Worship God–His Transcendence & Imminence in Two Verses

For our time of worship and in the Word on Sunday, we spent time in these couple of verses in Jude (vs. 24-25). They are from the conclusion of an itty-bitty book at the end of the New Testament (think “intro to Revelation” haha).

As we talked about these couple of verses, we were able to see GOD’s TRANSCENDENCE ( Big-ness, Over-all-ness, Superiority, etc.) and HIS IMMINENCE (Close-ness, Personal-ness, Near-ness etc.). You can see BOTH in this expression, and it’s a beautiful balance of truth!

We honored our God through His Word…and I invite you to contemplate this Scripture and our God for yourself:

“To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.”
‭‭Jude‬ ‭1:24-25‬ ‭NIV‬‬
https://www.bible.com/111/jud.1.24-25.niv

God’s Characteristics from the Bible

HisCharacteristicsWhat is God like? God’s characteristics are described for us throughout the Bible. It is important for us to understand as much as we can about what the Bible says about God. Read each passage below and write out what you find out about God from the Bible verses.

To make it easy for you, each one listed is hyper-linked to Bible Gateway*:

GodCharacteristicsTable

(a picture of the chart contained in the study From Genesis to Jesus)

*Linked to the New Living Translation

Note: This list is an excerpt from Lesson 1 of a full beginners study on the Bible called From Genesis to Jesus.  It is not intended to be an exhaustive list, but a simple and comprehensive list of key characteristics of God for someone new to the Bible and the faith of Christians.

Faith in God is so important…

faithinGod

Faith in God is so important. Am I letting him direct my steps? Westerners (and I include myself here) are such driven people. We rely on statistics, we rely on technology, we rely on news and we rely on our experiences and gifts. But we are not always good at learning to wait on the will of God. I have learned and seen true faith in some of these leaders who are being persecuted and have nothing. They truly understand Paul when he writes, “I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil 3:8).


– Paul Borthwick

from Western Christians in Global Mission: What’s the Role of the North American Church?

(Link to my blog of quotes from the book)

The Story of His Glory by Steve Hawthorne

“The Bible is basically a story about God. When we turn to the Bible as a self-help book, we end up bored or frustrated with what seems to be a rambling collection of stories. What if the Bible is more about God than it is about us? How thrilling to discover that every element of scripture—the reports of events, the verses of distilled wisdom, the lyrical prophecies—converge in one central saga of one worthy Person.

“We’re used to the idea that the Bible is a true story. It’s so true that the story is still unfolding to this minute. We are used to hearing that the Bible is a love story. But we tend to see only one side of the love: how God loves people. If the main point of the Bible is that God is to be loved with heart, soul, mind and strength, perhaps it would be wise to read the entire story from God’s point of view. When we look at it all from God’s viewpoint, the grand love story finally makes sense: God is not just loving people. He is transforming them to become people who can fully love Him. God is drawing people as worshipers to offer freely to Him their love-inspired glory.

“God can be loved only when He is known. That’s why the story of the Bible is the story of God revealing Himself in order to draw to Himself obedient worship, or glory, from the nations. With God’s passionate love at the core, the Bible is truly the story of His glory.

“To trace the story of God as the Bible presents it, we need a grasp of three related ideas which define the story at every juncture… READ ON

 

Trusting God by Jerry Bridges for Free on Kindle

Just found out that this book by an amazing man-Jerry Bridges–is free on Kindle from Amazon is FREE…for now!
Trusting God by Jerry Bridges

From a bestselling author comes this truly revelatory and Biblically-grounded resource that seeks to explain some of the most difficult questions we often face when confronted with tragedy, loss, and adversity

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A Simple Way to Organize Your Life by Ed Waken

Priorities

Put the following four words in the correct order of importance;

Work, Family, Church, God


What did you come up with?

Actually, this is a trick question.  The best option is to remove God from the list, put the other three words in any order you’d like and then place God on top of the list.  It might look something like this:

PrioritiesMost of us today would describe our lives as busy.  Probably too busy is more like it.  When we consider our lives as having compartments like work, house work, hobbies, family time, devotional or quiet times with God, church activities, evangelism and on and on, there is simply no way we have time for it all.  However, if we follow the picture above, and we write God over whatever category you place on the list, pretty quickly we can begin to have more time.  How can that happen?.

The Scriptures teach us that “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” (Colossians 3:17).  In this verse we find the principle of writing God over our lives, in all we do.

Here are a couple of suggestions to help you realize the time you need to live a full, faithful and fruitful life.

1. Hold your life open and accessible to God at all times.  Ask Him what His priority is for you in any given situation.  This will require you to die to your agenda and replace it with God’s agenda.  This may require you add a hobby to your life so you will engage a person of peace (Luke 10) and help them to learn to follow Jesus.  It may require that lay down a hobby or other activity that is distracting you from hearing the Lord and following His lead.  Whether God adds, subtracts or rearranges things in your life, you will need to learn to become flexible in some ways as you discipline yourself to follow the Holy Spirit’s lead in your life.

2. Stop seeing life as a bunch of categories (work, rest, play, church etc.) and begin to see your life as a continuous story where God interacts throughout.  When we move in this direction then God is prevalent in every moment.  Whether we are pumping gas, watching a sunrise, straining to lift weights, enduring another meeting at work or spending time leisure around the home, when life is viewed as a continuous action of worship, we find rest and fulfillment.  We are no longer missing out on doing something, we are enjoying God in whatever we are doing.

So stop categorizing and start writing the presence of God over everything you do.  Listen to His voice and follow His lead.  You will more time than you can imagine and more fruit than you ever dreamed possible.

I would love to hear your thoughts. Let me know if this is helpful to you and your church.


©2012 Ed Waken

Originally posted on Ed’s Blog here
Ed tweets @EdWaken
Used with permission.


See also:
Conversations Not Conversions – Ed Waken
Who Is In Charge?: ReTooling Leadership 1
Jesus’ Example: ReTooling Leadership 2
The Leader’s Priority: ReTooling Leadership 3
Organic Evangelism Principles
The Deal on Disciple Making – Video

The Father is a “Seeker”

I had an amazing meditation time today thinking about this:

But the time is coming and is already here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for anyone who will worship him that way. NLT John 4:23

I have read this a gazillion times, but the truth of that last sentence astounded me…the Father is looking for worshippers. WOW. He is the “seeker” of people who will bow their life down toward Him. He is the one on the Go, on the Lookout, the aggressor in nudging people toward worshipping Him.

What an amazing God we serve…one who created us and one who comes after us even when we have built walls between ourself and Him. May we worship–bow our life down towards Him–that way…the way He wants, the way he seeks!

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