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Saturday, October 02, 2004
Acts 2: 41--47 and Nehemiah 7--10 have striking similarities, if you ask me. The New Testament and the Old Testament forms of worship contain many of the same elements.
Such as an emphasis on the Word. The early church, right after some 3,000 members of the "perverse generation" came into a relationship with Christ, they began to focus on the Word. It would've been interesting to see exactly what that looked like since they didn't have Bibles like we have...in fact, there hadn't been anything written, but I bet they studied the Old Testament with a new set of glasses. The Israelites, who hadn't heard from God in some 12 generations (or 7 depending on how you count generations), remembered enough about the reality that God was speaking to them through the scrolls, stood in reverence for what they were about to hear.
The Word is living. Active. Able to change our lives. God's very breath. Able to equip us for every good work. And sometimes we can neglect reading it because we're sleepy. Or busy. Or whatever. And often, if we are in it, we rip through it and then zip up our Bible covers.
But if you want genuine experience of Head To Heart, a reverence for the Word of God is certainly in order.
Another reality: Fellowship. The Acts 2 church understood that iron will indeed sharpen iron, even if you aren't doing anything "Bible-ish." Sometimes it's good just to be near saints. When they laugh. When they weep. When the ski or play softball or Ultimate Frisbee. Doesn't matter. Mileage with other believers is vital to the spiritual life. Equally as important as time in the Word. Think about that for a second, folks.
The Israelites were weeping when the word was read. It's a natural result to gather your spiritual poverty after hearing the Word...if you're hearing it right. And they got yelled at by their spiritual leaders. No weeping allowed today...there'll be time enough for that later...but now, it's festival time. Eat. Drink. Dance. Laugh. Smile. Hug. No wonder David was glad when he heard that he was going to Jerusalem for the festivals.
If you want it all to go from Head To Heart, you need mileage with other believers, and you need to make that a high-level priority.
A third reality: Confession. Admitting to God that He is God and I am not. Not necessarily a grocery list of sin, but rather a comparison of our hearts with True Holiness. And that focus will cause you to bust out in reverence for God. Jesus told us in Matthew 5 that understanding spiritual poverty was crucial to being blessed by God, and the act of confession of sin shows that in spades.
The Israelites dressed in sackcloth and ashes to symbolize their dirtiness before God and their spiritual poverty. In following that example, we should dress our hearts in sackcloth and smear ashes on it if we want to move from Head to Heart.
A final reality: Joyful, gracious giving...giving not under compulsion of any sort but rather as a reaction to God's graciousness towards us...needs to be an act of our worship. The Israelites made a vow that they would not, on their watch, neglect the house of their God. They gave of their resources and their cold, hard cash...and I can't imagine there would've been anyone that told them that they'd better give or else. Nope. They would've been thrilled to give and glad to do it. Seems to me that's worshipful giving.
So, wrapping up, the obvious reaction is to ask ourselves how our worship of God looks and is in each of these areas, and ask ourselves what our attitude is when we hear we're going to church. If joy isn't the reaction, we should ask ourselves why this might be.
Brent 4:09 AM
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