Saturday, March 24, 2007

Thoughts on God's Sovereignty and Worship

I wanted to share with you part of the Valley of Vision prayer that I read tonight regarding God's sovereignty: "O Lord God, who inhabits eternity, the heavens declare thy glory, the earth thy riches, the universe is thy temple, thy presence fills immensity, yet thou hast of thy pleasure created life, and communicated happiness; thou hast made me what I am, and given me what I have; In thee I live and move and have my being; thy providence has set the bounds of my habitation and wisely administers all my affairs." I also read Psalm 16 and vs. 5-6 reminded me of God's sovereignty as well, " Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. " Isn't it an incredible thought that the sovereign God of the universe, "wisely administers all my affairs"?!
My chapter this week in my Disciplines of a Godly Woman book is dealing with the discipline of worship. I hadn't thought about worship as a discipline I need to have in my life. The author points out that worship isn't something we do only on Sunday mornings during the song time. Worship is something that we do every day in those moments that we are obeying and serving the Lord. We need to worship in spirit and in truth, which means that we need to have a knowledge of this God that we are worshipping. And where does that come from? From being in His Word and letting it daily renew our mind (Rom. 12:1-2). Worship must come from the inside out. It's not just an external activity, it's an internal fountain that bubbles forth in praise to God. It is simply not enough to stand there on Sunday mornings and sing the songs half heartedly while thinking about what the lunch plans are or if your child is being good in the nursery! (yes, I'm guilty of this!) An aspect that the author brings up is unity. Worship can evoke unity in the Body. She used a quote from A.W. Tozer that I wanted to share with you: "Has is ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to one standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers meet together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become 'unity' conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship."

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