When the Holy Becomes Common
I love when I go to church and it's about stuff that God's already started teaching me, but the message at church just expands it and makes it incredibly real. That's happened to me the last couple of weeks. Last week I ignored the teaching and pretty much did the opposite all week. This week I think I have no choice but to take it to heart.
There were three quotes from church that just hit me hard, so I'll just take them in order:
"When the Holy becomes common..."
This one really hit home for me. I've been going to church and trying to follow God as best as I knew how to at the time for as long as I can remember. But too often I stop being in awe of God and his love for me and grace that He lavishes upon me and it becomes a common thing, as if that's the only way it could be. And that just leaves me open to drifting from God, because I start thinking of Him as cheap and that I can always run back to Him when I need Him. God is not cheap and His Holiness is amazing, and not at all common. I need to give Him praise and reverence as if He is the Creator of the Universe and King of my soul, not a forgotten relative...
"The first thing we lose is our song..."
I think I lost my song a long time ago. Shortly after I switched to the more evangelical style of worship, I started fighting with worship songs. They were never good enough for me. Whenever we sang I always thought about how the song was wrong or emphasized the wrong thing. I made the songs about me and my misgivings with them, and not about Him. So at many points during the last several years, I've stopped singing. And more recently, I've had one of the toughest months in a long while. April was just horrible in many respects. And because I was going through hardship, I lost my song. I didn't sing worship to God, but instead wanted Him to fix everything. And when He didn't fix everything right away, I turned to sin. I made it all about myself, when what I needed to do was get my eyes off of myself and affix them on Him. Sing praises to God, for He is good, even if my circumstances aren't. I just need to set everything at His feet and trust that He is got the best plan in mind for me. Definitely not easy, but definitely necessary if I am to keep my sanity and not mess things up even more by taking control myself and steering things the wrong way. May I never lose my song, a song that is powerful enough to crush the armies of Satan and join my spirit to God's Spirit.
"May you never get over your salvation..."
A lot of times I take my salvation for granted. I look at salvation as being an elementary thing in the Christian life and something I don't need to think about anymore because I know it already. Especially when I'm going through trials or have big decisions to make, I attempt to look to God to answer the questions I have, but I forget about the salvation He's given me. I take it for granted and lose the awe that I need to have. For if there is anything that is truly awesome, it is God's love and grace poured out to us in the form of Jesus on the cross. I'll never fully understand it, and never be able to repay it. Yet I take it for granted and even feel like I deserve it at times. Again, I need to take my eyes off of myself and my needs and desires, and affix them on Jesus, whose death on the cross gives me freedom from sin's power and is the most amazing act of love that has ever occurred in the history of the world. And it was for me. May I always be in awe of the salvation that was given me, no matter what my circumstances may be.
So to close, one of the greatest verses of one of the greatest worship songs ever written, that to me, combines the three quotes above into one amazing song of praise:
My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
It is well with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
There were three quotes from church that just hit me hard, so I'll just take them in order:
"When the Holy becomes common..."
This one really hit home for me. I've been going to church and trying to follow God as best as I knew how to at the time for as long as I can remember. But too often I stop being in awe of God and his love for me and grace that He lavishes upon me and it becomes a common thing, as if that's the only way it could be. And that just leaves me open to drifting from God, because I start thinking of Him as cheap and that I can always run back to Him when I need Him. God is not cheap and His Holiness is amazing, and not at all common. I need to give Him praise and reverence as if He is the Creator of the Universe and King of my soul, not a forgotten relative...
"The first thing we lose is our song..."
I think I lost my song a long time ago. Shortly after I switched to the more evangelical style of worship, I started fighting with worship songs. They were never good enough for me. Whenever we sang I always thought about how the song was wrong or emphasized the wrong thing. I made the songs about me and my misgivings with them, and not about Him. So at many points during the last several years, I've stopped singing. And more recently, I've had one of the toughest months in a long while. April was just horrible in many respects. And because I was going through hardship, I lost my song. I didn't sing worship to God, but instead wanted Him to fix everything. And when He didn't fix everything right away, I turned to sin. I made it all about myself, when what I needed to do was get my eyes off of myself and affix them on Him. Sing praises to God, for He is good, even if my circumstances aren't. I just need to set everything at His feet and trust that He is got the best plan in mind for me. Definitely not easy, but definitely necessary if I am to keep my sanity and not mess things up even more by taking control myself and steering things the wrong way. May I never lose my song, a song that is powerful enough to crush the armies of Satan and join my spirit to God's Spirit.
"May you never get over your salvation..."
A lot of times I take my salvation for granted. I look at salvation as being an elementary thing in the Christian life and something I don't need to think about anymore because I know it already. Especially when I'm going through trials or have big decisions to make, I attempt to look to God to answer the questions I have, but I forget about the salvation He's given me. I take it for granted and lose the awe that I need to have. For if there is anything that is truly awesome, it is God's love and grace poured out to us in the form of Jesus on the cross. I'll never fully understand it, and never be able to repay it. Yet I take it for granted and even feel like I deserve it at times. Again, I need to take my eyes off of myself and my needs and desires, and affix them on Jesus, whose death on the cross gives me freedom from sin's power and is the most amazing act of love that has ever occurred in the history of the world. And it was for me. May I always be in awe of the salvation that was given me, no matter what my circumstances may be.
So to close, one of the greatest verses of one of the greatest worship songs ever written, that to me, combines the three quotes above into one amazing song of praise:
My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
It is well with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
posted by jbirdjavi at 10:30 PM
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