Dr. John Hubley :: Worship

“LORD, TEACH US TO WORSHIP!”

Interesting that the disciples of Jesus never asked this. In not making this request, they assumed they could worship on their own, that they had not to learn how to worship. The phrase ‘learning to worship’ sounds strange to us today. If our heart doesn’t overflow and begin to worship by itself, we say, we’ll never ‘learn’ how to worship. But it‘s a dangerous error, very widespread among most Christians, to think that the heart can worship rightly by itself. For then we confuse wishes, hopes, sighs, styles—all of which the heart can do by itself—with true worship. We then confuse earth with heaven, man with God. Worship doesn’t mean simply to pour out one’s heart. It means rather to acknowledge the awesome glory of Christ and to submit to him as Lord, whether the heart is full or empty. No one can do that by oneself. For that he needs Jesus Christ.

When Jesus joins us in his worship of the Father, when we are privileged to worship along with him, when he lets us see the awesome glory of the Father and engages us in his worship, then we are free from vain worship. And that is precisely what Jesus wants for us. He wants to worship with us and have us worship with him, so that we know intuitively that the Father accepts our facedown obeisance to Christ in his vicarious death and resurrection. When our will whole-heartedly enters into Christ’s worship of the Father in the Spirit, he has taught us to worship in spirit and in truth. Lord teach us such worship.

(Liberally adapted from Psalms The Prayer Book of the Bible. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Minneapolis: Auguburg. 1970.)

John Hubley. Mindheart Foundation, All rights reserved

THOUGHTS?

For more on John Hubley check him out HERE!

Hatefully Beautiful

i’ve got a dear friend, Josh Avis, who currently refuses to blog (i’m trying to convince him), and he sent me this link today and it was everything i needed to hear. these words come from the epic theologian and thinker, Oswald Chambers. This excerpt is from his daily study called ‘My Utmost For His Highest’. a quick and amazing daily read (totally recommend it as a daily thought provoker)! i read this and i thought, ‘Hatefully Beautiful’. Check this out (also, if you want to read more click here:

The Place of Humiliation

If You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us —Mark 9:22

After every time of exaltation, we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they really are, where it is neither beautiful, poetic, nor thrilling. The height of the mountaintop is measured by the dismal drudgery of the valley, but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mountain, but we never live for His glory there. It is in the place of humiliation that we find our true worth to God— that is where our faithfulness is revealed. Most of us can do things if we are always at some heroic level of intensity, simply because of the natural selfishness of our own hearts. But God wants us to be at the drab everyday level, where we live in the valley according to our personal relationship with Him. Peter thought it would be a wonderful thing for them to remain on the mountain, but Jesus Christ took the disciples down from the mountain and into the valley, where the true meaning of the vision was explained (see Mark 9:5-6 , Mark 14-23 ).

“If you can do anything . . . .” It takes the valley of humiliation to remove the skepticism from us. Look back at your own experience and you will find that until you learned who Jesus really was, you were a skillful skeptic about His power. When you were on the mountaintop you could believe anything, but what about when you were faced with the facts of the valley? You may be able to give a testimony regarding your sanctification, but what about the thing that is a humiliation to you right now? The last time you were on the mountain with God, you saw that all the power in heaven and on earth belonged to Jesus— will you be skeptical now, simply because you are in the valley of humiliation?