New Hope

        Our Pastor has spoke the last two weeks on Romans 12: 1 & 2. At the same time I have been reading Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life. Being a living sacrifice means so much more to me than I can ever imagine. Our Pastor quoted the old saying, "The problem with a living sacrifice is that they keep crawling off the alter". I fell I have been crawling off and on the alter all my life and that just makes me a   crispy critter with no effectiveness.

       Today I was reading through my favorite  blogs  A Holy Experience. She told the story of a community that did not crawl off the alter. Not to make a world record, not to get in the paper,  but just to show worship to God her community gave a field of soy bean to feed the poor.     Ann Voskamp is the writer of A Holy Experience and her husband was one of the combine drivers. 

                    120 combines lined up around one field — 160 acres of soybeans.

       This weekend I will be leading my church ladies in singing worship at our annual retreat. I have struggled with the use of the word "Worship" for the singing portion of our service. Not because I do not think it is worship, but because it  is not exclusively worship. We are to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. Rick Warren said, "There is no such thing as Christian music, just Christian lyrics." Our tunes are strictly cultural.  That statement spoke volumes to me. I want to lead the ladies in worship all weekend in all I do, not just singing.

      So, this weekend as I lead the ladies in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs I will know that I am leading them "to" worship. Our worship is, or should be what we are doing all day long. Whatever we do is to bring glory to God.  I must continually  say it to myself, because my nature has other ideas. God doesn't just want my time when I am singing in my car on the radio or in church on Sunday morning to be "Worship". My spiritual act of worship is honoring God all day long with everything I do.

                                  
                                      "...whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."