talent, and you'll hit the mark of average every time. Is our God not worth more than that? I want to be a citizen of a worship culture that is devoted to first, seeking a God who is unlike any other. The King of kings and the Lord of lords. The uncreated, sovereign being that is the only thing worthy of my life and my devotion. A citizen of a society committed to learning, growing, and changing. If I was created in the likeness of the Most High, somewhere inside of me is a greatness that's sole purpose is to see Him made famous. I want to do all that I can to cultivate that gift in me for His glory. This comes through practice, hard work, and again I'll use the word commitment. A worship culture is not an elite group of people just passionate about seeing God exalted, but they are hungry for more. Hungry to give, hungry to pour into others. Their hunger must be to share all they know and have learned and all that they are still clueless about with a generation that follows them. This transfer of information is not about the culture, but about Him. It's about teaching a new member of the society what it means to worship. This is simply done through modeling a life in love with Jesus. And not just a Sunday morning church life, but an everyday life in pursuit of the Most High.
Chew on this. Let some of these words jump off the screen and penetrate your heart. Consider your part to play and join me for the incredible journey that lies ahead.
A little background: about 3 months ago I was seeking the Lord pretty heavily on a few certain things. Instead of finding the answers I was looking for, He downloaded some fresh revelation straight to my heart...and worship culture came alive inside of me.
What is culture? Is it the society around you? The environment that has been created and established in your upbringing? Is it the thing that influences and makes up your thoughts and belief system? By definition, culture is many things. Here are a few of the definitions I found:
Culture (noun)
the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent
that which is excellent in the arts
development or improvement of the mind by education or training.
the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group (ex: the youth culture; the drug culture.)
Anthropology. the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another.
Wow! These definitions say so much about one small word. One small idea. Culture. A regard and concern for excellence. Excellence in the arts. Developing and improving through education and training. The beliefs and behaviors of a like-minded group of people. How you live your life and how you model that for the next generation. A few weeks ago, God dropped the phrase "Worship Culture" into my spirit. This led to my research and study of these words, so let's break this culture thing down, but with a reflection on worship.
Worship culture:
- Can we worship God without excellence? Can we play our instruments and sing our songs to Him without first giving a sacrifice and making a commitment to total and complete excellence? I think people can get on a stage and sing songs and raise their hands and pray to God, but without the commitment to excellence, I dare say, it is only a show. Just going through the motions. It doesn't take a sacrifice to remain mediocre. It's actually quite easy. Just rely on yourself and your own small amount of talent, and you'll hit the mark of average every time. Is our God not worth more than that? I want to be a citizen of a worship culture that is devoted to first, seeking a God who is unlike any other. The King of kings and the Lord of lords. The uncreated, sovereign being that is the only thing worthy of my life and my devotion. A citizen of a society committed to learning, growing, and changing. If I was created in the likeness of the Most High, somewhere inside of me is a greatness that's sole purpose is to see Him made famous. I want to do all that I can to cultivate that gift in me for His glory. This comes through practice, hard work, and again I'll use the word commitment. A worship culture is not an elite group of people just passionate about seeing God exalted, but they are hungry for more. Hungry to give, hungry to pour into others. Their hunger must be to share all they know and have learned and all that they are still clueless about with a generation that follows them. This transfer of information is not about the culture, but about Him. It's about teaching a new member of the society what it means to worship. This is simply done through modeling a life in love with Jesus. And not just a Sunday morning church life, but an everyday life in pursuit of the Most High.
Chew on this. Let some of these words jump off the screen and penetrate your heart. Consider your part to play and join me for the incredible journey that lies ahead.
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