1 Peter 2:9-10
9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
This scripture is admonishing us to praise the One who has called us out of darkness. The One who came to this earth and put it all on the line to save our broken lives from emptiness and loss. The One who loves us through anything we face, whether it was our fault or not. The One that goes by the name of Jesus Christ, our Messiah.
The interesting thing about this scripture is that it does not say to praise Him because you had a nice day and no one interrupted your perfect little world. It doesn't say to praise Him because your car started today. It doesn't say that we should praise Him because our checking accounts are always in the black and there's ample money to go on vacation. It doesn't say to praise Him because those around us always do and say the right things. It doesn't tell us to praise Him for anything that may or may not have happened today, a month ago, or in our lifetime. We are to praise our loving God for what He accomplished on the cross over 2000 years ago! We praise Him because He showed us His great mercy and He called us His own! WOW!
Did you catch that? He called us His own! Just imagine, for a moment, that you are back in Jr. High, and the geekiest, most nerdy kid walks into the lunch room and is trying to find a place to sit. You notice that everyone is spreading out to make sure there is no room for him to sit with them. No one wants to claim him. Why would they not want to be around him? Well, mostly, they are worried that he will hurt their reputations. They are worried that this nerdy dork of a guy will make social mistakes that will embarrass them.
They want nothing to do with this defective human. Then all of a sudden you stand up and say, "Hey Eugene!" (Eugene is the name of our fake nerd.) "I have been saving you a seat. Come sit by me." You claim him, when no one else would. Isn't this a touching story? Well it IS a true story, but the sad part is that WE are Eugene and the world is our lunch room. We try to make ourselves fit in so many social circles, but the truth is, none of them will truly accept us for who we are. The truth is that we are all broken and we will all embarrass ourselves and those closest to us with what we say and do. But here is the merciful and loving part. There is one being who is sitting in this lunch room and calling out our name. There is one being who knows every bad decision that we have made and that we will make and still chooses to claim us anyway. That being is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
This is the reason we worship Him. This is the underlying cause for our hearts and minds to daily submit and give God all the worship and honor He deserves.
The Many Ways We Worship
1. What we do when no one else is watching
2. Sharing testimonies about God's fingerprints in our lives
3. Submitting our decisions to God
4. Allowing God to speak into our lives through His word, His people, and circumstances
5. Being consistent in our walk with Him
6. Following His directions
7. Keeping a tight reign on our tongue
8. Not allowing our minds to wander
9. Serving others
10. Doing a good job at whatever you put your hand to
Oh yeah, I almost forgot--we can sing His praises also :)
So whatever you are facing today, no matter how broken and unusable you feel, don't let it affect the praising of your God. Jesus loves you right where you are at! He loves you for who are! He also knows that if you will just focus on praising Him, He can begin to mend your brokenness. He not only has claimed you as His own, but He also has a great plan for you!
1 comment:
Hey Brother,
The thing I love most about your blog (and the comments from others) is the honesty and down to the bone rawness!!! It is very apparent that those who view and comment are the ones looking (or maybe just searching) for the word without all the “yea that makes me feel better about myself” stuff, or a single scripture without the scripture before or after the one they’ve chosen. There was a time, I myself, would weed through the scriptures picking out the ones I liked (made me feel good about myself) and left behind the ones I didn’t care to hear or want to know about. My reasoning was, I wanted to remain living in Sin, but if I didn’t know it was a Sin I could play ignorant to that fact. I wasn’t fooling myself, I am pretty sure I wasn’t fooling those around me and I will go out on a limb here and guarantee I was fooling God. The more I read the Word of the Lord, the more I realize the Bible is full of people making mistakes. Some intentionally, some mistakenly but even more, repeatedly. How great would it be to see the end result of whatever it is you did before you actually did it? The Word of God gives us that insight, it’s not magic or wishful thinking, the mistakes we make have already been made, we are not the pioneers of error. We’ve seen generation after generation make mistakes, take their eye off of the Lord, think they had a better way, put God on the sidelines, tell God, don’t worry, I’ve got this handled. Only to come back, that’s if you made it back, broken and confused as to what happened!! Just to set the record straight, you are capable of nothing on your own. Continuing to be brutally honest, its funny how we think, when things are going great, we don’t need God, I’ve got it all under control. I don’t need to pray as much, I don’t need anything. (if you are only praying when you need something and not giving thanks when your last prayer has been answered, I will pray for you because your going to need it) So I back off on the prayers a bit. If I don’t pray as much then I most certainly don’t need to read the Word as much either. Guess God must be happy with all the praying, crying, whining, reading, fellowshipping, missioning, tithing and going to Church I did when things were bad. But then I really don’t recall how bad things were casue’ life is so peachy now. We set our own snare. Give praise to God in all thing. In ever case the Lord restored and forgave those who returned to him. Why go there if we’ve already seen the results? Will you be tested, that’s not for me to say, but if you are and you have given praise to the Lord our God in all things, He will provide you with the armor to see you through your test.
Your True Friend,
Rick
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