 Communication
This week we are going to start a series on how we worship God with our whole self. I fear that for many of us worship is a category in our lives instead of the totality of our lives. We were made to worship! God both desires and deserves our worship. Since He made us as whole beings then that means that every part of us has a purpose in worship. We won’t be able to exhaust this topic but hopefully we will learn some crucial parts to worshipping God more fully. God is worthy of the worship of our words. God has gifted us with the gift of language and He has chosen to communicate with us through words. As a genuine reflection of His glory we ought to be people always desiring to use our words to honor and magnify His greatness. We know that it is possible to heap up empty phrases (Matthew 6:7) or to honor God with lips that are deceptive and far from God (Isaiah 29:13). But we must be careful not to neglect giving glory to God with our words. Speech is a unique gift granted to us alone among God’s earthly creatures, and it is for use in the worship of God. Prayer This begins with how we talk to God. It matters that we engage in meaningful prayer to God. This does not mean that our prayers need a certain eloquence or loftiness, but we must speak to the Lord of glory with humble and contrite hearts. Jesus taught His disciples to start their prayers with the acknowledgement and recognition of His position and power (Matthew 6:9). From this point we should bring our requests, needs, and concerns before God (Philippians 4:6) because He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7). The purpose here is not to give a teaching on how to pray but simply to remind us that prayer is central to true worship of God with our words. Praise Worshiping God with our words, of course, includes the way that we speak to God in singing. It matters what we are saying when we are singing. Often we are too concerned with how much we enjoy the music to reflect on if the songs are communicating our intended message. We must remember the audience is not the congregation rather the congregation is singing to God. He is the one we are seeking to please. I do not think that God has revealed a style of music that He prefers. In fact the diversity of musical arts across cultures would seem to imply that God is pleased with all kinds of music when the doctrinal message is sound and the hearts are honestly and purposefully engaged. If our singing is mindless or out of control then it certainly isn’t from the Holy Spirit who gives us the fruit of self control. People Worshipping God with our words also involves how we speak about God with others. Danger is at hand when we begin to speak of God or the things of God in any way that is irrelevant or vain. Our conversation with both saints and sinners about our great God must be thoroughly biblical to be at all meaningful. For us to be able to take up the right way of speaking to God and about God to others we must speak rightly about God to ourselves. What I mean is that we must feed ourselves on God’s revelation of Himself in His word. If we are truly being led by the Spirit and feeding on God’s word two things will be evident in our communication with other people. First we will speak the truth. We will not be false or fictitious. We will not be trying to cover up or fool others. We will be open and transparent. Secondly we will speak with true love. We will communicate out of a genuine sacrificial affection for the image bearers of God that we are speaking to and with about God or anything else(Ephesians 4:15). So brothers and sisters may we let the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in the sight of our Rock and Redeemer (Psalm 19:14).
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