Shout Of The Stones

I belonged to a church once that the pastor stood up at sermon time and read his sermon, word for word, this was before I understood the meaning of worship. The service was way boring. But I was where God wanted me at the time, so I stuck it out. Now if I was to hear this fellow I would Probably “amen” the fine points, even if his mono-tone voice bored me to tears. Why because worship does not come from what people have to say, or how people sound when they sing, or from clapping hands. Real Worship comes from within your heart. Worship is what you give God. Not people!!! When I raise my hands during a song, or if you see tears coming down my face it is not me showing off. It is ME EXPRESSING TO GOD WHAT I FEEL FOR HIM. I really don’t care what anyone thinks at that moment. That is how Jesus wants your affection. I know if you love your wife, your not going to care if someone hears you tell her you love her. Your are not going to be afraid to hold hands in public. So why are we so afraid to show affection to God in public.

The problem with us today is that our love is so superficial. It is an exterior love. We can care less about what we feel as long as others think we are sincere. Folks I don’t care if you think I am sincere. I am a person who has learned to express myself. When the Spirit of God touches me I will shout for Joy. Why, because I do not deserve what God has done for me. I do not deserve the knowledge He has given me, the gifts and talents he has given to me. I deserve death on the cross, the worst punishment ever devised. And if you think about it so do you. We all deserve the punishment Jesus suffered for the things we have done against God.

Romans tells us “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The word all here leaves no room for bargaining. We can’t say “oh, I wasn’t that bad, how could God not see the Good things I have done?”

Throughout the Bible God show us how he feels about sin. The topping on this theological inspiration comes to a head at the cross when Jesus cries out to the Father “why have you forsaken me?” God can’t stand to look at sin or unrighteousness because He is so Holy. So if you have sin in your life you need to get it cleansed. God will not accept your worship if you are trying to hide sin.

Isaiah 13. Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me.

New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations— I cannot bear your evil assemblies.

14 Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates.

They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. 15 When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers,

I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; 16 wash and make yourselves clean.

Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong,

God is telling people (his People) that he will not accept methodical or ritualistic worship. In a lot of churches today that is what we find. We set up a bunch of rules on how we should worship. For instance when you pray you have to say a certain phrase or use chants to praise the Lord. It can be a simple as saying the Lord’s prayer every service or having communion. These things in and of themselves are great. and yes they have their place. But they can become “in the way” and they loose their meaning. By in the way I mean, no matter what, we need to do these things in the order they have been set up. When we have our service planned to the minute that is a good thing when it becomes bad is when we don’t allow God to deviate us from them. We do not leave room For the Spirit to work. when we have to rush through the service to get to everything we have planned, we are not allowing the spirit to work. The alter should be open anytime. If you are being lead by the spirit to give in to salvation you need to go right now. If you wait until the end of the service, you can reason yourself out of it. Satan takes that seed and snatches it from your heart.