Quote 4168
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Worship is no longer worship when it reflects the culture around us more than the Christ within us.
Not only is music rarely associated with worship in the New Testament but the Pentateuch is altogether silent on music associated with tabernacle worship. All of this highlights our skewed preoccupation with music in the current conflicts over worship.For the Glory of God (xi)
(1) True worship involves an engagement with God and is focused on him. According to Jesus himself, true worship focuses not on the place but on the person of Christ, who is Yahweh incarnate (John 4:21–24). (2) True worship occurs at the invitation of the Lord and must be conducted on his terms. (3) True worship is communal. In worship the redeemed gather to celebrate the kindness that God has lavished on us collectively, without merit and without prejudice. Furthermore, true worship tears down the barriers of gender, class, and race. As Paul writes in Galatians 3:28, in the presence of God "there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor
female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (4) True worship is driven by a deep sense of gratitude to God, first for his redemption, and second for his lavish daily provision. In true worship our focus is not on what we are doing for him but on what he has done for us. For this reason true worship should be a joyful event, not a burden to be legalistically borne. (5) Finally, true worship involves the lavish offering of one's resources and even oneself (Rom. 12:1) in sacrifice to and for the service of Christ.Deuteronomy (The NIV Application Commentary) (p. 398). Zondervan
You cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself.
We praise what we enjoy because the delight is incomplete until it is expressed in praise.
There is an evangelical repentance which lies.—1. In a true sight and sense of sin; in a sight of it, as in itself considered as exceeding sinful in its own nature, and not merely as in its effects and consequences ruinous and destructive; not only in a sight of it in the glass of the divine law, but as that is held in the hand, and seen in the light of the blessed Spirit: and in a sight of it as contrary to the pure and holy nature of God, as well as repugnant to his will, and a breach of his law; and in a view of it as it appears in the glass of pardoning love and grace.—2. In a hearty and unfeigned sorrow for it; this sorrow for it is the rather because it is against God, and that not only as a holy and righteous Being, but as good, and gracious, and merciful, of whose goodness, both in providence and grace, the sinner is sensible; the consideration of which increases his sorrow, and makes it the more intense and hearty.
There is a legal and there is an evangelical repentance.—A legal one, which is a mere work of the law, and the effect of convictions of sin by it, which in time wear off and come to nothing; for,—1. There may be a sense of sin and an acknowledgment of it, and yet no true repentance for it, as in the cases of Pharaoh and of Judas, who both said, I have sinned; yet they had no true sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, nor godly sorrow for it.
There is a hypocritical repentance, such as was in the people of Israel in the wilderness, who when the wrath of God broke out against them for their sins, returned unto him, or repented, but their heart was not right with him, Psalm 78:34–37; so it is said of Judah, she hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the Lord; and of Ephraim, or the ten tribes, they return, but not to the Most High, they are like a deceitful bow, Hos. 7:16, who turned aside and dealt unfaithfully.
There is an external repentance, or an outward humiliation for sin, such as was in Ahab, which, though nothing more, it was taken notice of by the Lord, Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? and though it lay only in rending his clothes, and putting on sackcloth, and in fasting, and in a mournful way, yet the Lord was pleased to promise that the evil threatened should not come in his days, 1 Kings 21:29. And such is the repentance Tyre and Sidon would have exercised, had they had the advantages and privileges that some cities had, where Christ taught his doctrines, and wrought miracles; and of this kind was the repentance of the Ninevites, which was also regarded of God, Matt. 11:21.
Repentance is expressed by sorrow for sin.
It is a change of the mind for the better, and which produces change of action and conduct: this, as it is expressive of true repentance, flows from the understanding being enlightened by the Spirit of God, when the sinner beholds sin in another light than he did, even as exceeding sinful; and loaths it, and abhors it and himself for it.
Some because of their sinful lusts they indulge themselves in, and their contempt of the means of light and knowledge, and the stubborn choice they make of error and falsehood, are given up to judicial blindness and hardness of heart; as many among the heathens, who because they liked not to retain God in their knowledge, were given up to a reprobate mind, or to a mind void of judgment, and so imbibed notions and performed actions not convenient
There is in many an affected ignorance, which is very criminal; they are willingly ignorant, as the apostle says of the scoffers who shall arise in the last time, or rather they are unwilling to understand what they might, they know not, nor will they understand, they walk on in darkness; they do not choose to make use of but shun the means of knowledge, and shut their eyes against all light and conviction;
Let it be observed, that while men are in a natural, unregenerate, and unrenewed state, they are destitute of divine knowledge; the time before conversion is a time of ignorance; this was not only the case of the Gentile world in general, before the gospel came unto them, but is of every particular person, Jew or Gentile
It is godliness which distinguishes between one who truly serves and worships God, and one that serves and worships him not.https://www.monergism.com/worship-god-or-practical-religion-ebook
if we sing his praise, it should be with melody in our hearts to the Lord; herein lies powerful godliness; and godliness is the ground-work of internal worship, and without which there can be no worshipping God aright, and therefore it deserves our first consideration.https://www.monergism.com/worship-god-or-practical-religion-ebook
if the heart is not engaged in worship bodily exercise is of little advantage, that being only the form without the power of godliness; yea vain is such worship where the heart is far removed from God.https://www.monergism.com/worship-god-or-practical-religion-ebook
The New Testament shows a stunning indifference to the outward forms and places of worship. At the same time, there is a radical intensification of worship as an inward, spiritual experience that has no bounds and pervades all of life.Expository Exultation, 28
Human beings by their very nature are worshipers. Worship is not something we do; it defines who we are. You cannot divide human beings into those who worship and those who don't. Everybody worships; it's just a matter of what, or whom, we serve.
True worship involves reverential human acts of submission and homage before the divine Sovereign in response to his gracious revelation of himself and in accord with his will.For the Glory of God (23)
Edith Humphrey correctly identifies five maladies that plague worship in the North American church: (1) trivializing worship by a preoccupation with atmospherics/mood (it's all about how worship makes me feel); (2) misdirecting worship by having a human-centered rather than God-centered focus (it's all about me, the worshiper); (3) deadening worship by substituting stones for bread (the loss of the Word of God); (4) perverting worship with emotional, self-indulgent experiences at the expense of true liturgy; and (5) exploiting worship with market-driven values.For the Glory of God (xii)
A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell. The Problem of Pain (53)
The essence of worship lies in our mind's true vision of God and our spirit's true authentic affections for God.
Some bodily worship is necessary to give liberty to our own devotion; yea though in secret, so more when with others . . . 'Tis necessary that there should be something bodily and visible in the worship of a congregation; otherwise, there can be no communion at all. Miscellanies #101
We're thinking about him whom angels gaze in adoring wonder as the beauty of His person glows before their very eyes and they do not ever feel that a slice of eternity is already too much as they gaze at his glory. No! Eternity, to the thousands upon thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand angels is nothing! Too short in seeking to know something of the glory of His person. Rezolution 2010 - Christ and Him Crucified http://www.rezolution.co.za/Messages.html
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