My Doxology

This week I've been studying the word "Doxology" and I came across some really good material. For years, especially as a kid, I was under the impression that whenever the worship leader would stand up and most of the time at the end of the service, he would say, "Let's stand and turn to the front cover of your hymnal and sing the 'Doxology'.", I thought that meant literally, the song that ended the service. Silly, right? (I know you've been there too.)

Now with a little clearer understanding (and that I'm not a kid anymore), "Doxology" simply means to attribute praise to or the act of attributing praise to God. We are singing the familiar hymn, Doxology, this weekend in church and I wanted to unpack that word just a bit before we sing it, in hopes of bringing people to a new place of worship as they ascribe praise to our God together.

As Paul was writing to the churches, he writes a great doxology in the first chapter of Ephesians. Here are a few key passages to give you an idea of what he is doing in giving praise to God.

³Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
In love ⁵he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— ⁶to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory.

It is to our benefit and his pleasure that we praise him. What Paul was writing describes the church praising God because of his glory made known to us and in us. We praise him for his grace. We praise him for every heavenly blessing. We praise him for the Holy Spirit who is a deposit of our inheritance of our future eternal glory in heaven. Any one of those is reason enough. I hope that I get this in my life. All of what I have is a reason to praise him. All that you have is a reason to praise him. I would even go as far as to say that all that I don't have is still reason to praise him.

In the end, I think what Paul might be getting at (and what I think he hoped for in his own life as a servant of Christ) was that our lives should be a Doxology to Him.

Let me know what reasons you have in your life to praise Him...

Samurai Worship

“One who is samurai must, before all things, keep constantly in mind, by day and by night… that he has to die.” - Daidoji Yuzan (16th Century)

From what I understand about samurai, their lives were lived with the utmost respect given to the power of their enemies, yet all the while knowing full well that to do battle with such an enemy would bring glory either way that engagement ended. To die honorably was to have lived honorably. To defeat the foe was to have done ones duty with honor and respect. Both brought glory to the lord or emperor represented by the samurai.

That’s what worship is for us. A simple, yet determined practice of living that will one day bring glory to the Lord that we represent.

“The Word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual perfection. And we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.” – A. W. Tozer

I love that quote. It emphasizes the need for us to be completely holistic in our response to God's Word. To be samurai-like in our pursuit of Christ-like perfection. Christianity and the practice of it, we call it worship, it not something to be given a brief glance and then discarded like the practice of most mundane thing. It’s much more than simply, “time to make the donuts”. It’s a diligent devotion, carried out in the every day happenings from the actions we take to the thoughts that make those actions come to life.

It is God perfecting in us, the art of servanthood.

Worship Fool

Here I sit on a Wednesday afternoon, throat hurting and sinuses aching, waiting for the weekend because Future of Forestry is coming to town and they are leading worship in my stead this weekend. "Gazing" brought me to tears last night as I was listening to the set list for this weekend's services. It got me thinking...

In all of God's creation, I am created as the epitome of it all. No other thing in all of creation was given as much power, thought, energy, time, consideration, likeness, and potential sin as I. God in all of his wisdom thought it the very best thing to create me in his image knowing full well that I come with baggage. A life full of sin. A life full of questions. A life full of annoyance for lack of a better excuse. And still He chose to love me and put me above everything else in creation.

What a foolish, benevolent King! (If only I were that foolish...)

1 Corinthians 1:25 says, "For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength."

What if we began to act in godly foolishness? What if we began to worship with a holy, foolish abandon? What if... I'm tired of asking the "what if" questions. As if that ever prompted anyone to make a choice one way or another. As for me, I'm going to do my best to step outside my "foolish" comfort zone and try to present myself to God in the most foolish way possible. Yikes.