GOD'S PRESENCE ON MONDAY

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“Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”  1 Corinthians 10:31
On Monday, as we go about our different duties and tasks, are we aware of the Presence of God? The Lord desires still to be in His holy temple, wherever we are. He wants the continuing love and delight and worship of His children, wherever we work.
Is it not a beautiful thing for a businessman to enter his office on Monday morning with an inner call to worship: “The Lord is in my office—let all the world be silent before Him.”
If you cannot worship the Lord in the midst of your responsibilities on Monday, it is not very likely that you were worshiping on Sunday!…
I guess many people have an idea that they have God in a box. He is just in the church sanctuary, and when we leave and drive toward home, we have a rather faint, homesick feeling that we are leaving God in the big box.
You know that is not true, but what are you doing about it?

 

Discharging our Obligation

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…Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.—Ephesians 5:8-10
I have to be faithful to what I know to be true, so I must tell you that if you will not worship God seven days a week, you do not worship Him on one day a week….
Too many of us try to discharge our obligations to God Almighty in one day—usually one trip to church. Sometimes, nobly, we make it two trips to church, but it’s all on the same day when we have nothing else to do—and that’s supposed to be worship. I grant you, sir, that it can be true worship, provided that on Monday and Tuesday and the other days you also experience the blessings of true worship.
I do not say that you must be at church all of the time—how could you be?
You can worship God at your desk, on an elevated train, or driving in traffic. You can worship God washing dishes or ironing clothes. You can worship God in school, on the basketball court. You can worship God in whatever is legitimate and right and good….
So that’s all right. We can go to church and worship. But if we go to church and worship one day, it is not true worship unless it is followed by continuing worship in the days that follow.

WORSHIP SEVEN DAYS A WEEK

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But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him.—Habakkuk 2:20
So I’ve got to tell you that if you do not worship God seven days a week, you do not worship Him on one day a week. There is no such thing known in heaven as Sunday worship unless it is accompanied by Monday worship and Tuesday worship and so on….
We come into God’s house and say, “The Lord is in His holy temple, let us all kneel before Him.” Very nice. I think it’s nice to start a service that way once in a while. But when any of you men enter your office Monday morning at 9 o’clock, if you can’t walk into that office and say, “The Lord is in my office, let all the world be silent before Him,” then you are not worshiping the Lord on Sunday. If you can’t worship Him on Monday you didn’t worship Him on Sunday. If you don’t worship Him on Saturday you are not in very good shape to worship Him on Sunday.
“Lord, permeate my whole life with a spirit of worship—all week long, every day. Amen.”

WHAT GOOD IS IT?

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And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” —Isaiah 6:3
If you want to pray strategically, in a way which would please God, pray that God might raise up men who would see the beauty of the Lord our God and would begin to preach it and hold it out to people, instead of offering peace of mind, deliverance from cigarettes, a better job and nicer cottage….
What good is all our busy religion if God isn’t in it? What good is it if we’ve lost majesty, reverence, worship—an awareness of the divine? What good is it if we’ve lost a sense of the Presence and the ability to retreat within our own hearts and meet God in the garden? If we’ve lost that, why build another church? Why make more converts to an effete Christianity? Why bring people to follow after a Savior so far off that He doesn’t own them?
We need to improve the quality of our Christianity, and we never will until we raise our concept of God back to that held by apostle, sage, prophet, saint and reformer. When we put God back where He belongs, we will instinctively and automatically move up again; the whole spiral of our religious direction will be upward.

HONOR THIS PURPOSE

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When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.” —Genesis 17:1
Without argument, most things are at their best when they are fulfilling their purpose and design.
For instance, a piano is made with a specific purpose: to produce music. However, I happen to know that someone once stood on a piano in order to put a fastener of some kind in the ceiling. Some artistic women have used piano tops as family picture galleries. I have seen piano tops that were cluttered filing cabinets or wide library shelves. There is an intelligent design in the creation of a piano. The manufacturer did not announce: “This is a good piano. It has at least 19 uses!” No, the designer had only one thought in mind: “This piano will have the purpose and potential of sounding forth beautiful music!”… Do not miss the application of truth here. God was saying to Abraham, “You may have some other idea about the design and purpose for your life, but you are wrong! You were created in My image to worship Me and to glorify Me. If you do not honor this purpose, your life will degenerate into shallow, selfish, humanistic pursuits..
“Lord, so many lives today have indeed degenerated into ‘shallow, selfish, humanistic pursuits.’ Work through me this week to help people with whom I come in contact to see the one purpose for which You created us. Amen.”
 

OUR REASON FOR EXISTENCE

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“Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”—Psalm 29:2
Yes, worship of the loving God is man’s whole reason for existence. That is why we are born and that is why we are born again from above. That is why we were created and that is why we have been recreated. That is why there was a genesis at the beginning, and that is why there is a re-genesis, called regeneration.
That is also why there is a church. The Christian church exists to worship God first of all. Everything else must come second or third or fourth or fifth….
Sad, sad indeed, are the cries of so many today who have never discovered why they were born. It brings to mind the poet Milton’s description of the pathetic lostness and loneliness of our first parents. Driven from the garden, he says, “they took hand in hand and through the valley made their solitary way.”
“Oh Lord, we live in a world that has so totally lost its way! How few have any concept at all of their reason for existence. How sad to see so many all around us who ‘took hand in hand and through the valley made their solitary way.’ Use me today to direct at least one to the right path. Amen.”

WORSHIPERS FROM REBELS

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“And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God”.—1 Corinthians 6:11
Sometimes evangelical Christians seem to be fuzzy and uncertain about the nature of God and His purposes in creation and redemption. In such instances, the preachers often are to blame. There are still preachers and teachers who say that Christ died so we would not drink and not smoke and not go to the theater.
No wonder people are confused! No wonder they fall into the habit of backsliding when such things are held up as the reason for salvation.
Jesus was born of a virgin, suffered under Pontius Pilate, died on the cross and rose from the grave to make worshipers out of rebels!
 

REVERENTIAL FEAR OF GOD

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“Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.” —Psalm 33:8
When we come into this sweet relationship, we are beginning to learn astonished reverence, breathless adoration, awesome fascination, lofty admiration of the attributes of God and something of the breathless silence that we know when God is near.
You may never have realized it before, but all of those elements in our perception and consciousness of the divine Presence add up to what the Bible calls “the fear of God.”…
There are very few unqualified things in our lives, but I believe that the reverential fear of God mixed with love and fascination and astonishment and admiration and devotion is the most enjoyable state and the most purifying emotion the human soul can know.

Humbled Before God

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“For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist,” says the Lord. “But on this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word.” —Isaiah 66:2
Worship also means to “express in some appropriate manner” what you feel….
And what will be expressed? “A humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe and astonished wonder.” It is delightful to worship God, but it is also a humbling thing; and the man who has not been humbled in the presence of God will never be a worshiper of God at all. He may be a church member who keeps the rules and obeys the discipline, and who tithes and goes to conference, but he’ll never be a worshiper unless he is deeply humbled. “A humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe.” There’s an awesomeness about God which is missing in our day altogether; there’s little sense of admiring awe in the Church of Christ these days.

 

GUARDING THE MIND

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“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.” Phil 4:8

In light of all the references in the word of God to renewing one’s mind and guarding one’s mind, I am convinced that the battle we face down here on this side of heaven is ultimately won or lost in the mind.
The verse before us today solidifies my conviction, for it is impossible for a person to think both good and evil thoughts at the same time, and an embracing of one automatically excludes the other. There are many persons who win the battle with the externals but struggle and often lose it in the mind. Our thoughts produce our actions.
Let us wholeheartedly seek to obey the exhortation in Phil 4:8 (as with the rest of Scripture) as we see to live a God honoring life.