Those of you who have been on the journey with us from the beginning remember some ground rules that were laid down. Since these blogs come from my "thought castle", I get to make the rules. Not many, but one of them was that I could go down a "side street" occasionally to say something that is not on the same road we've been traveling down. Our Journey through February and March has been all the different ways God shows us how He loves us.
Our "side street" is akin to our main road of travel, but flipped around. Instead of talking about how He loves us, I want to share a few thoughts on how we can show Him how much we love Him. Just as we have seen many different ways He shows us His love, we have a lot of different ways we are able to show Him we love Him.
I want to talk about three that we will actually experience this weekend at our church First of all, I want to mention forgiveness. I will have the opportunity to preach at our Sunday morning and that will be my topic. There is no better way to show our love for Him, than to mirror Him. The more we attempt to think and act like Him the more we show our love for Him. "Let this mind be in you that is in Christ Jesus" and "be ye imitators of Christ Jesus". There is no better way to think and act like Jesus than forgive. It is the very heart beat of Jesus and the central tof the Gospel. The longer we take to forgive, the more difficult it is to forgive, Jesus never hesitated to forgive and He is most pleased when He sees that same immediate response to a wrong. Don't you think when you forgive as a natural instinct, that He is honored and feels loved. Simple as this, you forgive others you are loving Him.
Secondly, I want to talk about worship. I know I put so little into my preparation for worship. Actually, if my life is not lived out of a gratitude for the privilege of serving Him, then it is going to be hard to turn on my "worship switch" and have this divine encounter. Worship time on Sunday simply is most meaningful to Him and us when it comes from the overflow of the week. If I have truly served Him during the week, then I will have experienced His partnership and power in moving someone closer to heaven. God looks to and fro to find someone who is willing to put aside self interests and put the Kingdom first and the needs of others ahead of their own. When He finds that person, He uses them. When you bring to church on Sunday the experiences of a week of service, you find it much easier to worship. Worship is not raising your hands and closing your eyes. It is opening your heart and allowing the thankfulness to flow out. Thankfulness for His using you, for His empowering and partnering with you. You serve Him well in the week, you will worship Him well on Sunday. Try it next week. You might even get an occasional "thank you" from God and that will certainly cause you to worship.
Lastly, I want us to always keep in mind that our "choices" are a tremendous indication of how much we love God. Sunday night we are having our first Journeys Youth Rally and the topic is "choices". We are constantly making choices. Life is a series of choices! It is the small daily choices that really set the course we travel down. If we don't constantly "keep our focus on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith", we will in small measures drift off course and find ourselves way off course over the long haul. That's why every small decision that has Kingdom purpose in it will keep us on track and we then will have a life that honors Him. When you honor Him you love Him.
A journey in forgiveness, in service and making choices that honor Him will put you on a collision course the Divine. Heaven will touch earth and worship will be effortless. JOIN THE JOURNEY!
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