Monday: A Reason to Worship
Throughout the Bible, God’s people are urged to worship God, but we are also repeatedly offered reasons for doing so. We are told to worship Him because of who He is, what He has done, and because of His many attributes. Among these are His goodness, justice, and mercy. When we are reminded of what God is like, what He has done for us (especially in the cross of Christ), and what He promises to do, none of us should ever be without reason to worship and praise God.
Read Deuteronomy 10:17-22, Psalm 101:1, Psalm 146:5-10, Isaiah 5:16, Isaiah 61:11. What are the motivations for worship and praising God given in these verses?
Abraham
Such reasons for worship were not new to God’s people. Some of the most enthusiastic times of worship of the newly-freed Israelites happened in response to the obvious intervention of God on their behalf. For example, after being brought out of Egypt and crossing the Red Sea, Moses and Miriam led the people in singing praise to God for what they had just seen and been rescued from (see Exodus 15).
God’s justice and mercy, as revealed in such events, were not to be forgotten. As the people kept these stories alive by retelling them regularly, the acts and justice of God continued to be an inspiration for their worship years later and in following generations. One example of this re-telling and worship is recorded in Deuteronomy 10:17-22.
God’s justice is, first, simply part of who He is, a core component of His essential character. “It is unthinkable that God would do wrong, that the Almighty would pervert justice” (Job 34:12, NIV). God is just and is concerned with justice—and that is a reason to worship and praise Him.
Second, God’s justice is seen in His just and righteous acts on behalf of His people and on behalf of all who are poor and oppressed. His justice is never merely a description of His character. Rather, the Bible portrays a God who “heard the cry of the needy” (Job 34:28, NIV) and is active and anxious to right the wrongs that are so obvious in our world. Ultimately, this will be fully realized in God’s final judgment and His re-creation of the world.
| If ancient Israel had reason to praise the Lord, how much more so do we, after the Cross, have reasons to praise Him? |
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The lesson authors reminded us of the importance of storytelling as part of worship. Of course in Bible times the written word was fairly scarce and few people could read. Storytelling was the way that most communities kept alive their history, and consequently their belief. Children were involved at an early age and were encouraged to learn and retell the stories. Modern Jews have kept this tradition alive and if ever you have a chance to witness a Jewish family opening Sabbath you will see the children taking a prominent part in telling the stories of the Exodus.
In an age where storytelling has largely disappeared to be replaced by video, we have lost the immersive experience of being involved in the story. Just listening and looking is not the same as learning and taking part.
The Children of Israel were encouraged to do this right from the time of the Exodus:
Storytelling is extremely powerful. A single story can change how society and humanity will think, believe and behave.
Do you wonder why Jesus constantly was telling stories to teach? ..But also does the enemy.
(Just a couple of example of the power of a story creating a paradigm shift in society: the book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” regarding slavery in the US, to the point when President Abraham Lincoln met the author -Harrier Beecher- said to her: “And this is the little woman who started the civil war”. The book and TV show “Will and Grace” changed society’s mind seeing homosexuality as an abhorrent, repugnant, an abomination, and evil, to be accepted, tolerated, and even encouraged ... all within less than 20 years)
From the beginning, as time passed, and new ways to tell stories came, so the way to storytelling.
Before reading by the average person, “word-of-mouth” was the “only” medium for storytelling.
And then the written came. Thanks to invention of the press, books became “the medium” for storytelling.
As more technology came in place, the more available to tell story came.
We have now -in addition to books- websites, audio recording, movies, social networks, TV shows, YouTube, News Network (...and mentioning about News Networks; I’m speechless when most News Networks nowadays are telling fabricated stories presented as news -they are known as Fake News- yet, they are shaping in many sectors of society, not only their thinking, but their behavior, right “immediately” -meaning, in a very, very short time).
If you Google “Seventh-day Adventist” or “E.G. White” Are you proud of what comes out?
We -SDAs- are not using the power of the Internet to tell the Adventist message story to the world, yet, former SDAs are telling their stories to “destroy” SDA, and same with other denominations against us. ...And they keep updating their platforms. That’s why they rank when you search “Seventh-day Adventist / E G White”.
Even much more, they are using the Internet to tell their message/doctrines stories, when we (SDA) still in our old mindset of the 60s, 70s, 80’s approach to tell the Great Controversy story to the world, as well as our rest of our message story, instead of using the power of Digital Evangelism.
Most SDA local Church’s websites, not only are old and ugly, but never get updated with storytelling like personal testimonies, and the power of our SDA message with blogging. Our websites don’t have a chance to rank at all.
But thanks to God, individual SDAs here and there (self-supporting ministries) finally are beginning to do something about it when the church as corporate, as well as local churches with very few exceptions, do absolutely nothing to aggressively tell our story to the world -in a storytelling format- using the power of the Internet.
For a couple of example of individual SDA Digital Evangelists using a storytelling format (meaning not only, cold facts, numbers, statistics, Bible verses, but packaged in a storytelling format) please search in YouTube:
“Hope through Prophesy” and “Reverse Autoimmune”
Amen
Thats very true.
May God help His church
A Reason to Worship
1) He is dwelling in me. - Me - sinner, unholy; Holy and just God living in me.
1 Corinthians 3:16
16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
2) He reveals himself to me - 7Surely the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants the prophets. contrast that with the gods of this world.
Daniel 2:11
11 What the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among humans.”
27 Daniel replied, “No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, 28 but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries.
He sets himself apart from other gods.
3) He has the power to recreate - old is not made better rather In Christ I die so that He may live in me.
2 Corinthians 5:17
17Therefore if anyone is inChrist, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!
Every religions of the world wants us to become a better person. Christianity teaches we need to die and be recreated with the new root In Christ so that we may bear fruit worthy of the calling. Fruit bearing is God's business. My job is to stay dead so that Christ may have His reign in my life.
There is infinite reasons for us to worship God. Let us fill this blog by glorifying his name.
There is no other name on this earth worthy of praise, honor and worship. Amen, Amen, Amen.
We do have problems and afflictions to go through in this life, but having faith in a greater Force can be a safe ground to stand up in this crazy world we are living in.
We need to take full responsability for what we do to our social and living environment, and not blame God for the tragedies we cause. God is this perfect Force who is able to fix everything gone wrong, establishing a new order. Without this, it can be difficult to hope for a brighter future at all.
It is now ever more urgent that we come out of Babylon and take our places in His holy Kingdom and be His nation of light-bearers. There is so much going on in this world, people are afraid, confused, and worse, there are those who are complacent and clueless. The world needs the hope and peace that only the gospel can bring.
Do we really sing as the Israelites did?
Most of the time we sing while waiting for the next programme to start.
Congregational singing in most churches has been taken by elder's announcements.
The choristers with their powerful microphones have taken the members voices. people don't sing nowadays.
In the afternoon, if you are not a choir member, a solo artist or singing in a group, you won't get a chance to sing in most churches.
Family singing is mostly done in the morning or evening where they repeat the same songs.
This kind of singing where we praise the Lord for what He has done for us is very rare nowadays.
.... I think something has to be done about singing.
Having a very busy week and my only chance of singing being taken....surely I don't sing.
Do you really sing?
I sing every chance I get. It makes me happy; I sang more when I was younger. We don't have a choir but we are a small church with 50-75 members all older 50 -80 years of age. We try to include all of our members during our praise service which is sometimes cut short for announcements.
Let us praise the God of our salvation! Lord , there is none like you! Praise Him in the morning, praise Him in the evening, praise Him when the sun goes down. His praise shall continuously be on my lips! We only exist because of Jesus! So let us worship and praise Him who is from everlasting to everlasting! Amen.