Words on Worship

Worship is loving God. And,we express our love for God in a multitude of ways.  We honor Him by serving, loving and praising Him in all things.  But, we also worship Him by loving and serving others.  And one of the best ways to serve others, is by simply listening to them.  Everyone wants three things: to be heard, to be respected, and to be understood. It's amazing how much more others respect us, when we simply spend a few moments listening to them.  David Augsburger once said, "Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are...

We live in a noisy world.  It's very rare that we are ever in absolute silence.  In fact, some of us even sleep better with a noise maker.  We have grown so accustomed to noise around us, that total silence is eerie and uncomfortable.  But have you ever considered that the word "listen" contains the same letters as the word "silent"?  One of the best ways we can worship Him today is to get alone, turn the noise off, and rest in the silence.  Psalm 46:10 puts it this way: "Be still, and know that I am God."  It is in...

Thomas Dubay once said, "The humble listen to their brothers and sisters because they assume they have something to learn. They are open to correction, and they become wiser through it.” And you've probably heard it said before, that we have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we speak.  The Bible says something similar when James reminds us, “Be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to wrath." (James 1:19) So one way we can improve our lifestyle of worship is to talk less, and listen more.  My college professor reminded me once...

You know, there is quite a difference between hearing someone and really listening to them.  But aren't you thankful that the God we worship doesn't just hear us…He is actually listening!  And, He doesn't just reply to our prayers, but rather He answers our prayers in exactly the way we need because He knows and understands our hearts.  Psalm 34:17 says “ The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles." My friend Mark Batterson says: "The greatest tragedy in life is the prayers that go unanswered because they go unasked."  The Lord knows...

There is much we can learn by hearing instruction.  But that learning process is even more effective when those instructions come to life by way of pictures or video or demonstration.  We are a visual people, and for many of us, we are able to grasp a concept more quickly when we see an example of it before us.  Jesus used word pictures and visuals all the time in His teaching.  One instance, in John 4, He says "Open your eyes and look at the fields…the are white for harvest.”  It is a visual reminder to all of us that...