utterance.

Worship is Never Wasted

“If you want your life to be dangerous, spend it in worship. You are inviting the power that brought all of creation into existence into your life and asking him to work.

“That’s dangerous.

“That is life changing. It could not be otherwise. How could you truly encounter God, and all that he is, and come away the same? You can’t.”

Worship is never wasted.

Election

“If the ultimate determining factor in whether we will be saved or not is our own decision to accept Christ, then we shall be more inclined to think that we deserve some credit for the fact that we were saved.

“…If election is solely based on God’s own good pleasure and his sovereign decision to love us in spite of our lack of goodness or merit, then certainly we have a profound sense of appreciation to him for a salvation that is totally undeserved, and we will forever be willing to praise his ‘glorious grace’ (Eph. 1:6).

“…salvation at its most foundational level is based on grace alone.”

Bible Doctrine- Wayne Grudem

What is Sacrifice?

In the unevangelized world, there are 20,500 full-time Christian workers and 10,200 foreign missionaries.

In the evangelized non-Christian world, there are 1.31 million full-time Christian workers.
[Frontier Harvest Ministries]

An average of 171,000 Christians worldwide are martyred for their faith per year.
[Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary 2006]

Do those numbers do anything for you?

I read those and think about my life and the clear call to missions that God has placed over me.

And then I think, will I be a part of the ranks of those martyred?

I’ve struggled with this possible reality for a while now, but spending wasting my time creating lists titled, “How Not to be Killed” is not where God wants my heart.

That opens so many doors for satan…and could eventually result in me chickening out when God puts my next destination in front of me.

But where does that fear come from? And how can I prepare better for my future, whether or not that includes sacrificing my life?

How can I continually be living a sacrificial life?

What is sacrifice?

I’m not sure if I have an answer yet, but it has been a consuming question.
Sure, I can sacrifice shopping, eating out, chocolate, soda, cookies, television, Facebook, my iPhone, I can fast, or any combination of those. But at a certain point, I’d just be going through the motions. I know my heart pretty well at this point. Sacrificing Facebook would just turn into a new habit of no Facebook.

Our habits that we sacrifice for God eventually lose that sting.

Even fasting…I stop thinking about God a few days in and I start thinking about my waistline.

So then it becomes a different issue.

Does sacrifice have to be something painful?

Or does it come, not from the stomach or the bank account or even the mind, but from the heart?

When I make a decision of what in my surroundings I want to sacrifice, do I take it all to God first saying, “because of the ultimate sacrifice, I give you this”?
And at that point do I realize that God doesn’t need our things.
He doesn’t golf clap for us when we fast a meal or two.

Regardless of what my sacrifice is, am I allowing God to shape and change me in the process?
To mold my core and make me into someone different?
Someone that is a constant vessel through which the light of God radiates?

“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?
says the Lord;
I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
and the fat of well-fed beasts;
I do not delight in the blood of bulls,
or of lambs, or of goats.
…
Bring no more vain offerings;
incense is an abomination to me.
…
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow’s cause.
-Isaiah 1:11, 13, 16, 17

What is sacrifice to you?

Who do You say that I am?

I am about to be pretty transparent. 

Posted below is my journal entry from last night. 
(Sorry if the thought process is all over the place).

I’ve seen and heard God respond to me and I know others struggle with similar issues…so my private journal is now very public.

And I’m okay with that.  

—-

February 25, 2012

I feel like I’ve been avoiding you, God. It’s been almost an entire week of the lent season and I have not been in prayer or fasted or sacrificed. If anything, my spending has been more extravagant! What is that??

…

God, I just want to be near you. I want worship time with you. I want you and me…and I NEED you to be in control.

I’m praying for: 
-  finding myself in God. It’s like I lost it somewhere. God…I know who you are
   but who do you say that I am?  

Identity in Christ is something you never want to lose sight of…yet it is the first thing to go if you don’t pay attention to it.  You cannot neglect something so fragile; something that needs constant feeding and encouragement.  

God, Please remind me of who I am.

[At this point I decided to make a list of my “qualities”]

Who I think I am: 
- loud, outgoing, overbearing, kind of crazy, overthinker, obsessive, flakey, under-committed, can’t follow through, mean, belittling, fashion obsessed, materialistic, pushy, controlling, image concious, lazy, forgetful

[And if that wasn’t enough torture…I made another list]

Good qualities about me: 
-  nice nails…,genuine listener, love my sister/family, good taste, strong leader, confident.

Okay, obviously there is something wrong here. Making this list I: 1. feel guilty/cocky writing anything “good” and 2. put more negative qualities than positive.

What is going on???

God, please, send people to speak truth of who I am to me. I need to hear what you think of me…because this all is way too hard. 

—-

By posting this I am in no way looking for affirmation or fishing for compliments.

[My love language is “words of affirmation,” so I’m pretty decent at calling out the phonies anyway]

I want to just put it out there that I struggle with who I am in Christ. 

And that’s okay. 

—-

Tonight, I attended Mariner’s Church in Irvine. I’d never been before, but a friend told me that they were starting a series on Song of Solomon and I thought, “Yes, absolutely I am down. Sex in the church = win.” 

I in no way anticipated the evening that was to come however. 

Song of Solomon begins with the female character (awesome for so many reasons), and she says right away, she is not the cultural ideal of beautiful. She is dark skinned, she works outside…but she is LOVELY.

Genesis 1 says, “so God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” 

We are supposed to find meaning, self-worth, and significance in simply being an image bearer!

But I don’t. A lot of us don’t. 

We are BROKEN.
We are all FAILURES…
We no longer find value in being image bearers. 
And now, we rob each other of our human-ness by all of the expectations and standards we place on each other.

But there is hope. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. the old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

He has restored.  
We can be reconciled to the one who loves us and made us.
It is possible to not be enslaved by our cultural ideal of beauty. Or anything for that matter.

I don’t have to be a doctor to be successful in the eyes of God. 
I don’t have to make six figures.

As a woman, I don’t have to be super thin with luscious hair and perfect skin (although I have to admit at least one of those would be nice.) 
I don’t have to be married with 2 and half kids, one pet, living in the suburbs with a cute garden and an eco-friendly compost pile.  

God created multiple species of snails…

…different types of GRASS!  

God never intended for everyone to look or be the same! 

[and right here…the sermon was just about over. and I’ll be honest, it was wonderful. I loved everything Mike had to share, and I loved having truth spoken over me. But did it move me to my core?…]

Then, Mike did something that I had never been a part of. He called all of the men to circle the ladies in the room and they all prayed over us. A chorus of male voices, lifting up their sisters in protection to our God. 

That moved me. [we’re talking to uncontrollable tears here]. 

After it was all over, the girl next to me, whom I had just met, said to me, “You have a beautiful spirit. I feel your pure heart for God.” 

Wow. 

—-

There is no way I can neatly wrap up this conglomeration of thoughts.

God justifies us in himself. When we find our hearts in Him, we will be assured of who we are. 

Knowing yourself comes from knowing God. 

I am fearfully and wonderfully made. 

I have captivated God’s heart with my gaze…and that is truth that I will dwell in. 

God…Your Love…

…sometimes it’s like really good music. The kind that moves your soul…
when you can’t pinpoint the feeling or where it comes from…
you feel like a different person…or like you’re in a different world.
…and it’s almost not enough to just hear it. 
you want to become a part of that beautiful sound.