Worshipping ...

Today, because it's beautiful out ... and I spent time in the Word 1st thing today ... and I got to fellowship with a precious friend ... and then again with another ... and flowers are up ... and trees are budding ... and skies are blue ...

worship comes easily.

It really is the way the Psalmist says ... even the rocks cry out His praises ...

on a day like today.

But Oswald calls us to look more deeply into ourselves than the immediate. And I've found myself right in the midst of this very struggle ...

"Lord, how are you going to do this?" And Oswald is right ... there's no place for worship in the midst of that statement.

Worship is about allowing my heart to see Christ in the fullness of who He is ... and questions, doubts and denial fly in the face of that.

"Lord, help my unbelieving heart to seek only after You - create in me a heart that is ready to worship You."


HOLINESS V. HARDNESS Towards GOD
"And He . . . wondered that there was no intercessor." Isaiah 59:16
The reason many of us leave off praying and become hard towards God is because we have only a sentimental interest in prayer. It sounds right to say that we pray; we read books on prayer which tell us that prayer is beneficial, that our minds are quieted and our souls uplifted when we pray; but Isaiah implies that God is amazed at such thoughts of prayer.
Worship and intercession must go together, the one is impossible without the other. Intercession means that we rouse ourselves up to get the mind of Christ about the one for whom we pray. Too often instead of worshipping God, we construct statements as to how prayer works. Are we worshipping or are we in dispute with God - "I don't see how You are going to do it." This is a sure sign that we are not worshipping. When we lose sight of God we become hard and dogmatic. We hurl our own petitions at God's throne and dictate to Him as to what we wish Him to do. We do not worship God, nor do we seek to form the mind of Christ. If we are hard towards God, we will become hard towards other people.
Are we so worshipping God that we rouse ourselves up to lay hold on Him so that we may be brought into contact with His mind about the ones for whom we pray? Are we living in a holy relationship to God, or are we hard and dogmatic?
"But there is no one interceding properly" - then be that one yourself, be the one who worships God and who lives in holy relationship to Him. Get into the real work of intercession, and remember it is a work, a work that taxes every power; but a work which has no snare. Preaching the gospel has a snare; intercessory prayer has none.