IT'S TIME TO WORSHIP!

  

He knows when you are in pain.

He knows when you feel overwhelmed.

He knows when you are lonely.

He knows when your strength fails and you just can’t take another step.

He knows when you are betrayed by people you counted on.

He knows when fear is knocking on your door.

He knows and has not left you alone . . . still He waits!

Jonah tried to run from the presence of God and his world fell apart around him. He was at the end of his nightmarish flight and death was the next stop on his journey. In despair and surrounded by darkness, the fleeing prophet was at the lowest point of his life. There was no light at the end of his tunnel and no road to victory to be seen in the darkness.

At the point when Jonah was about to be consumed by his circumstances, he desperately cried out to the Lord:

“But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to You; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!” (Jonah 2:9, ESV).

This was contrary to the nature of the circumstances; it went against the grain of all the human teaching on survival, and it cost Jonah dearly. But in the darkness and pain, he chose to pray, give thanks, and worship. With the few breaths he had left, Jonah gave voice to his thanksgiving. It was a sacrifice for him to do this, as he was in the final moments of his life. Death and eternity were just ahead, but Jonah chose to worship and raise his voice in thanksgiving to the Lord. With almost no strength left and with a weakening voice, he reached out in worship, “Salvation belongs to the Lord!”

The dictionary says that worship is the surrender of something for the sake of something else. Jonah was running from the presence of the Lord (1:3). His running from the Lord took him into terrible circumstances, but then, it always does. When his circumstances overwhelmed him and the tragic end was close at hand, Jonah chose to make a sacrifice. The sacrifice validates the offering. God Almighty knows it costs you when you choose to worship instead of groveling in self-pity, complaining and fear. He is aware of the sacrifice and the cost . . . and He responds.

“And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land” (2:10).

Paul and Silas were in trouble. Savagely beaten and thrown into jail, the men were chained and their feet locked into wooden restraints. Unpleasant, filthy, painful circumstances, to say the least. There was no Christian Legal Society to get them out of the trouble they were in or some megachurch to rally support and finances. It would have been so easy to slip into despair, just to give up.

“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s chains were unfastened” (Acts 16:25-26, ESV).

Paul and Silas chose to pray and give voice to their thanksgiving and God responded in power to their sacrifice of worship.

The sacrifice of thanksgiving is a choice. When circumstances are overwhelming, when you are tired from the fight, and when there seems to be no clear road to victory, it’s time for God’s people to worship Him.

When we choose to worship, we are choosing to acknowledge Him as greater than our circumstances, greater than our pain and doubt. Our sacrifice of worship, our choice, brings Him into our circumstances. Our choice to worship Him when we are in the storm is an act of faith. Faith pleases God and He responds to our faith (see Hebrews 11:6).

A black cloud of evil is settling upon our nation and our leaders are being foolish. They are confused, they are arrogant, and they do not acknowledge God’s place in the founding of this nation. All the money in the world will not bring back the blessing of the Lord that has been lost.

Our nation is in a storm of trouble for which there is no human answer. It is time for God’s people to lift their voices, just as Jonah did, in the sacrifice of thanksgiving.

It is time for God’s people to worship!