Devotions this week based on the Message: “BELIEVE: Week 11: Worship”
(NOTE: This sermon series and devotional series is based on a book by Randy Frazee entitled, “BELIEVE.”
You may choose to download or purchase the book as a supplement to your worship and devotional emails.)
Every one of us has a birthday. The day we entered the visible world and were given a name, claimed by a family, and marked the beginning of life on this earth. A birthday is a celebration of life. As a kid, you started counting the days to your next birthday the day after your birthday party! The older you get, you’d like to slow time down a bit!
Each one of us will have a death day (not to be morbid, but it is real). Just yesterday marked three years since a founding member of our church went to heaven and just yesterday a former member also went to heaven. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. Today is what we have.
So make today matter.
How?
King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 8:15
15 So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.
Isaiah wrote in 22:13
But see, there is joy and revelry,
slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep,
eating of meat and drinking of wine!
“Let us eat and drink,” you say,
“for tomorrow we die!”
From which we get the phrase, “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”
Is this really what life is all about? Using each day to GET something for ourselves?
Ecclesiastes is Solomon’s reflection on a world that lacks meaning without a God perspective. Isaiah relates how God was calling his people to repentance, but they were partying hard.
A look at the broader context of each of these passages suggests that this becomes life’s purpose when we don’t see God’s perspective and call on our lives.
Perhaps even more important than our birthday is our spiritual birthday, the day God’s Spirit worked faith in our heart through the power of the Gospel message in baptism or in the hearing of God’s truth.
When God’s Spirit came to work in our hearts, it gives a different perspective to each day. It is a day not for self-gratification, but it is a day for God-glorification!
The psalmist captures the perspective:
Psalm 118:24 This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Every day is a day of rejoicing…of worship! What does that look like?
Perhaps it is summarized in Jesus’ two commands:
Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
Daily worship is expressing our full devotion to the Lord for who he is and what he has done.
1 Corinthians 10:31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
Daily worship is extending the love we have been shown in Christ to others.
1 Peter 4:8,10 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. …10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
Birthdays are milestones, yet each day is a reason to celebrate and maximize the day that has been given to you. One day it will be your last, and then let it be said of us, “He/She spent their life in worship…loving God for all he is and all he’s done and loving others just as they had been loved.”
Worship is life…every day.
Apply: How does life take on more meaning and significance when you look at each day as a gift and opportunity to love God and love the people in your life?
Prayer: Father, thank you for each day that you give us. Let our lives truly be ones captivated by your love for us so that we spend every day in joyful, worshipful response to who you are and all you have done for us! AMEN.