Tuesdays with Morris

A while back, I saw President Carter on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. As I was listening to him talk about his latest book, Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis, I immediately found myself wanting this book. He basically talked about the difference between fundamental religion, fundamental politics, and why the two need to be separated. It sounded like a very interesting topic.

So, Emily purchased this book for me for Christmas. I was so excited to receive this book. I’m not too far into the book (I’ve been too busy reading George Carlin’s book, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops), but so far I’m definitely enjoying it.

There’s a quote I’d like to share with you. President Carter asked a pastor that he was on a pioneer mission with what made him such a gentle and effective Christian witness. The pastor replied with this “Well, our Lord cannot do much with a man who is hard.” He went on to say, “You only need two loves in your life: for God, and for the person in front of you at any particular time.”

Pretty good stuff! If we would just all take that sort of thinking to heart and put it into action…this world would be a much different place.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

While doing some reading the other day, I came across this familiar passage of Scripture. But, I think it really hit me…it sank in pretty deep how far off I am when it comes to having my thoughts and my ways in line with God.

His thoughts are not my thoughts…His ways are not my ways. As hard as I may try to line my thoughts up with His thoughts, I still fall way short. And, as much as I attempt to have my ways fall in with His ways, I continue to miss the mark.

The big thing is that we continually strive to have our thoughts and our ways become more and more like His. We need to be constantly diving into His Word, focusing our hearts on Him, praising and worshipping the only One who is worthy, finding out how to live, breathe, and walk as He desires. It’s all about figuring out how, as Rob Bell puts it, to have our hearts beat as one with our Creator.

My thoughts may not be His thoughts…my ways may not be His ways…But, I’m going to do all I can to become more and more like Him. I guess this is part of what I believe it means to live a life of worship…doing all we can to glorify God by attempting to line our thoughts and ways up with His thoughts and ways.

During the month of January (starting January 8th, with yours truly preaching), we will be working through a teaching series called “Coming Back to the Heart of Worship.” Our worship services will be centered on the concept of the song “The Heart of Worship”, which is that our worship is not about us, “it’s all about You, Jesus.” It should be an interesting and enriching series. I know that my hope and prayer for this preaching series is that we, as a church, as a people of God, would take seriously the call to worship as a lifestyle.

So, during the month of January, I will be logging some of my thoughts on worship and the various aspects of worship on this site. I’ll do my best to reflect on our Sunday morning worship services and track our journey together.

Worship is about glorifying God in all we say, in all we do, at all times…So, how are you glorifying God today???

And now, A Word From Abraham Joshua Heschel:

“What do we and the people of the Bible have in common? The anxieties and joys of living; the sense of wonder and the resistance to it; the awareness of the hiding God and moments of longing to find a way to Him.”

This is my January newsletter article…I’m not extremely happy with it…But, it gets the job done and was in by the deadline. Enjoy!

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is true worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2, TNIV)

During the month of January, we will be focusing on the topic of worship as we meet together on Sunday mornings. It seems like such a natural thing to talk about as we come out of the Advent season and look towards our Lenten journey. We just celebrated the birth of Christ…God coming to us in human form…and the only fitting response is to worship Him!

Worship is a hot topic these days! You can go to the bookstore and find CD’s, videos, books, audio books, and devotionals that all focus on the topic of worship. You can get magazine subscriptions to publications that focus on the concept of worship. You can visit websites that are totally devoted to the issue of worship. The resources on the topic of worship are seemingly endless.

And, it seems like many of these various resources define worship in many different ways. Some of these resources define worship as our weekend gatherings (what we call Sunday morning worship services). Some narrow the definition of worship to personal quiet times with God or the times in our services where we sing together.

Yet, many of these resources do agree on one thing: Worship is all about glorifying God. Worship is God’s people doing what they can to give God all the glory, honor, and praise that He is due.

For me, worship isn’t just weekend church services, praise and worship music, or personal quiet times with God. For me, worship is every moment of every day. Worship is all about offering our lives, every area of our lives, to God. This means our prayers, our praise, our confessions, our finances, our service to others, our occupations, our hobbies, all of our words and deeds…everything!

Worship is the “act of adoring and praising God, that is, ascribing worth to God as the one who deserves homage and service.” Worship is how we express our love and praise to Jesus, who first loved us and gave himself up for us. Worship is about expressing love, devotion, adoration, and praise to God. Worship is a lifestyle of being in love with God and in awe of him at all times. Everything we say or do should be offered to him in worship. Everything…no matter what our occupation, social status, age, race, sex…no matter our circumstance…everything can and should be an act of worship. (paraphrase of Dan Kimball in his book, “Emerging Worship“)

A great way to keep ourselves in an attitude of worship is to continually ask ourselves, “Is what I’m doing glorifying God?” This is a key question we need to use to examine our worship lifestyle. That’s what worship is…a lifestyle! It’s not something we go to or do…It’s something we are! That’s what being a “living sacrifice” is all about…worship!

My prayer for our church this month is that we will become a people that lead lives of worship…that we will glorify God in all our words and deeds…and grow deeper in our love and knowledge of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

And now, A Word From Abraham Joshua Heschel:
“Religious thinking, believing, feeling are among the most deceptive activities of the human spirit. We often assume it is God we believe in, but in reality it may be a symbol of personal interests that we dwell upon. We may assume that we feel drawn to God, but in reality it may be a power within the world that is the object of our adoration. We may assume it is God we care for, but it may be our own ego we are concerned with. To examine our religious existence is, therefore, a task to be performed constantly.”

Last night, I had the distinct pleasure of cooking dinner for our Tuesday evening small group (something). I made a pretty easy meal…penne pasta with the choice of a traditional meat & tomato sauce or a chicken in a white wine cream sauce with spinach, tomato, and garlic; we also had caesar salad, a tasty cheese ball, and chocolate chip/peanut butter cookies.

We sat around our living room eating and enjoying our fellowship together. Basically, that means we were filling our stomachs with some decent food and filling our hearts with great conversation.

As we finished consuming mass quantities of food, we grabbed our Bibles and worked through Romans 10. We had a nice discussion about this wonderful passage of grace, salvation, love, and hope.

Now, as I sit here, enjoying a tasty glass of Charles Shaw (yep, three buck chuck) Chardonnay, I’m realizing that there was something that just felt right & natural about the whole evening. Sitting around, eating together with friends, and talking about our lives with God…it just seemed like what we should be doing.

A Word from Abraham Joshua Heschel:
“The human mind is one-sided. It can never grasp all of reality at once. When we look at things we see either the features which they have in common or the features that distinguish each of them.”