Reflections

A year ago I posted on giving as an act of worship and I know this because I just happened to be reading the same passage this morning that caused me to think about this...

and now more than ever I find it most meaningful to be reading this. Deuteronomy 26 is the passage I am talking about.

They are about to enter the Promised Land, about ready to cross the Jordan. God is giving them their marching orders, how they are to conduct themselves as they cross, and as they live in the new land.

He gives a detailed instruction on what they should offer Him and how. It is the how that struck me a year ago. It strikes me again. Some lessons should never be forgotten.
As I bring my offerings, and in this passage it definitely involves money, well, produce then which translates into currency today unless a farmer is reading this. I have to be real here. This is not a chapter on singing songs, or donating our unwanted items, or anything like that. It comes down to money, our hard earned, never enough money.

As I bring my offerings, I am to recite, out loud, the history of God rescuing me from enemies, keeping me safe and sane, prospering me, saving me, and I should declare to Him what I am bringing to His table and that I have not used this offering, or any part of this offering for myself.

AND, I should be happy.

I can tell you, I rejoice over every offering...and have for the past 6 years. I rejoiced when I struggled to be faithful to this, and I rejoice that I can look back and say I have not lacked any good thing because of my giving.

BUT I mention all this to say that I have not been posting as much as I would like...

and I think I owe it all to my desire to live out my Jesus Life outside the walls of the church. Never did I realize it would consume me as it is.

There is much to do out there, people are wondering, longing, and starting to seek out what the Truth really is.

They are everywhere, these hungry ones, and hardly a day goes by that I do not have something to write about but fall asleep before it gets done.

I want to tell you all about it all...and I will. But not right now.

I am getting things ready for our outreach today at HV. About 30 kids will be there. And lately, some of the moms have been staying as well. We have been doing this for just past a year now. Once a month, on a Saturday, we set up in the apartment manager's reception area, make a mess with the kids, get in a quick object lesson, clean up and resume life. I love it.

We are gearing up for our big Spring Outreach the day before Resurrection Sunday. I will tell you all about it.

It is good to be outside the walls...and even greater to go back in every Sunday and celebrate with everyone what God is doing out there...

The Call

I am not sure what it is exactly that I am called to be doing...I do not know the particulars. But over and over again I hear the call to be under gazebos, out in parks, in the sun and the rain. Have you heard it as well?
Last night, during a worship service, when thinking about what the call is on our lives I saw it. I saw the gazebo where church is on Friday mornings and I saw the look on the faces of the homeless ones when they were being caught up in the air to meet Jesus. They had looks on their faces that expressed joy and wonder at the realization that they were okay, that their wildest hopes of being accepted by God were true. What joy and wonder on those crusty, wrinkled faces. I was filled, truly filled to the brim as I stood in the pew. My heart is out there, somewhere under a gazebo.
Oh to be in His Presence as I walk this earth. O to do what He calls us to. O to just be in the realest of realities, living life in the Kingdom, under the authority of the King, reaching the lost, speaking truth into their lives and establishing a good hope in them and in me.

More on worship...

Worship: (shachah) - To bow low.
Deuteronomy 26:1-19: (the Message)

Once you enter the land that God, your God, is giving you as an inheritance and take it over and settle down, you are to take some of all the firstfruits of what you grow in the land that God, your God, is giving you, put them in a basket and go to the place God, your God, sets apart
for you to worship him. At that time, go to the priest who is there
and say, "I announce to God, your God, today that I have entered the land that God promised our ancestors that he'd give to us."
The priest will take the basket from you and place it on the Altar
of God, your God. And there in the Presence of God, your God, you will recite: 5-10 A wandering Aramean was my father, he went down to Egypt and sojourned there, he and just a handful of his brothers at
first, but soon they became a great nation, mighty and many. The Egyptians abused and battered us, in a cruel and savage slavery.
We cried out to God, the God-of-Our-Fathers:
He listened to our voice, he saw our destitution, our trouble, our
cruel plight. And God took us out of Egypt with his strong hand and
long arm, terrible and great, with signs and miracle-wonders.
And he brought us to this place, gave us this land flowing
with milk and honey. So here I am. I've brought the firstfruits
of what I've grown on this ground you gave me, O God.
10-11 Then place it in the Presence of God, your God. Prostrate yourselves in the Presence of God, your God. And rejoice!
Celebrate all the good things that God, your God, has given
you and your family; you and the Levite and the foreigner who lives with you. 12-14 Every third year, the year of the tithe, give a tenth of your produce to the Levite, the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow so that they may eat their fill in your cities. And then, in the Presence of God, your God, say this:

I have brought the sacred share, I've given it to the Levite, foreigner,
orphan, and widow. What you commanded, I've done. I haven't
detoured around your commands, I haven't forgotten a single one.
I haven't eaten from the sacred share while mourning,
I haven't removed any of it while ritually unclean,
I haven't used it in funeral feasts.
I have listened obediently to the Voice of God, my God,
I have lived the way you commanded me. 15 Look down from your holy house in Heaven!
Bless your people Israel and the ground you gave us, just as you
promised our ancestors you would,
this land flowing with milk and honey.
16-17 This very day God, your God, commands you to follow these
rules and regulations, to live them out with everything
you have in you. You've renewed your vows today that God is your God, that you'll live the way he shows you; do what he tells you in the rules, regulations, and commandments; and listen obediently to him.
18-19 And today God has reaffirmed that you are dearly held treasure just as he promised, a people entrusted with keeping his commandments, a people set high above all other nations that he's made, high in praise, fame, and honor: you're a people holy to
God, your God. That's what he has promised.

As they came to offer their first fruits
to the Lord they were instructed to recite their own history and all that the Lord had done in their sight. They were called to recognize that all they had came from God-given land.
The act of giving back to the Lord some of what He had provided for them was
very much an act of WORSHIP. Not only was the giving an act of worship but it
was to be brought with rejoicing and celebration.

The tithe was never meant to be a mere obligation. We are to
come to the Lord, going over what He has done and it should be a cause for great
joy.

Worship, bow low - the very act means that I recognize One Who
is greater than I. It means that I understand which one of us serves the Other.
All that I have I have because He has blessed me. As I bring the offering and
the tithe to Him I am in worship. This time, though, the worship is expressed
with the stuff I live on...sometimes I sing, sometimes I declare His praises.
But I also am called to give.

My faithfulness is worship. My obedience is worship. My songs
are worship. My offering and tithe are worship.

My giving must be done with and in the knowledge that all that I
have is by the Hands of the Gracious God whom I serve. I must guard against
and cast down the thought that anything I have is mine alone.

Bring these words of Yours to my remembrance, O Lord, for in You
and You alone am I able to enjoy any possession. For it is by Your Hand that I
live at all!

Our Loss, His Gain

My nephew died on Tuesday. I have met him only twice. We prayed together once. And why we all lived in the same town but never knew eachother is a long and stupid story. Cole Joseph Stafford (22 years old) loves Jesus. He loves his family and he loves his wife and he loves the kids he pastored.

There was a service for him on Wednesday night. Not a funeral, not anything like that...it was a love gathering for all who knew and were touched by him. It was the family of God, the Body of Christ working properly, crying and laughing and remembering and most of all, with the ripping pain going on inside each and every one of us there was worship in the highest form...as we lifted our voices out of the pain into His Presence we knew this was a Cole and God moment. We could only imagine the holiness of the meeting between the two as Cole was able to see the One Whom he loved so dearly.

I love the church, the body of Christ. When all is said and done, the criticisms, the disputes, the rallying around one doctrine or another, when all is said and done we know what to do and Who to run to. It has been a long time since I have been witness to the loving arms of the body cradling on of the hurting ones as I did Wednesday night.

I love You, Lord. I love that You remain calm in the midst of our storms...that Your Steadiness and Assuredness of what You do is never shaken by our doubts or fear or pain. I love that You put up with us and I love that You still bless us with Your Overwhelming Presence to lead us through this wilderness...

My prayer is for Stacy, Cole's wife of nine months, that the Grace I saw on her this week continue to envelope her, that the Lord keep her from despair. And for Cole's dad, Joe, who loves his children so much, that he too live in the majestic Presence of the Almighty, that he find his way through this loss.

And for the kids he shepherded...his children in the Lord, that they do Cole proud by serving our great God with passion and fire...and for his brothers and sisters, that they run to Him Who is Able, and find Him.

And for his pastor, who loves him like his own son...

May the God of all peace and grace and mercy fill them with the most astounding awareness of Himself...

good-bye Cole...

Worship so far...

I found Jesus in Las Vegas. I knew about Him, I had seen my friends change as they gave their lives to Him during the Jesus Movement in the late 60's and early 70's. I knew He was real, but I never imagined He would want anything to do with the likes of me. I didn't fit into the 'good girl' category.
I ended up in Vegas, that was in '73. After many more bad decisions and dangerous escapades I found Jesus. Funny, He was there, waiting for me. I had come to the end of myself. There were no more things to try, nothing more to do. Everything had failed. Praise God!
But I digress...Here I was, a Brooklyn girl out west, totally passionate about Jesus and a friend drove me out of town to a small church. When we walked through the doors I heard the singing, all these people with their hands raised, singing in the Spirit with the most melodious harmonies. Pastor and a few others were up on the platform with their acoustic guitars. You couldn't hear them. It wasn't about them. The whole church was the choir and the gentleness, the harmonies, the languages, filled my senses and I wept. I had never experienced anything like that ever. My friend led us to a seat. Everyone stood around me. I was overwhelmed with the Presence of God, the gentleness of His Spirit, I recognized it immediately and in my heart I knew I was home. I had never felt at home anywhere up until that point.
That was in June of 1978. I had given my life to the Lord that March, March 9th to be exact. I was baptized in the jacuzzi in the apartments where I lived.
Worship, what is it? It has something to do with music for sure. It was the musicians who went out first when Israel was sent by the Lord to go in and take the land the He had given them. It is service. It is the one ministry that ministers not to the body, though we are affected by it, but it is a ministry wholly unto the Lord. We minister to Him when we worship.
Scripture says that God inhabits the praises of His people. So it is during worship I find myself face to face with the living God. It is here that I hear Him talking to me, showing me what He needs me to see. It is here, in His Presence, that I am safe, and in great health, and right.
Worship is the outward expression of my love for God. My obedience to Him, my service to Him and to others at His Command. Worship is what pours out of me when I lift my voice to Him with the greatest joy, or the deepest sorrow. As I sing and play I know it is because He is Who He is. It has nothing to do with what I want Him to do for me. It has nothing to do with the way I may be feeling. He is God, He changes not and if He never did another thing, He has done more than we ever deserved anyway. He is magnificent, faithful, kind, generous, powerful, and He has decided to allow me to benefit from all this. Worship happens when I reach beyond what I know I am capable of because God is calling me to do it and find a way to trust Him when all of me wants to be scared, or unsure, or just not getting it at all.
It is all about Him, this worship thing. It is Ruth laying at the feet of Boaz, it is David pouring out the drink his men risked their lives to bring to him, it is Joseph silently being wrongfully accused, the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears,etc. It is the Psalmists singing, clapping, playing instruments and telling of the great things of God. it is Moses holding his hands in the air so that the Israelites could win, his hands get weary and Israel begin to lose the battle. Aaron and Hur come alongside him and help him do what God commanded him to do by holding up his hands for him. Worship. it is my whole life laid bare before Him, with the understanding that
'I am not my own, I was bought with a price
I am purchased with the precious Blood of Jesus Christ
All my debt's been paid by His sacrifice
Hallelujah to the Lamb who redeems my life.'

And not being my own, I must, in every thing, look to Him for direction, guidance, consent, validation, worth, satisfaction, courage, strength, patience, endurance, everything.That I know to do this is worhip for it reveals what I think abbout Him. If I can't trust Him, if He is not my Lord, if I don't look to Him for my very life, I am not a worshiper.

As I go now to the Park and have church with the homeless ones, or to the projects to do a craft with the kids, or try to help a young mom get her baby's paperwork in order, I worship and it is worship because I would never have thought to do any of this without the leading of my God. It is not in me to venture in to dangerous places and build relationships. I am more comfortable alone. But that being the case, He is showing me that what good is a great worship song if it is being sung by me if I am in the same breath refusing to go where He wants me to go and do what He wants me to do. Listen,
The worshippers who lead the battles in Israel would have accomplished nothing if they had built a platform and performed greatly. As they sang and made their music they MARCHED IN FRONT of the ones who would do the battle. They were on the front lines of service.
I will sing always, it is what I do best when it comes to expressing myself. But I tell ya, it is not enough for me anymore. I must also march...