True and Proper Worship

‘Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.’ Rom 12:1 NIV

‘I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.’ Rom 12:1 NKJV

 While meditating on this verse I began to break it down and look at what it is that Paul is exhorting and why. I remember reading this verse as a young Christian and honestly feeling that it was a pretty stiff command.

To offer my body as a living sacrifice meant that I was now yielding control of my life. I remember being baffled at how this was a ‘reasonable’ request. (I know, I know. Tut-tut!)

Thankfully God is patient and kind to us when we don’t understand and is always ready to reveal Himself and His word through the power of the Holy Spirit.

As I sat in the prayer meeting recently God brought this verse to my heart again and I wrote down those thoughts as they came. I have tried in some way to tie them together into a cohesive piece of writing; however they refuse to be catalogued according to my need for neatness. Therefore I will write them as they came in that meeting place where God spoke them to me. You will excuse the untidiness I know and not hold it against me.

 - Worship is not the singing of songs and clapping of hands, it is the attitude of a heart that has known and understood the mercy of God. It will not be known only in the singing of God’s people but in the active laying down of their lives.

 - One cannot worship properly unless one has a true understanding of the mercy of God. One will always treat as common the sacrifice of Christ unless there is revelation of the need of mercy that sent him to the cross. The gospel is an awfully personal thing and demands a very personal response. True worship that pleases God begins in knowing and understanding His mercy towards us.

- Worship is so much more than singing for 20mins at church on a Sunday. That is such a limited understanding of worship. Giving glory to God every day and in every way in our lives is worship. Why would we worship God with our whole lives? Because of His mercy. Worship is the response to mercy.

- Worship is only a 'reasonable' response to a God that has given His life, His glory, His power and position for a rotten, selfish, separated and sin-soaked people. When we consider God's mercy, our lives are only a reasonable response. It is not a harsh expectation that we would willingly yield our lives to Him whose mercy is so great.

- We respond in worship when we surrender our plans for His, our thoughts for His, our words for His and our deeds for His! That is only reasonable when we consider His mercy toward us.

 - To ask him to worship God who has no understanding of His mercy, is to ask him to pretend, for he cannot know how without knowing why. It will be at best incomplete and at worst an act.
- Worship is THE response to mercy. It deals with the 'how' we respond to God while Mercy deals with the question ‘why’.

- Think of His love, sacrifice, death, forgiveness and tell me your heart doesn't know that its reasonable response is worship.
But ask me to hand over my whole life without telling me why and my heart resists all the more.  Understanding His mercy toward me is the beginning of my life of worship.

- In the Old Testament the people went to the Tabernacle and then to the Temple to show their worship to God. They went to where He was. They knew that the presence of God was in that place and they worshipped Him there. Why?

Because His Presence was and still is the greatest mercy. That a holy and righteous God would be found amongst such a rebellious people is mercy itself.

- And more than that, Mercy is not a thing but a Person- Jesus Christ Himself is Mercy. That is why we cannot come to the Father but by Him. He is the Mercy that allows us to draw near. It is not only that God has forgiven us but that he chooses to abide with us. That exites my heart and makes me want to sing!!

- We no longer have to travel to a tabernacle to worship God, John’s gospel tells us ‘And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us’. Jesus has literally ‘tabernacled’ among us. Worship is our whole life, our whole self all of the time because we have His presence in us all the time. We are surrounded and covered by His mercy all of the time. Praise the Lord!

That is why worship is not for Sunday mornings/prayer meetings alone, nor even limited to songs but instead for every day, in every way because of His abiding presence. He will never leave us!

 - My favourite Psalm is number 27. David knew the mercy of God and worship flowed from his heart. He wrote these words that always touch my heart;

‘One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple.’

- I believe David knew that to be allowed to ‘dwell in the house of the Lord’ was possible only as he was granted entry according to God’s mercy for he also penned these words in Psalm 51: ‘Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation; Then my tongue will joyfully sing of Your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips That my mouth may declare Your praise.’
Tell me these are not the words of a man who understood God’s mercy. David’s response to God’s mercy was praise and worship. How much more will we worship, on this side of Calvary, if we understand that God has redeemed, cleansed, filled and sealed us all according to His mercy?
‘Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.’ 1Peter 2:10

- How I love to join with the countless angels and living creatures around the throne saying “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain To receive power and riches and wisdom, And strength and honor and glory and blessing!”… “Blessing and honor and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, And to the Lamb, forever and ever!”

And He Was Lame in Both Feet??

Hi Everyone
It's been a while and I have been busy...

I have been reading a lot about Mephibosheth lately. I really identify with this man in so many ways.
The part that I have been focusing on is 2Samuel 9:3-13.

I have noticed that the whole narrative of Mepihbosheth happens within the framework of one sentence repeated; He was ‘lame in both feet’.

Many times I have sat down and asked the Lord why the passage ends with the same sentence as it begins. Up to now I have had a few different understandings of it but there is one personal application I find genuinely significant for myself.

 In the beginning of this passage Mephibosheth is sought out by the king because of a covenant the king made with Jonathan, Mephibosheth’s father.

The whole thing is initiated by the king, not Mephibosheth. (There’s a sermon in there.)

He is referred to only as the ‘son of Jonathan who is crippled in both feet’. His suffering is on public display and is known far and wide. He was the crippled one, the one who would never amount to much because of some tragic events in his past.

Can you see where I’m going with this?

Mephibosheth wasn’t responsible for the things that happened a long time before but he had to live with the consequences of it nonetheless.

So when he is called before the king to receive the blessings of a covenant made before he was born, his shame is ever before him. His description of himself reveals his innermost thoughts of himself; 2 Sam9:8 “What is your servant, that you should regard a dead dog like me?” Oh how often I feel the same words rise in my heart. I sometimes feel so aware of my lameness that I am overawed that the King might notice me in my distress.

But whether I understand it or not, God is King and He willingly seeks me out to bless me under a covenant made long before my birth. Hallelujah!

God provides a place for Mephibosheth at His table; a place where they can be together and have fellowship together continually. All Mephibosheth had to do in this situation was to receive what the king had provided. He moved from Lo Debar (the barren land), to the house of the king in Jerusalem, the city of God.

So all the while I have been reading this I have seen how God has taken me from a barren land to live in His house and to fellowship continually with Him. I relate so much with Mephibosheth, as do most Christians (I hope) when they read this story. However, I have always been troubled by the last line which reads ‘So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate at the king’s table regularly. Now he was lame in both feet.’

Why does it not read ‘so Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem…and the Lord healed his lameness and all was well with him’? Why is Mephibosheth still lame at the end of the passage?

Well here’s where I’m going to a bit technical wordwise. Stay with me please.

I went to my Strong’s concordance to find the original meaning of the word ‘lame’ and to my surprise the writer uses two different words to describe ‘lame’. At the beginning ‘lame’ is defined ‘maimed but also figuratively, dejected’ At the beginning we are introduced to a man that has a physical disfigurement but also a mental or emotional crippling. But at the end of the passage we see the word ‘lame’ defined as lame-physically but with no figurative meaning suggesting dejected.

Somewhere in the midst of being sought by the king, the revelation of the covenant promises and Mephibosheth’s receiving the blessings provided for him, he loses his dejected state. He is now seated at the table of the Lord and the blessings are showering down upon his head.

I have been talking with the Lord about the mental/emotional crippling that we sometimes carry because of past events and I believe strongly that one application of this passage is this: though I have been sought by the King (Jesus), and blessed beyond comprehension at being able to sit at His table, in His presence, continually welcomed, there are scars leftover from the lameness I received at the hands of others. Scars are just marks of where healing has occurred in the body. After a time, they no longer hurt or caused us to feel lame.

Whilst sitting at the table, my crippled legs are beneath the tablecloth, so to speak. They remain but they are hidden in the blessings being poured out upon me. They will never go away. Now understand me correctly, that’s not faithless, it’s what God has spoken to me. The events that have lamed me are not going to disappear. They are part of my story and my life. They are a testimony to the grace, mercy, tenderness, love, kindness, faithfulness, of my King. When I look to Jesus my focus is off myself. I lose myself in His awesomeness and holiness and I no longer have eyes to see my lameness. My heart is full of gratitude and there is no room for bitterness or pain. He has changed me and is changing me from glory to glory. I have a choice about what to gaze upon; under the table at my lameness, or looking up into the face of my King and Saviour.

God is a God of power. He has the power to make all things new, to heal and to save. God has done a miracle in my heart and I know it well.  But I wanted to wake up one day and see that God had taken my past from me. But that’s not what God does. He doesn’t give us amnesia, He deals with the hurt and dejection, sits us at His table for a continual feast of His presence and enables us to keep our eyes on Him. How great is our God??

Interestingly the passage tells us before closing that Mephibosheth had a son named Mica. Mephibosheth means ‘dispelling the shame’ and Mica means ‘who is like the Lord’.
Mephibosheth has come from the barren place and become fruitful in the house of the king.
The fruit of Mephibosheth’s dispelling the shame and accepting the king’s invitation was someone who is like the Lord. I can only pray that one of the fruits of my accepting God’s invitation to salvation and dispelling the shame is children that are like the Lord!!