One way windows and worship

Here's what I know:

Sometimes people, in any given congregation, think that there is a one-way window that is between the platform and the chairs or pews.

That they can see the people on the stage, but that the people on the stage can't see them.

Coming in late.  Choosing not to worship.  Bored with worship.  Not participating. 

OR:

Coming on time.  Choosing to worship.  Excited about worship.  Participating.

Please know this:  You are not invisible as you sit or stand out in the audience!

Those of us who minister from the platform do see you!

And we see and know who worships God and who doesn't.

But here is what I also know:

More importantly, God sees your worship!

And God wants you to know that he is concerned about your worship.

Not somebody else's worship.  God is concerned about your worship.  He longs to hear YOUR words of love, the expressions of YOUR heart, the groanings of YOUR sighs.

God's heart is drawn to you.

Individually.

You might say if not think, "God has all the other people in the congregation today who are worshipping, he doesn't need my worship."

But God is not satisfied unless YOU are pouring out your love to him.

Don't expect someone else to do your worshipping for you.

And when  you do, your perspective begins to change.

There is a renewal of your mind and a renewal of your perspective until you begin to be lifted up in y our spirit above all the burdens and trials of your life.

If worship does anything, it lifts us up.  It lifts us up above all of the stuff of life.

It is so easy for us to walk into the sanctuary, the chapel, and when we walk in there, to be so consumed mentally with our jobs and our kids and our bills and everything else.

It is so easy to walk in and let all of those other thoughts begin to have command of our mind.

But as you and I focus on God - and fall on our faces before God, he lifts us up.

Peter tells us in I Peter 5:5,6, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.  Humble yourselves therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time."

As we begin to let go of our pride and bow down before God in worship, he begins to lift us up above those jobs and those bills and those heartaches and those broken relationships.

And all of a sudden, we begin to say, God is El Shaddai," or "God is all powerful," "God is Lord over my relationships, my fiances, my job, my health."

I encourage you today to take ownership of your worship - and know that God is watching - with outstretched arms of love.

Just a thought for a Thursday.