THERE IS A RIVER

Driving back to Dallas from Houston, I was tired and bored from listening to the constant whining of talk/news radio and the emptiness of country and rock music. In the console of our SUV I found a worship CD that a local church in Dallas had made. I slipped it into the player and in a rather distracted and tired way I began to listen. The first couple of songs were nice, nothing special, but the music was somewhat of a welcome distraction.

It had been a long day for me, but a very good day. I had left the house a little before 5 o’clock that morning in order to be in Houston before 10 o’clock to have breakfast with a friend. Then I had spent the rest of the day at the offices of a ministry, working with them on a new fund-raising program. We finished up around 3:30 and I got onto the freeway to start my 250-mile drive back home, tired but rather pleased at the progress of the day.

The fourth track on the CD was a song from the late ’60s written by Max and David Sapp entitled “There is a River.” I immediately recognized the song and began to quietly worship along with the singers. When the song finished, I hit the replay button and listened to it again and then again and then one more time. My bored drive up Interstate 45 had become a refreshing time of praise and worship.

The words to the chorus begin with, “There is a river that flows from deep within.” The chorus finishes with, “There is a river that never shall run dry.”

Jesus makes a very powerful statement about the water of life flowing in those who follow Him.

“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:38-39).

As I sat in the car enjoying the time of worship and the refreshing of the Holy Spirit, I was gently reminded again of the presence of God’s Spirit in me. While He indwells me, I need to actively participate with Him and again and again be filled with His power and presence (see Ephesians 5:18). Part of the Holy Spirit’s work in me is to refresh, rebuild and repair. The word edify used in 1 Corinthians 14:4 means exactly that and is a reference to what happens when we participate with the Holy Spirit.

I need the Holy Spirit’s work in me regularly and more so right now as our world tumbles headlong into the chaos of the coming days. Praying in the Spirit . . . it’s vital that we do that! As we pray in the Spirit, worship and praise Him, we are allowing the Holy Spirit to fill our lives, and the Spirit’s ministry of healing, rebuilding, refreshing and restoring takes place. If you have a prayer language (tongues), then it needs to be exercised regularly. If you don’t pray in tongues, then may I suggest that you begin to verbally worship and praise Him or sing a worship chorus during your prayer time. Don’t rush this—take your time in praise and worship and invite Him to fill you with His power and presence.

I confess that I need that time with Him and I need it more now than ever before. The rough and tumble of all that is going on in our world—the economic uncertainty, the increasing violence, the foolishness of politics, the depressing news day after day—takes a toll on you whether you understand it or not. It is vital that we who have been given the Holy Spirit allow Him to do His work in us.

The Holy Spirit should not be relegated to the basement of our lives. We need to invite Him to fill us, to literally fill this house we call our body. Can the river really flow if I relegate it to just a corner of my life? I am not a Spirit-filled person in name, I am a Spirit-filled person in practice.

A few days after driving home from Houston and while I was still basking in the afterglow of that marvelous time with the Lord in the car, I made another wonderful discovery. I found on YouTube a video of the Gaither Vocal Band singing, “There is a River.” Here is the link to the video:

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nTI7ZWCBE8

You may be able to just click on the link and get to the video. If not, then copy and paste the link to your Web browser and get ready to be refreshed.

Turn on your speakers, sit back and enjoy—and let the Holy Spirit refresh you as you worship Him. The river of living water is flowing! Come on in—the water is fine!

TRUE WORSHIP

“True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worshiper him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24, ESV).

Many contemporary churches have unwittingly damaged their congregants by not teaching them to worship. People need to be taught the value of worship and how to enter into worship, and the worship leaders need to actually lead rather than perform. True worship prepares the heart to receive the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the Word. Those who are not taught how to enter into worship leave church with an appreciation of good music but with much less of the Word and the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives than they should have.

Carol and I have visited several contemporary churches in our area and it is our observation that about 75-80 percent of the crowd does not participate during worship. They watch, they listen and then they do nothing else. So little instruction comes from the leaders that most people literally have no idea how to enter into worship, so they don’t, and they fail to gain the help and blessing that worship was intended to bring.

True worship is not about style—it’s not about performance—it’s not about how tight the worship band is or how energetic the musicians are. True worship is not Pentecostal or Baptist; it’s not liturgical; it’s not Black gospel. No, it is not just one of the above or it may be all of the above. True worship is an act of humility and adoration as we acknowledge who He is, His greatness, and His place in our lives.

In ancient times when a subject came into the presence of a monarch, he came humbly and bowed low. The monarch indicated his acceptance and pleasure by stretching forth his hand or scepter. So it is when we come into God’s presence; we come humbly and yet with the confidence of knowing that He has invited us.

We approach God with humility, as we understand we don’t deserve to be there. It is highly inappropriate for us to charge into God’s presence and act as though we are His equals and He should be glad we showed up. We should come boldly, but there is a big difference between being bold and being arrogant. Arrogance finds its genesis in pride—and pride finds its genesis in hell. Boldness is the quiet confidence that says, “I am a child of God and He has invited me to be here.”

True worship is both the gateway to the road of success and the foundation upon which the Word and the Holy Spirit can build your life. True worship prepares the soil of our hearts to receive the Word of the Lord and the ministry of the Spirit.

The story in John 4 of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman is remarkable on several counts. First, the fact that a Jewish man was talking to a Samaritan woman was extraordinary, as this just did not happen in ancient days. The Jews and the Samaritans disliked each other intensely and Jewish men did not talk to Samaritan women! Second, the accuracy with which Jesus displayed what we would call “the word of knowledge” about the woman’s promiscuous life was noteworthy. Jesus talked openly about her multiple marriages and the fact that the man she was with was not her husband.

In verse 19 the stunned woman says, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship” (John 4:19-20, ESV). She posed a legitimate question from a hungry heart: “Where is the correct place to worship?” Jesus never clearly answered her because that question is a dead-end road—there is no correct place to worship! Instead, Jesus went to the heart of the issue and established the kind of worship that the Father responds to: “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” Wherever God’s people are and wherever worship is done in spirit and in truth is the right place for worship!

God is pure Spirit and the worship that He delights in is spiritual worship, the sacrifice of a humble, contrite, grateful and adoring child. This sincere heart-devotion, whenever and wherever it is found, is the worship that God delights in and accepts. This is true worship!

The word spirit as used here stands in opposition to rites and ceremonies—external worship. Spiritual worship is the offering of the heart and soul. Truth is speaking of the access which we have been granted through Jesus Christ, who is TRUTH.

It’s time to worship!

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!

TWO INCREDIBLE MIRACLES

I teach the Bible class at our church and our present study is a journey through the book of Luke. One of the unique things about this book is that Luke is the only Gentile writer of any of the books of the Bible. Secondly, Luke was a medical doctor and he brings a doctor’s attention to detail to his writing. There are other unique qualities to the book but I will leave those for you to discover.

I find the first chapter of Luke powerfully encouraging. Why? Because it is an illustration of God’s desire to give birth to His promises no matter what obstacles might be in the way.

We first meet Zacharias and Elizabeth. Zacharias, a priest, and his wife Elizabeth are childless and past their childbearing years. At a specific time, each division of priests that were direct descendants of Aaron went to Jerusalem to minister in the Temple. The divisions of priests were continually rotated in and out of these Temple responsibilities. On this visit, Zacharias was given the honor of burning the incense and then coming out of the Temple to bless the assembled crowd with the blessing of Numbers 6:24-26. To burn the incense and give the blessing was a once-in-a-lifetime event for a priest.

But God had something special in store for Zacharias and Elizabeth!

Zacharias is preparing to burn the incense when suddenly an angel appears and Zacharias is frightened. The angel tries to reassure him that he has come with the answer to a prayer request that he and his wife would have a child. The angel then explains that the child would be a prophet who would prepare the way for the Messiah, but Zacharias is frightened and the announcement does not seem to encourage him at all. He responds to the angel’s statement by saying, in essence, “Wait a minute, I’m an old man and my wife is past her childbearing years. This can’t be real!”

Gabriel responds to Zacharias by saying, “Your unbelief is not going to hold back this miracle. But you are not going to enjoy it like you should because you are going to be mute until the child is born.”

Scripture then tells us that Zacharias and Elizabeth went home after his days of service in the Temple were completed. Very soon Elizabeth became pregnant and this portion of “the miracle of chapter one” was on.

Now here is the second part of this miracle chapter. The first part tells the story of an older couple being given a miracle even though there was no possibility, in the natural, of it ever happening. Now the story goes to the opposite end of the life spectrum to a young girl who is a virgin. She is engaged (a marriage arranged by her father) but she has never known a man.

Gabriel, who appeared to Zacharias, now appears to Mary six months later. Gabriel announces to Mary that she is going to conceive and give birth to a son and His name will be Jesus. “He will be the Son of God!”

Mary responds in faith, whereas Zacharias had responded in unbelief. Mary responds just like a teenager. She says, in essence, “Wow, this is incredible! How’s this going to work?” The angel explains that the power of God would overshadow or cover her and she would supernaturally conceive.

The angel then says to Mary, as if to reassure her, that her relative Elizabeth has also conceived and will have a son. Mary would have known that Elizabeth was older and childless. I believe the angel was telling her this to let know her that she wasn’t alone in participating in this miracle and that God was birthing something very special. In other words, if God could give Elizabeth a miracle child, He could also give Mary a miracle child.

The angel then declares, “For nothing will be impossible with God” (1:37). Mary responds in faith to the angel’s announcement by saying, “I am God’s servant! Let His will be done in my life!” (1:38, my translation).

We really don’t understand how important Gabriel’s statement is to us. Gabriel has just finished his assignment of telling two women who couldn’t possibly birth a child in their present condition that they would indeed get pregnant. For both Elizabeth and Mary, this was naturally impossible, but Gabriel said, “Nothing will be impossible with God!”

This is more than a slogan, more than a faith-building statement! This should be the heartbeat of every child of God with a desire to be used of Him. It doesn’t matter whether you are old or young, “nothing is impossible with God!”

And we know the rest of these two stories. Elizabeth gave birth to John, who by prophecy had to come as the forerunner of the Messiah. Mary gave birth to Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God.

I believe that one of the reasons these stories are told this way is to reinforce the understanding in us that nothing is impossible or too hard for the Lord. God sent the angel to both ends of the age spectrum to show us His desire to do the impossible for those who dare to believe. No one is too young and immature and no one is too old, too worn out to receive a miracle from God.

What promises has He made to you? What are you believing for?

FATHER

The disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray and Jesus responded, “And He said to them, When you pray, say, Our Father . . .” (Luke 11:2).

“Father”—as He used that one word, Jesus was destroying centuries of very constricted religious thinking! This was truly a cataclysmic moment and it had to be shocking to the disciples!

Are you shaking your head wondering what is so inflammatory about the use of the word “Father”?

In the ancient world, Jewish authors and scholars would not write out or pronounce the name of God. They felt that to do so was sacrilegious and showed a lack of reverence. Instead of using His name, they put abbreviations (YHWH for Yahweh) or used the words “the Name” to indicate that it was God they were speaking of. Never would they refer to the Lord God almighty as Father!

All through the Old Testament God was regarded as being remote and stern. He was seen as a tough judge who instituted the hard line of the Law to keep His people in line. Man could only communicate with such a stern God with trembling and in fear.

As I stated a moment ago, in Old Testament times no one ever addressed God as Father except in rather indirect terms. But now a new day was dawning and here in the New Testament Jesus casts aside any of the fear of Old Testament times. He speaks of God as “our Father” and does so with frequency in His teachings. This revelation by Jesus put man’s relationship with God on an entirely new footing. Suddenly, God almighty, the eternal infinite God, is saying through His Son that He would be pleased to have all His children call Him “Father.” God is expressing His tremendous, eternal love for His children.

I was very blessed to have a wonderful relationship with my earthly father. My dad was quiet (just like me) and a strong Christian. Even after I was married and in my forties, every time I saw my dad he would kiss me on the cheek and say, “I love you, son.” My dad’s unwavering expression of love has deeply impacted my understanding of God’s love for me and my love for my wife and my family. When I contemplate the word “Father” in relation to God, the warmth of my earthly dad’s love tells me, “If my dad could love me that much then how much more does my heavenly Father love me?”

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him” (Matthew 7:11, ESV).

Unfortunately for many of you reading this blog, your relationship with your dad is not the same as mine. Your dad may have been a selfish person who didn’t care for you. Or he may have been a drug addict or an alcoholic who brought nothing but trouble and pain to your home. A huge and growing problem in our society is the number of children growing up today with no fathers in the home. Mom got pregnant and the sperm donor had no intention of marrying her and raising their child. The inner cities of our nation are reaping the results of this narcissistic thinking. The growing problem of fatherlessness has birthed a restless, troubled generation of children that is bringing a lot of pain to our world.

Children without fathers rarely grow up to be well balanced. Instead, fatherless children often grow up full of pain and doubt, wondering if they are really wanted or loved. Being fatherless has created a tremendous struggle for many new Christians to fully accept God as their Father. It is not impossible, of course, but it seems to take so much longer than it does for someone who has a father who loves them and was there for them.

We begin our relationship with “our Father” by accepting the fact that He has chosen to be just that. God is pleased to have us as His children! He has expressed that through His love for us: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, ESV; also see John 3:16).

Child of God, you need to ponder the truth that “He loves me!” Take that expression to prayer and ask Him to make it real to you. If you struggle at all to believe that He really, really loves you, then I beg you to get before Him in prayer and let Him wrap His arms of love around you. Let Him reveal His love to you—and He will. Read again the gospels and pay special attention to how tenderly Jesus cares for those in need. What you are seeing in these stories of His ministry here on earth is a picture of how much God cares for you!

God loves us and He is “our Father!”