Tag: surrender

Created to Worship

by Emily Rose MasseyDevotionals

Did you know that everyone was created to worship?

Yes, even those who would not consider themselves religious worship something or someone. 

Worship is ascribing worth to something or someone.

It is what you devote your time, your devotion, your affection, your finances, your heart to. If you allow yourself to really reflect on this, you will know in your heart where all of those things in your life are going to. 

As humans, we were created to worship God, but once sin came into the world, we started to worship anything but God. This tension, to worship God vs anything/anyone else, exists in the heart of every single man, woman, and child.

If you worship anyone or anything besides God Almighty, the Bible calls those people or those things idols. And when it comes to God, He doesn’t want you to give yourself away fully to anything or anyone but Him. He’s not egotistical or prideful, He just loves us so much and wants us to see the world and people like He does.

Worshiping God creates an atmosphere in our hearts that is conducive to see God mold us more and more into the image of Jesus Christ, His Son. We are fixing our attention and affections on giving God the upmost glory in and through our lives. Seeking God first and foremost in our life, means our hearts begin to long for the things of God versus the things of this world more and more each day that we walk with God.

The more we worship God by giving Him first place in our lives, our heart then becomes a breeding ground for selfless love to be produced in us and through us.

When the Lord begins to sanctify us and mold us and change our hearts, we are then able to love others with the Father’s love. 

In Matthew 22, Jesus responds to a group of Pharisees and Sadducees when he is asked what was the greatest commandment in the law:

“And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’38 This is the great and [o]foremost commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets’”

Matthew 22:37-40, NASB

In prayer one day, as I was pondering this, I began singing this simple chorus:
Cultivate the ground of my heart

Til it yields a harvest of lasting fruit

For Your purpose

For Your plan…

How does God cultivate the ground of your heart?

Through worship- seeking God Almighty first and foremost and surrendering your life completely to Him more and more every day.

Worship is not just singing to the Lord (although that’s important). It is denying yourself and saying “yes” to Him every single day of your life. From seeking Him in prayer or by sharing the gospel with those God places in your path or by praying for those who are hurting, every “yes” to God is worship. When we love God with all that we are, our hearts can’t help but overflow with His love for others. 

Worship is a lifestyle.

It is constantly telling God “More of You and less of me” every day. Every time we obey God and say “yes” to Him, we give Him glory. We give Him worth with our words and our actions. Every father wants to see their children mature and succeed their love walk, and our Heavenly Father wants the same for us.

Take some time to reflect upon what is getting all of your attention, affections, and time. Who or what do you worship? Yourself? Your plans? Your job? Money? Nice clothes? Everything in this world will pass away, except for love (1 Corinthians 13). Are there areas in your life that you are holding back from God?

The more we say “yes” to God, the more He molds our hearts and they will overflow with His perfect Love. 

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Longing for the whole Truth!

by Emily Rose MasseyDeception / Discernment

Today, I’m simply here to just write.

Vent, I guess you could say…

…gracefully vent.

*Sigh*

I’m going through something right now. Actually, my husband and I are both going through something right now.

Little by little, we have been placed in situations of surrender and letting go of things we were holding onto for security and comfort and learning how to fully trust God alone.

The house.

The furniture.

The freedom of being a stay-at-home mom to then take on a side job to help out some friends.

And now our place of Sunday worship.

Over the last several months, everything that has been the foundation of our faith has been challenged, and we are left unlearning a lot of things once again. We are searching out the scriptures to discover why we believe what we believe. And what we have discovered is that we don’t believe, or agree with, much of what we have been taught.

Needless to say, it’s been challenging…

…especially for my husband, Paul, since he sat under the same teaching for 20 plus years of his life (almost 25), and after we left the church he grew up at in 2010, we were led to a church whose pastor also sat under that very same teaching for years.

When you hear the same teaching for 20 plus years of your life and you trust your pastor more than God, you embrace what you are being told as truth.

And sometimes as the only truth.

But there’s a problem with that- we need to find truth in the Word of God alone and not necessarily an interpretation of what you are being told is truth. It becomes a danger because we never line up what is being said from the pulpit with what the Word of God really says. We should trust the Holy Spirit to be our teacher. We cannot just embrace everything that proceeds out of the pastor’s mouth because, honestly, he should know more than us, right?

Sadly, this happens more often than not in the churches of America. Many people do not read their Bible, and we put all the responsibility on the pastor to feed us, teach us, guide us. His job is to definitely help us learn, but most importantly, encourage us and equip us to go home and study out what we just heard. He was never supposed to walk out our walk with God for us.

A scripture taken out of context and twisted to fit our methods, principles, main points, and often, our fleshly desires, has been genetically modified, my friends. #SayNoToGMO

We can’t just embrace everything we hear from people. It must line up with the totality of God’s Word, what is called the whole counsel of God. Not just one scripture…the WHOLE THING! Much of what is heard on a Sunday morning is out of context. We have experienced this first hand, and the Lord had to reveal it to us the more we studied out His Word for ourselves!

I don’t write all of this as a jab at any pastor or man/woman of God in particular, I’m just simply expressing where we are in our walk. We have been disappointed countless times by numerous teachers of God’s Word, whether those we have sat under, or those we have listened to through the information super-highway.

We aren’t giving up on the Church. Although we are disappointed, we aren’t surprised. The Word of God explains to us that this is going to happen in the Last Days. And clearly, we are in the Last Days!

My husband is responsible for our family. I am responsible for my own heart and what my son hears and has sown into his heart until he is old enough to guard his own heart.

Above all, we must always judge what we are hearing, even if it is coming from the pulpit.

Don’t allow people to tell you that you are not supposed to judge…

…that’s a real popular topic among believers and non-believers alike.

Jesus tells us:

“Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.”

John 7:24, NKJV

What is “righteous judgment?”

“Judgment” in Greek in this particular verse means “the concept of determining the correctness of a matter.”

Use the word of God to discern what is false and what is unrighteous (Hebrews 4:12).

“If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.”

1 Timothy 6:3-5, ESV

Let the Word of God light your way, every single step. The Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth and peace.

I’m holding onto the Word, who is also Jesus, the Word made flesh! He’s our only hope in these times of testing and times of deception we all face!

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