Who are you truly worshipping?

Living to praise Him.

One of the most difficult yet powerful things we’ll ever learn is to praise God no matter what we go through. I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed that we tend to “rob” God of His glory; not that we could ever steal His glory from him, but we don’t praise Him enough. I’ve been analyzing my life in light of how much I actually praise God on a daily basis. What I found is that I usually praise Him with all of my heart when things are good and the world looks bright from my perspective, but is this how it should be? Does God deserve our praise only when we feel like praising Him or does He deserve it all the time? God is God in every season of our lives and He deserves our praise! Always. Just the simple fact that He is God is such a reason to praise Him! We need to be intentional about praising God often, even in those moments when we don’t really feel like praising Him. When we choose not to praise Him, our actions are actually saying that He is not worthy of our praise at that specific moment in our lives because He is less than God in our eyes. How sinful that is! Praising God only when things go my way proves to me that I somehow think I have full control over my life and that things need to be done according to my own plans. I am God. You know what me being in control would literally mean? Chaos! I so know that I’m not capable of being in control of my life and that even my “best” plans come nowhere close to God’s wisdom and understanding! We need to reevaluate the way we see ourselves in comparison to God. You’ll be surprised how much this really shapes your relationship with God! True praise flows from a heart that truly understands who God is and who we are in relationship to Him. When we allow Him to take over and it’s no longer about us, we can’t help but praise Him! Oh, how worthy He is of our praise! Every moment of every day…even when things aren’t going according to our expectations! My prayer is that we will turn our eyes upon Jesus. We have so many reasons to praise Him! So many!!! Praise Him in the morning, praise Him all throughout your day, praise Him at night, praise Him even as you drift to sleep because He is worthy! As we praise God with all of our heart, we join in with the heavenly beings who never cease singing His praises! Worship opens the gates of heaven and makes us one with our Creator. We need to dedicate time to simply praise God during our day! It’s because we haven’t been truly worshipping Him that we have become so self-absorbed. We are not God, He is! May we exalt Him and not ourselves!

Is your relationship with God authentic?

A life of pure devotion.

In the midst of living the Christian life, we come to a place where we find ourselves lost and unsatisfied. There’s a strong longing for more, but we craftily cover it up with the busyness of this world every time it makes its way to the surface. The passion that once burned inside our hearts is barely alive, yet there’s a tiny voice that screams through the ashes- telling us to protect the almost invisible flame from vanishing completely. We know this is not the abundant life Jesus talked about during His life here on earth, but we are too caught up in the things of this world to see what’s truly going on. It’s so easy to give our heart’s devotion to something other than God. Anything apart from God that takes His place in our life is an idol. Many times, these idols are not necessarily bad in themselves, but they violate God’s commandment which urges us to love Him above all else. Maybe you’re living a moral life, and you also fluff it up with acts of service, but if God is not first in your life- your efforts are in vain. The truth is, God doesn’t want bits and pieces, He wants your entire heart, mind, body, and soul. The tragedy sometimes is that we go to church on Sunday and worship God only with our lips, but our hearts are far from Him. The closeness that was once felt in our relationship with God is fading away and everything in our life seems to spin out of control. So, what happened? Our heart’s devotion has been stolen by the enemy in a very subtle manner. In most cases, he won’t throw something as heavy as sexual immorality our way because it would be a little too obvious. The enemy wants you to believe that you’re doing everything right because he wants you to have no idea that your heart’s deepest desire is not God anymore. Somewhere along our walk with the Lord, we started to forget that we are living for God, not for ourselves. Deep down inside our hearts, our devotion shifted because we started loving other things more than we love God. The sad part is that we now serve God because of the things we can receive from Him, but we take no time in actually getting to know Him. Worship to us has become a routine that we carry out every Sunday, instead of it being a reflection of the way we live our life throughout the entire week- as a true burnt offering for the Lover of our hearts. Our relationship with God has become dry and shallow over time, and the result of that is a change in us, not God. He always stays the same. Brothers and sisters, let us not allow anything to take the place of God in our lives! God needs to be our top priority. Not family, not friends, not our careers/hobbies, etc. When we become consumed with earthly things instead of making God our reason for existing, our hearts become dead and cold. However, our hearts can become alive and full of passion again! How? By turning our eyes upon God and loving Him more than anything in this life. Love Him not because of what you can benefit from Him, but because He is worthy of your love and complete devotion. Get to know God, read His Word not because you’re expected to, but because you know the power it has and you want that power to unleash in your life. Talk to God. Do not mumble brainlessly, but let your prayers be new every time you spend time in His presence. Remember, He always talks back. Prayer is a conversation, not a monologue. Be ready to listen and obey when He makes you aware of things that need to be changed in your life! He needs to be in control, not you. Finally, let our hearts burn for the One whose heart is filled with a fiery passion towards us!!! God deserves everything we are and more. Will you love God more than anything in this life?