Friday, November 18, 2011

I am reading a new book by Michael Quicke on worship, and he has challenged me about my “worship,” especially in the area of trinitarian worship. I have always prayed and then closed public prayers with the words, “in Jesus name, Amen.” What about the Father and the Spirit? Where is there honor? I know that Jesus said in John 15 that we should ask in His name and that the Spirit would bear witness of Jesus, but since the Father and Spirit are persons of the Godhead, should we not pray with regards and honor to them as well.

Much of Christendom today is unitarian according to Quicke, and I find myself moving in that direction at times. I find the opening and body of my prayers focused on the Father, and the closing focused on Christ with only rare mentions of the Spirit. All three should be glorified in our worship of prayer or in any other methods of worship. I also was challenged, though this had already started some weeks ago, not to call worship the time preceding the preaching in our corporate worship times at Highland. Our worship should not be confined to thirty minutes of songs, or to a church building, or to a specific time. As Steven Curtis Chapman wrote years ago, with his alarm clock waking him at 6 am, “This is a moment made for worshipping.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Today was the first day that you could really feel fall moving in on us here in the North Georgia mountains. The sky was cloudy, there was a mist falling part of the day, and the wind was blowing in a colder air front – It was beautiful! I love this time of year. Even in the time of creation’s dying, there is joy hearing God in the wind, seeing Him move the mighty trees, and knowing that though the leaves may fall and the trees die, they will live again.  Our lives are like that many times. The wind blows, our trunks wave in the winds of adversity, and for a time, we may even die a spiritual, emotional, or even physical death, but we, God’s people, will live again. The fall – the falling of the leaves, the falling of winter, the falling of the temperatures – opens the door to more life in the spring.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011:
There seems to be so many that are suffering right now. I attended a funeral last weekend of a dear friend and one of our church family, Brother Gene Blackburn. Bro. Gene, a pastor and missionary in the Kingdom of Christ for a number of years will be greatly missed. Now, today, I will attend another funeral of a great friend’s grandfather. I remember my sorrow of a year and some months ago when Jerry Raborn, one of the finest men to ever live on this earth, my grandfather, was translated on to glory. I have visited with a terminal cancer patient over the last couple of days and tried to comfort the family of this dying sister. Is it possible that we walk through the valley of the shadow of death in these experiences with those that pass through the valley. It seems that I can feel the darkness and the dampness of that valley, yet the great joy and hope is “Thou art with me.” O Lord, may I never forget, “Thou art with me.” Your promise to which we cling: “Lo, I am with you even to the end….” Amen.