Why We Worship 13

I am taking time each week to ask myself "Why we worship"

We have already looked at the omnipresence of God so today I wanted to consider the 

Omniscience of God

                This simply means that God is 

All-knowing

 This includes the past, the present, and the future, and everything within these times.

 It includes what has actually happened and will actually happen but it also includes what could have happened and what could happen in the future depending on how we exercise our free will.

                       So he knows what will happen and he knows what "could" happen.

There was never a time when God did not know everything and there never will be a time when God does not know everything.

Does this not give us a great security because we have a God who knows all things about us, about everyone else and about the universe.

Read through 1 John chapter 3 yourself to get the right context for this verse.

1 John chapter 3 is written by John to people he refers to as:

• Children of God  v. 1 & 2
• Little children  v. 7
• My brethren  v. 13
• My little children  v. 18
• Beloved  v. 21

He is writing to people who are saved but perhaps have not had enough time or opportunity to have learnt many things about their heavenly Father.
Throughout the chapter he is assuring them that they are in God's family and are loved by himself and God.
Nowhere is he trying to scare them with the thought that God knows all things and will hold anything against them.
He is in fact stating that God knows all things so even when they do not think they are good enough God knows their salvation and the truth they are standing on.

How could He not be the rock for us to hold on to.

Do you agree?

Why We Worship 10

I am taking time each week to ask myself "Why we worship"

Many people nowadays say that God is only a God of Love and want to forget about justice but justice is not a harsh thing, justice is keeping to what is right.

Isaiah 30 v 18 states that

    The Lord is a God of justice

but the verse also highlights the grace and mercy of God

God lets no sinner off the hook without a fitting punishment, or a fitting substitutionary atonement.

God is concerned with all the wrongs in this world.

God wants to right those wrongs.

I am thankful that God cares about the things that are evil and wrong because ultimately they hurt me and everyone else.

So it is very comforting to remember what it says in His Word and realise that God is in control even though we tend to focus on the wrongs.

Let's look at another passage also in Isaiah


Isaiah 45: 18 - 22

18 For thus says the Lord,
Who created the heavens,
Who is God,
Who formed the earth and made it,
Who has established it,
Who did not create it in vain,
Who formed it to be inhabited:
“I am the Lord, and there is no other.
19 I have not spoken in secret,
In a dark place of the earth;
I did not say to the seed of Jacob,
‘Seek Me in vain’;
I, the Lord, speak righteousness,
I declare things that are right.

20 “Assemble yourselves and come;
Draw near together,
You who have escaped from the nations.
They have no knowledge,
Who carry the wood of their carved image,
And pray to a god that cannot save.
21 Tell and bring forth your case;
Yes, let them take counsel together.
Who has declared this from ancient time?
Who has told it from that time?
Have not I, the Lord?
And there is no other God besides Me,
A just God and a Saviour;
There is none besides Me.

22 “Look to Me, and be saved,
All you ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.

It is because God is a just God that he provided His own Son as our Saviour.

Why We Worship 9

I am taking time each week to ask myself "Why we worship"

Today I want to look at God's Mercy.

Mercy is "not getting what you deserve". 

ie.  It is like a judge finding you guilty of a crime, but then not administering any punishment.

The Bible tells us that God is Merciful towards us.

So God shows us his mercy by not giving us the punishment we deserve.

          The punishment we should receive because of the sin in our lives.

          The Punishment which should be death and complete separation from God.

This is a compelling reason for us to worship God and give Him thanks.

Thank you God that you are a merciful God.

Can you pray this along with me?

Why We Worship 8

I am taking time each week to ask myself "Why we worship"

 This week  Malachi 3 v 6  brings us the reason to focus on
                  

This means that God is UNCHANGING

He never changes in His being (who He is) or in the promises He makes.

We can change from year to year or from day to day but God does not.


Malachi  ch 3

Says the Lord of hosts.

6 “For I am the Lord, I do not change;
Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.
7 Yet from the days of your fathers
You have gone away from My ordinances
And have not kept them.
Return to Me, and I will return to you,”
Says the Lord of hosts.

Also look at verse 7 to see another promise from God and because He has already declared He does not change then we can believe what He says here.

This gives us great stability and we know that we can depend on Him 

at all times 

and 

       in all circumstances.    

 

I am thankful that I serve an unchanging God, are you?

Why We Worship 3

I am taking time each week to ask myself "Why we worship".

I am not presuming that there is one overall right answer.

Perhaps because we are all uniquely different people we may also believe we have uniquely different reasons for worshipping God.

I believe we will have some uniquely different ways of worshipping but there are many reasons why we worship that must be common to us all.

In this series I'm really focusing on the attributes of God at the moment with

       
          God is GREAT

               
                    God is WORTHY 

                             

                                   

and for today I'm taking the bible verse   1 John 4 v 8

How do we know that He is Love?


The Bible tells us He is Love as in the verse above.


Our pastors and leaders in church explain to us that He is Love


But most of all our personal relationship with Him cries out to us that He is Love.

We would not even be able to have this relationship with Him if He was not Love.

We would not have been given the only way of Salvation through Jesus if He was not Love. 

We would never be able to get beyond our sinful nature if He was not Love.

I am thankful that God is Love and I have experienced His great Love for me.

Without a doubt God is Love!

Do you have this relationship where you can say without a doubt that 

God is Love?

Why We Worship 2

If someone were to ask you today why you worship God would you know how to answer?

We dealt more with that in the first one in the series featuring GOD IS GREAT                             
         Today let's look at                          

Revelation 4 v 10 - 11

        the four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

If the 24 elders who are before the throne of God worship Him because He is worthy then we can not disagree but need to proclaim exactly the same thing now here before we need to do it in Heaven.

   

Some people might say
  

                              "Let's Practice what we will be doing for eternity"

                       

               
 but instead we should say

"Let's worship and let's do it now" 

Let's declare it now "God is Worthy to be praised".

because

                                                         

                                                              now and for eternity.

Why We Worship #1

If someone were to ask you today why you worship God would you know how to answer?

If we are honest most of us would stutter or hmm and haw because we would either not have thought about it or we would be trying to think what the "expected" or "right" answer is.


Probably we all worship God for different reasons because worship is a very personal thing.

Perhaps because  we feel so blessed,

                             or  we feel so thankful,

                                    or  we feel that God has rescued us from a broken life,

                                           or  etc......


However if we ask a Theologian what answer would we get?

Well those who know me well will know that I can easily do that because my eldest son is a Theologian, so I did and this is what he said

"To respond with thanksgiving for God's grace to us in Christ"

                                                       Jonathan Black   
                                                          APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY BLOG

For myself I have always equated worship with glorifying God and so I thought of the Catechism I learnt growing up in the Presbyterian Church in Northern Ireland.



Q:   What is man's chief end?


A:   Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever




But I think in plain terms I would just have said because

We see this in Job 36 v 26

Taking it in context of the passage around the verse we see that it is voiced by one of Job's friends.

Elihu Proclaims God’s Majesty

24 “Remember to magnify His work,
Of which men have sung.
25 Everyone has seen it;
Man looks on it from afar.

26 “Behold, God is great, and we do not know Him;
Nor can the number of His years be discovered.
27 For He draws up drops of water,
Which distill as rain from the mist,
28 Which the clouds drop down
And pour abundantly on man.
29 Indeed, can anyone understand the spreading of clouds,
The thunder from His canopy?
30 Look, He scatters His light upon it,
And covers the depths of the sea.
31 For by these He judges the peoples;
He gives food in abundance.
32 He covers His hands with lightning,
And commands it to strike.
33 His thunder declares it,
The cattle also, concerning the rising storm.

There is no doubt that God is Great.

 In the evidence of creation of the world around us 

there is no doubt that 

God is great.