Dear Fellow Laborers,
People must worship...it's our nature. It's built in. if we don't worship the one true God...the heart will invent its own god! excessive love for anything is a mockery of God's first commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods...before Me." "See now...that I am He and...there is no god beside me. It is I who put to death and give life, I have wounded and it is I who heal and there is no one who can deliver from my hand." Deuteronomy 32:9 God has a sovereign sway over all events. Every situation is known to Him. Sickness...financial setbacks...family misunderstandings...life's darkest hours...all these happen within the framework of His purposes. No matter what the predicament...God ...is still God! Any object which produces passionate devotion is an imposter leading to idolatry. We laugh at those in the Old Testament who would take a tree, carve it to make an idol and then bow down before it. But if we love success... ambition... prominence... possessions... we have enthroned an idol in our heart. How do you define idolatry? When we long for what we dare not do, ...hunger after what we must not have, ...and lust for what we should not love - this is the start of idolatry. Our attitude toward our circumstances determines our victory or defeat. The same wind that carries one ship into the port will dash another upon the rocks. "Happy is he whose circumstances suit his temper; but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstance." Hume Circumstances are the refining pot. Through trials and temptations, the object of our worship is revealed. Job learned first hand (and so must we) that before the butterfly there is a struggle in the cocoon. There is no feast without a sacrifice. Job's character was matured by trials. He was strengthened by discipline. He was enriched by disappointments. How do we worship God? Isn't worship a love offering from the depths of our inner-most being...expressing an intense sense of the worth-ship of a Holy Awesome God? It is presenting back to God the love that he "shed abroad" in our hearts. WORSHIP...WAITING...WORK...They were always together in the life of Jesus. He 'worshiped' the Father. He 'waited' for His direction. He 'worked the works of Him who sent him. Men must worship something. It is our nature. "What you bend your knee to is what you worship." Where your treasure is there your heart is also. Where is your treasure? What do you worship? Is it the one true God or is it a substitute? The good is the enemy of the best. Your servant for Jesus, Earle Carpenter Comments are closed.
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