The Otherness of God

God is not like anyone or anything else in the universe. He is matchless, unique, and nothing or no one even comes close. It can become easy for us to lose sight of this today. Even in our churches we do roughly the same thing every week (give or take a few songs). We can easily lose sight of Who we are here for. We can take an extraordinary God and manage to make Him sound completely ordinary! That must be really frustrating for God! God defends His awesomeness throughout the scripture. He will "not be diluted, dumbed down or patronized. He rebukes worshippers in Psalm 50: 'You thought I was altogether like you.' But He is not like one of us. He is utterly incomparable-beyond the furthest horizon of our imaginations."

Sometimes our view of God vs the reality of God can be like a goldfish in a bowl vs the creatures of the deep. A goldfish can swim around and say hi to Scuba Steve before it whacks its face on the side of the bowl (again). A wild fish in the deep is untamed, mesmerizing in beauty. Sometimes we portray God as domesticated, but He is far from that! We will never be able to fully declare how awesome our God is, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try!

When it comes down to it, God knows that He is awesome. He doesn't need you or me to tell Him. What do we have to offer God anyway? "We cannot even offer a simple song of praise without using the breath God first gave to us." Talk about dependence. God does not depend on us, we are totally dependent on God. That being said, "one of the biggest mistakes a person can make in life is to think that God owes him or her something. It destroys faith and insults the sovereignty of God." God doesn't owe us anything, we owe Him everything. But the beauty of our relationship with God is that even though He doesn't need our worship, He loves it! He loves it so much that He paid the ultimate price for it, He gave up His Son's life so that we could be in His presence to worship Him! Is it arrogant for God to love worship? J.I. Packer puts it this way: "If it is right for man to have the glory of God as his goal, can it be wrong for God to have the same goal? If man can have no higher purpose than God's glory, how can God? The reason it cannot be right for man to live for himself, as if he were God, is because he is not God. However, it cannot be wrong for God to seek His own glory, simply because He is God." Did you catch that? Basically we have the same goal God does, to give God glory! It isn't arrogant for the greatest ever to be acknowledged as the greatest ever. He isn't like a boxer who will eventually get old and have someone else take His place. No, "He will never give up His title or yield His supremacy. He is untouchable, invincible and eternally glorious."

We need to step up our reverence for God. It needs to find its way into the tiniest details of our lives. How are you showing reverence for God in your life? How can you show more? He deserves it. He expects it.

Enjoy the Journey

Facedown

It seems like I've been having many conversations about postures in worship lately. What is appropriate and what isn't? I think it can be summed up pretty simply by just saying that "when it comes to expressing our worship, what we do on the outside is a key reflection of what is taking place on the inside." I don't think that there are a set of "moves" that we need to learn to worship God. We should react in the way that we feel lead to react. If that means raising your hands or falling facedown, follow the Spirit's lead. We do see many more people raise their hands then fall facedown don't we? Maybe it is just because of the way we set up the rooms we "worship" in, but maybe it is because we really don't comprehend that we are coming into the presence of God. Throughout scripture when people come into the presence of God, they fall on their face! Ezekiel, Daniel, Peter, James, John, the elders in Revelation, this list goes on and on. Why the reaction? Because they understand one thing, "when it comes to worship, the throne sets the tone." When you fully grasp that you are in the presence of the Almighty God of the universe, there is only one response.

Falling facedown isn't just something that people who love God do. When the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines, they put it in the temple of their false god Dagon. The next morning when they came in, the statue of Dagon was lying facedown before the Ark! They didn't get the message, so they put the statue back in it's place. The next morning they came in and it was facedown before the Ark again, but this time it had it's head and hands broken off! Seriously, if you find that your god is bowed down to God, you might want to rethink who you worship!

The presence of God is both exciting and terrifying. In Leviticus the glory of the Lord appeared and fire came out from His presence. The people responded with shouts of joy and they fell facedown! Again I can't help but notice that we have the shouting down but we really don't spend a lot of tine facedown these days. Sometimes it can be pretty wise to humble yourself this way before God. The truth of the matter is that one day everyone will find themselves facedown before God. When Christ returns no one will have a choice! We should choose to lie down before it becomes impossible to stand up! On that day everyone will confess that Jesus is Lord and it will be impossible to stand before Him.

Enjoy the Journey