Worship All Day...

Abandon yourself to worship – be lost in worship! During those set aside times.
But what about ALL the day?
Let’s look at the whole picture:
*The Son of God took on the appearance of man and humbled Himself coming to earth.
*His purpose for coming was to die on the cross to save us from sin.
*He said if we wanted to follow Him we must deny ourselves and take up our cross daily and follow Him.
*Many times the Lord said that He was nothing apart from His Father and could do or say nothing with Him. This demonstrated for us Christ’s life of utter dependence on His Father, just as we must do to follow Him.
*We were also told by Christ that if we loved Him we would obey His commandments.
*Christ said all the commandments boil down to loving God and loving others.
* We are told by Paul that we were crucified with Christ and that we are dead to sin and since we were also resurrected with Him, that He is living His life in us.
*We are also told by Paul that the way to worship now is through sacrificing our very own selves. (Romans 12:1-2)

Obeying God means loving Him and trusting Him enough to sacrifice our total self to Him through self-denial (dependence upon Him). The Christian life is extremely simple. You do not have to get caught up in all sort of big, long, high falluting mumbo-jumbo in order to understand what to do.

The simple message is Trust and Obey. We obey by denying our self and becoming a living sacrifice, dedicated and consecrated totally dependent on Him. This is no magic formula; just an incredibly special, inscrutable, miraculous, Supernatural design, beyond our comprehension in which we must carefully include each piece.

Even though sacrifice goes against our natural line of reasoning and therefore does not make sense to us, we are capable of living a sacrificed life. But that is only true if we accept each piece He has provided, all the way from the forgiveness to grace where His Spirit live in and through us.

Don’t take this simplicity wrong. Just because the concept of trusting and obeying through a life of dependence is simple, does not mean living it out is easy! You must believe in a person before you will do what that Person says. This is also true in our relationship with God, but with Him it is even more important because our ability to experience the eternal life of Christ on a daily basis hangs in the balance based on our faith in His faithfulness.

We tend to think that we can just have a mental belief in God and the rest of our life will be a breeze. Unfortunately that does not happen. In fact, we might even have our whole mind in agreement with what we know about God and His promises, but it will all be for nothing if we do not follow II Cor. 3:18” But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

Wherever your focus is, determines what you will become. Whatever has your attention, has you. What has your attention?...housework, kids, spouse, church activities, sports,
exercise, etc.?

This verse in Corinthians means that we have the opportunity to be transformed into the exact likeness of Christ—if we will only take advantage of seeing His reflection in the mirror of His Word and through His Spirit, revealing Him to our hearts. In order for this to happen we must spend time gazing at Him. Keeping our concentration on His is only possible if we block out the other things we could be looking at. We must make sure we are guarding our eyes, mind, and heart, and gazing spiritually at all times.

The Lord is seeing us and revealing parts of ourselves with which we need to deal. We all have areas in our lives which could be improved upon and none of us is an exception. The cleansing process should be welcomed as a special gift from God. Let all the things of eath take a back seat in your life and grow dim. Do not let anything obscure your vision of Him. Things will come and go and let them. Focusing on the Lord is top priority.

What are you listening to? Remember in the O. T. when God came and spoke to Elijah after his battle with Ahab and the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. A strong wind came, then an earthquake, next fire, and that a still small voice. (I Kings 19) God was, and still is, speaking in the “still, small voice.”

An important factor we must consider is that we are God’s children and, as such, need to be trained. Children do not naturally listen to the voice of their parents only. They might listen to their parents, but they also listen to everyone else around them. If not trained properly, children tend to tune in to the voice which is saying what they want to hear. We must place the necessary restrictions on ourselves and expend the required effort in order to train our ears to hear God speak. Listening to God will not come automatically, just because, now we want to hear. We must train ourselves!

We must remove distractions in order to hear the Lord speak. It is vitally important that we train ourselves to always be listening to God’s voice so that we can hear Him in spite of what is taking place around us. Otherwise, we cannot possibly hear His still small voice if we are not familiar with it and expecting, even anticipating, its coming.

Athletes are very disciplined to help them develop in every way as they stay focused on their goal. This discipline is only possible if the athlete submits to it and cooperates by denying themselves the things they might naturally prefer. Athletes are willing sacrifice because they know a reward at the end is possible.

An athlete is willing to devote his entire life, denying their wants, all for a possible reward. If the world will do this for a simple sporting match with a perishable wreath, what is wrong with us that we refuse to sacrifice for a sure prize at the end? Paul said “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing.” II Tim. 4:7-8 This is only one of over a dozen verses referring to the reward waiting for each of us in heaven.

Focusing on and listening to the Lord are preparatory steps leading up to the actual starting line of the spiritual race. This is where worship gets practical in day to day living as we choose moment by moment to do what God wants us to do. If we do not learn to focus and listen first, we will have no idea what He would have us do or where He wants us to go.

Don’t get discouraged!! A life of sacrifice (dependence) sound horrible, as though all we consider fun will be taken away from us. These are lies sent by the enemy to discourage us and cause us to turn away. What we really find, once we are on the way, is that life has a brand new definition. It is incredibly new and exciting each day.

Something else takes place in our hearts as we surrender our life and desires; our perspective changes. We are told in Psa 37:4, “Delight thyself also in the Lord:
(OUR part), and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” (His part) This is not an unlimited account in heaven to ask for anything we want and we can expect to receive it. How selfish and wrong that thinking is. If we really think about it, we would realize how prideful that sounds to God, elevating us to His level of knowing what is best. Instead, what the Psalmist is really communicating is that God longs to place within us HIS desires, but we must first be willing to lay aside our own selfish ones. Then, we will be ready and willing to receive what He wants to give us. After that, the things which were so terribly important to us before, will not matter anymore.

The life of worship is simple, just not always easy or comfortable when following God’s directives. If we sacrifice ourselves to Him, depending on Him entirely, we can rest in His power by faith. It is amazing to find out that we are not responsible for making sure everything gets done. That is God’s job and He does it through the Holy Spirit in us. Then His grace in us will provide the resources of desire and power to accomplish the task.

One of the aspects of worship is our communication with the heavenly Father. Now, our way of communicating with Him is called prayer. Prayer has many different focuses or purposes: daily preparation prayer, intercessory prayer, spiritual warfare prayer, prayer targets and on-going, non stop, all-day-long prayer. Many make these far more complicated than they need to be Just think of prayer as talking with God.

Every day should begin with an initial daily preparation prayer. In this you confess your root sin of pride and make sure your heart and hands are clean before the Lord. Always remember to enter His presence with praise and thanksgiving.

Intercessory prayer is a special commitment you make, when prompted by the Lord, to “stand in the gap” spiritually for someone else. This takes time and energy, so you want to be careful in discerning God’s call versus emotional pulls.

Spiritual warfare prayer is taking specific authority over the enemy in times of need. This is not usually something that goes on all day; perhaps periodically throughout the day, but not constantly. This involves asserting your authority as a believer by rebuking the enemy and commanding him to leave. And might possibly include taking back ground and tearing down strongholds. This is called standing firm in battle.

Prayer targets are what we use when a specific difficulty in life (which we are working to overcome) is encountered. Usually these are bad habits or wrong thoughts that have become strongholds. We target a particular person who needs prayer, along with a specific need they have, and each time we are tempted by this bad habit or to think a wrong thought, we pray for a specific person and their special need. This tactic damages Satan’s kingdom every time he tempts us! Therefore, as he finds us diligent, he draws back!...I have heard about this and been taught for years…don’t have Scriptures to support.

Day-long prayer: Since God is our life, our very existence depends on a continual link with Him. Prayer, in the spiritual life, is as vital as breathing to our physical bodies. Do not forget this; you will feel spiritually dead without it!! Remember our illustration of cooking beans…getting the pot boiling in the morning and pushing it on the back burner to simmer
all the day long.

If you were unable to breathe without the help of oxygen, can you imagine yourself choosing to disconnect from the oxygen tank? How long would you last? Jesus is our life!! Shouldn’t we desire to be connected all the time?

Although our desire is to stay connected all the time, that does not mean that our mind is always forming specific words to God and so we can never have a conversation with another person or we will interrupt our communion with the Father. All-day-long prayer is a matter of our spirit staying tuned to God and listening to what His Spirit is saying to us. Do not get bogged down in the specific one, two, threes. The important part is having the pieces functioning in your heart as you go, giving you continual communion with your heavenly Father.

The majority of our time should be spent listening, otherwise, we could miss His messages. We cannot speak and listen at the same time. Remember that God only gave us one mouth and two ears; we should use them accordingly.

We are told in I Thess. 5:17 to pray without ceasing and we are also given a model of how to pray in Matthew 6:9-13. Therefore, we can logically conclude that we are to pray according to the model without ceasing.
1. We must begin with praise and thanksgiving with a genuine heart of gratitude. This very praise is out of humility in knowing God is in control and His plans are what is best for our life regardless of it is obvious to us at the moment or not.
2. “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven”…knowing what is happening in heaven, that it may happen here on earth…must be in touch!! This provides us with the tangible handle necessary for constant dependence on the Lord. This is the avenue for allowing God to live through you, “Father, what is your will in this situation? … How do You want me to make Your kingdom evident through me?” This is dependence and obedience!!
3. Express dependence on Him for everything, even for your daily bread, the very necessities of life. Then, the Father’s forgiveness follows as we forgive others.
4. “And lead us not into temptation.” Expresses our need to be led and that we will follow His direction, trusting Him to be with us even in difficult times, such as temptation. As we follow Him, we can ask for deliverance from all evil. It is important to note that His protection in trials and temptations and rescuing us from evil hinges on us living a life of forgiveness with a grateful heart, which is only possible as we depend on Him moment by Moment. Then, we can remain free from the power of temptation and evil. As we walk this out, we will see God’s kingdom, glory and power evident in our life.