I love the visceral nature of the Psalmists worship. Being consumed = seeking and singing, treasuring and trembling, overflowing and fearing, calling and crying, longing and delighting,tasting sweetness, running, meditating, panting!
Read moreDelighting in the Word
Among other things the psalmist links receiving God's word with receiving his love (v41), God's hope (v49), the preservation of his life and his comfort in suffering (v50), God's grace (v58), God' goodness (v65), the knowledge of God (lots of verses). God's compassion, insight, strength, protection, purity and blessing.
Read moreWorship, Prayer and Fasting
worship/prayer/fasting is nevertheless an excellent response to God speaking to us through the scriptures. Together they constitute an good biblical picture of seeking God and desiring God. It is easy to think that desiring God means going to a good Bible study. I think it better to say that having been to a good Bible study, a biblical test for whether our desire for God has been whetted is whether we want to pursue him with worship/prayer/fasting as a result.
Read moreRepentance and Praise = Sanity
A great quote from Jack Miller (in The Heart of a Servant Leader):
Not only endure in ministry but blossom with thankfulness and praise...I like to think of repentance and praise as allied to each other - both forms of sanity. Repentance is a return to God as my centre. Praise is the lifting up of God in honour as my centre. But to move away from the centre without repentance or praise is to be eccentric, irrational and insane. But what a simple thing it is to humble the heart and return to sanity by repentance and praise.
Worship and Evangelism
We know we are real worshippers of God when we are consistent in our praise of God and witness to Jesus at home and away, in the church and in the world. Where there is a discrepancy between the two, that discrepancy is unbelief. Worship and mission really are inseperable.
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