Vox Day, while not writing about politics, nevertheless encapsulated the difference:
"When you do things for yourself, you learn to respect yourself and others tend to follow suit. When you get others to do things for you, you learn to develop expectations of others and others tend to conclude that you're a useless and demanding individual. This is not conducive to developing respect.
"So, if you eventually want to be respected by others, either do things yourself or learn to do without them. There is a word for a person who is constantly asking others to do things for them. That word is "child". And while people may like children and harbor great affection for them, they don't respect them. They just don't."
Monday, January 30, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
THE JOY OF DOING NOTHING - R..T. Kendall
(I have made some deletions for brevity)
So far we have been thinking a great deal about what we can do in worship - admittedly in response to the Holy Spirit - but nevertheless our actions of praying, praising, listening, loving and obeying. And of course there is nothing wrong with that. But there is a much deeper level of worship, one in which we are unable to express ourselves verbally or non-verbally - where we are utterly passive. The highest and most intense worship takes place when we can do nothing but be amazed, when we are rendered helpless and speechless with wonder and gratitude, when we just sit back and watch God work. This is what Isaiah is talking about when he says, "For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved~ in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength." (19: 30:15).
In worship at this depth we are kept from even saying, "Thank you." For, at the risk of being misunderstood, I am prepared to say that our gratitude sometimes gets in the way of praise. Gratitude can be an attempt to get the balance even again: Probably you have experienced on a human level something of what I am getting at. Someone does something for you, and you know very well that he or she wants you to be thankful, and you are, so you express your gratitude. You try to be extremely thankful so that this person will really see how you feel. Or you try to return the favour in some way. This gives you a feeling of satisfaction.
Have you ever been placed in a situation in which there was nothing you could say or do? Someone did something immensely wonderful and you weren't able to do anything but feel grateful? Perhaps the person went away, and you wished you could find him or her to say how much you appreciated what was done. And maybe you felt frustrated, and some of your joy was taken away because it was not possible to express your gratitude. On the natural level, we always feel that we must do something.
But Isaiah says that our salvation lies in the fact that we do nothing: "In returning and rest shall ye be saved." I did not say that we feel nothing, but that we do nothing. This, says Isaiah, is the best way to live - the way God wants us to live. It constitutes the greatest joy there is. And even though we are rendered helpless - as though we are just standing there with our mouth wide open - God sees how we feel and knows that we are grateful.
Yet, though this is what God wanted, the people Isaiah was speaking to would not do this. It reads: ". . . in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not." The people wanted to "do" instead. They said, "No; for we will flee upon horses… We will ride upon the swift." And that's the way so many of us are. We can’t imagine getting satisfaction from anything but doing. We must be always working – always on the go. We feel guilty if we are not on the move.
Isaiah 30:15 is set in the context of a solemn rebuke. The people of Israel thought that they had better ideas than God on how to fight their battles - and they had actually turned to Egypt for help. The chapter begins, "Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of me… That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!" (vv. 1-2). They thought that God would understand if they turned to the resources of Egypt for help to fight his battles. They wouldn't listen when God said, "This is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord" (v.9). They only wanted to hear pleasant things. Verse 10 says they were a people "which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits."
As a result, although they claimed that they were doing the Lord's work, they were really rejecting the Holy One of Israel. And the Lord said to them, "Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant." (v.13). They would be destroyed as completely as pottery breaks in pieces: "And he [God] shall break it as the breaking of the potters' vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a shard to take fire from the hearth" (v.14).
Our Christian life must be lived without confidence in works. I don't mean it's to be lived without works, but it is to be lived without relying on what we do to get God's approval. We must not feel conscious of any good we are doing, but must consider that what we are doing is nothing. Jesus said, "But when thou doeth alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth' (Matt. 6:3). And Paul says in Galatians 2:20: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life I now'live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son who loved me, and gave himself for me." As long as we are so impertinent as to conclude that we are saved because we do good things – then we grieve the Spirit and cut ourselves off from the joy which can be ours by trusting in his word alone.
If we are living in frustration and bondage, always checking our spiritual pulse to see whether or not God loves us, and whether we are saved, we show that we are only looking to ourselves. As Calvin said, "If you contemplate yourself, that is sure damnation." It is idolatry, for it shows we are not looking to God. God just wants us to believe his word. And his word says that if we look to him we are saved. "There is life in a look," said Spurgeon.
When we are in heaven singing the praises of God we will know that God did it all from start to finish. But Isaiah’s point it: see this now. Live like this now. Because that is where our strength in living lies. When some people get to heaven and finally realize that they were saved by grace alone, they will look back and think of all the guilt and frustration they went through here below, all their anxiety and rushing about, all their questioning, "Am I a Christian?," and will see just how useless it all was.
After years and years of the Christian life many people still worry about whether they are really Christians. But this is of the devil. He tries to paralyze us and keep us looking inward for our confidence. Whereas if we settled it once and for all by trusting God's word, we could get on with our life and with worshipping God. Don't wait until you get to heaven to find out that you were saved all along! See it now and it will change your whole lifestyle. You will see God work in a manner that you never dreamed of!
I fear also that so much of our worship today is motivated by self-righteousnes. We sing our hymns and pray pious prayers and tell God how much we love him. Hen we leave the church feeling really good inside – but it makes God sick We are like the person who talks about himself all the time; he may enjoyn it, but everyone else is thoroughly fed up!
We may get a good feeling out of saying, `Lord, I love you.' But he sees right through us. So much of our worship is aimed at getting a good feeling for ourselves. We think we have shown God how much we love him, or we feel we have paid our dues, as it were, or have gained some leverage with God by going to church.
Isaiah very much wanted the people to enjoy hearing the voice of God: The way to do this is rest! Hebrews 4:10 says, "For he that is entered into his rest, he alsoe hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his." And the key phrase here is, "from his own works." We need to stop feeling the need to be always on the go. We must stop getting our joy from being involved. If we are frustrated and burnt out, then there is no trust. But when we cease from our work and just do nothing - then we see that God likes us just the way we are - and that is when we worship!
Do we think that we are only important to God when we are doing something? This is the way God wants us to live. When someone does something wonderful for us, we may not always be able to thank them, and they'll never know how we feel. But with God we can be left in awe, and he does know how we feel; He just wants us to enjoy seeing him do what he by himself alone can do.
This is far more than the first ABC of holy living. Some people are paralyzed because they have never got beyond the first steps in sanctification. The first steps are important, but we need to move beyond that level. What Isaiah is doing here – and what the Holy Spirit is doing today - is giving each of us and invitation to enter the big league.
But as long as we are always on the go, trying to bring in the kingdom by our activism, God will just fold his hands and say, "You want to do it? Go on then." Have you wondered Why God isn't working? It's because you're doing the work. So God says, "I'll just wait." And when we run ahead rather than rest, we will always be sorry. When the Israelites said, "We will flee upon horses... We will ride upon the swift," God said in effect, "You certainly will run. You'll stay on the run, and your pursuers will be swift. The day will come when you will have to look to me, and I will be gracious then to you.'"
Many people can't imagine that doing it God's way - the way of faith alone - could turn things around. Some people are running their business affairs in a way that is dishonouring to God, and they say, "Well, we live in a wicked world. We just have to do some of these little shady things." They're frustrated and in trouble because God has folded his arms and said, "Go on - you try it your way." But if they would get it right with God, he'd bless them. He may not make them millionaires, but they'll have peace - which is something they don't have now.
Some people, though they are Christians, are looking to the world for happiness. They think that by living with that worldly crowd, or by going to one more cinema or one more pub, they will somehow get satisfaction. And they justify themselves by saying, "God understands that I have needs." And God lets them do it - but they don't have peace.
There are two principles here which, if we can grasp them, will result in the kind of worship God seeks of us. The first, as we have seen from Isaiah 30:15 and Hebrews 4:10, is that of operating without any fatigue. This is what happens when we get right with God. We just come to him and do it his way. As the NIV puts it, "In repentance and rest is your salvation.” Repentance means "change of mind." It means saying, "God got it right. I agree with him."
How many people are utterly frustrated? They have tried everything and the result has only been fatique. I was talking recently to a minister who had said to me, "I've had to ask for a sabbatical. I’m burnt out." When we don't wait on God and are always trying to do things ourselves, the result is endless turmoil. But if we really want assurance of salvation, God will knock everything out from under us, untile we trust him alone.
To rest in God means that we leave everything to him. We leave it to him to put us in the right place at the right time, and with the right people at the right time, even in the right financial position at the right time. And why is this the way of no fatigue? Well, it is because we get our approval from the blood of Christ, and not from our works, and because we live by the authority of the Spirit of Christ.
The result is that we live and worship in a state of amazement, awe and admiration: which is the second principle I want us to see from Isaiah 30:15. This is because we believe the promise of I John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." The blood of Jesus washes away our sin as though it had never been committed and a fresh beginning always follows. The result is quietness, peace and ease.
And we have quietness over the most difficult situations. Quietness over our deepest fears. For God says, "Leave it to me." We lose the desire to get even with those who have hurt us, and we feel little need to prove ourselves.
Real worship is directed towards one who doesn't want anything from us for what he has done for us. There are no strings attached: God only wants us to trust him. He wants us to experience the joy of doing nothing, nothing but resting on the fact that he loves us. God wants us just to look to him and say, "Lord, I don't know how much I love you. But I know how much you love me." Rest on that and let God love you. Then you will stand in awe.
Then to our surprise we begin to hear God's voice giving us clear instructions. As verse 21 of Isaiah 30 puts it: "Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying: This is the way, walk ye in it." Note the order: first we rest on the fact that God loves us and then we hear him speak. It is a way of no fatigue and of continual amazement.
Mr Poole Connor, the man who founded the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, lived into his nineties and before he died he said, `The longer I live and the older I get, the more amazed I am that God sent his Son into the world to die on a cross for my sins.'
That's the way we are saved. That's the way we are to live. And that's what will bring true worship by the Holy Spirit.
So far we have been thinking a great deal about what we can do in worship - admittedly in response to the Holy Spirit - but nevertheless our actions of praying, praising, listening, loving and obeying. And of course there is nothing wrong with that. But there is a much deeper level of worship, one in which we are unable to express ourselves verbally or non-verbally - where we are utterly passive. The highest and most intense worship takes place when we can do nothing but be amazed, when we are rendered helpless and speechless with wonder and gratitude, when we just sit back and watch God work. This is what Isaiah is talking about when he says, "For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved~ in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength." (19: 30:15).
In worship at this depth we are kept from even saying, "Thank you." For, at the risk of being misunderstood, I am prepared to say that our gratitude sometimes gets in the way of praise. Gratitude can be an attempt to get the balance even again: Probably you have experienced on a human level something of what I am getting at. Someone does something for you, and you know very well that he or she wants you to be thankful, and you are, so you express your gratitude. You try to be extremely thankful so that this person will really see how you feel. Or you try to return the favour in some way. This gives you a feeling of satisfaction.
Have you ever been placed in a situation in which there was nothing you could say or do? Someone did something immensely wonderful and you weren't able to do anything but feel grateful? Perhaps the person went away, and you wished you could find him or her to say how much you appreciated what was done. And maybe you felt frustrated, and some of your joy was taken away because it was not possible to express your gratitude. On the natural level, we always feel that we must do something.
But Isaiah says that our salvation lies in the fact that we do nothing: "In returning and rest shall ye be saved." I did not say that we feel nothing, but that we do nothing. This, says Isaiah, is the best way to live - the way God wants us to live. It constitutes the greatest joy there is. And even though we are rendered helpless - as though we are just standing there with our mouth wide open - God sees how we feel and knows that we are grateful.
Yet, though this is what God wanted, the people Isaiah was speaking to would not do this. It reads: ". . . in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not." The people wanted to "do" instead. They said, "No; for we will flee upon horses… We will ride upon the swift." And that's the way so many of us are. We can’t imagine getting satisfaction from anything but doing. We must be always working – always on the go. We feel guilty if we are not on the move.
Isaiah 30:15 is set in the context of a solemn rebuke. The people of Israel thought that they had better ideas than God on how to fight their battles - and they had actually turned to Egypt for help. The chapter begins, "Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of me… That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!" (vv. 1-2). They thought that God would understand if they turned to the resources of Egypt for help to fight his battles. They wouldn't listen when God said, "This is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord" (v.9). They only wanted to hear pleasant things. Verse 10 says they were a people "which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits."
As a result, although they claimed that they were doing the Lord's work, they were really rejecting the Holy One of Israel. And the Lord said to them, "Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant." (v.13). They would be destroyed as completely as pottery breaks in pieces: "And he [God] shall break it as the breaking of the potters' vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a shard to take fire from the hearth" (v.14).
Our Christian life must be lived without confidence in works. I don't mean it's to be lived without works, but it is to be lived without relying on what we do to get God's approval. We must not feel conscious of any good we are doing, but must consider that what we are doing is nothing. Jesus said, "But when thou doeth alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth' (Matt. 6:3). And Paul says in Galatians 2:20: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life I now'live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son who loved me, and gave himself for me." As long as we are so impertinent as to conclude that we are saved because we do good things – then we grieve the Spirit and cut ourselves off from the joy which can be ours by trusting in his word alone.
If we are living in frustration and bondage, always checking our spiritual pulse to see whether or not God loves us, and whether we are saved, we show that we are only looking to ourselves. As Calvin said, "If you contemplate yourself, that is sure damnation." It is idolatry, for it shows we are not looking to God. God just wants us to believe his word. And his word says that if we look to him we are saved. "There is life in a look," said Spurgeon.
When we are in heaven singing the praises of God we will know that God did it all from start to finish. But Isaiah’s point it: see this now. Live like this now. Because that is where our strength in living lies. When some people get to heaven and finally realize that they were saved by grace alone, they will look back and think of all the guilt and frustration they went through here below, all their anxiety and rushing about, all their questioning, "Am I a Christian?," and will see just how useless it all was.
After years and years of the Christian life many people still worry about whether they are really Christians. But this is of the devil. He tries to paralyze us and keep us looking inward for our confidence. Whereas if we settled it once and for all by trusting God's word, we could get on with our life and with worshipping God. Don't wait until you get to heaven to find out that you were saved all along! See it now and it will change your whole lifestyle. You will see God work in a manner that you never dreamed of!
I fear also that so much of our worship today is motivated by self-righteousnes. We sing our hymns and pray pious prayers and tell God how much we love him. Hen we leave the church feeling really good inside – but it makes God sick We are like the person who talks about himself all the time; he may enjoyn it, but everyone else is thoroughly fed up!
We may get a good feeling out of saying, `Lord, I love you.' But he sees right through us. So much of our worship is aimed at getting a good feeling for ourselves. We think we have shown God how much we love him, or we feel we have paid our dues, as it were, or have gained some leverage with God by going to church.
Isaiah very much wanted the people to enjoy hearing the voice of God: The way to do this is rest! Hebrews 4:10 says, "For he that is entered into his rest, he alsoe hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his." And the key phrase here is, "from his own works." We need to stop feeling the need to be always on the go. We must stop getting our joy from being involved. If we are frustrated and burnt out, then there is no trust. But when we cease from our work and just do nothing - then we see that God likes us just the way we are - and that is when we worship!
Do we think that we are only important to God when we are doing something? This is the way God wants us to live. When someone does something wonderful for us, we may not always be able to thank them, and they'll never know how we feel. But with God we can be left in awe, and he does know how we feel; He just wants us to enjoy seeing him do what he by himself alone can do.
This is far more than the first ABC of holy living. Some people are paralyzed because they have never got beyond the first steps in sanctification. The first steps are important, but we need to move beyond that level. What Isaiah is doing here – and what the Holy Spirit is doing today - is giving each of us and invitation to enter the big league.
But as long as we are always on the go, trying to bring in the kingdom by our activism, God will just fold his hands and say, "You want to do it? Go on then." Have you wondered Why God isn't working? It's because you're doing the work. So God says, "I'll just wait." And when we run ahead rather than rest, we will always be sorry. When the Israelites said, "We will flee upon horses... We will ride upon the swift," God said in effect, "You certainly will run. You'll stay on the run, and your pursuers will be swift. The day will come when you will have to look to me, and I will be gracious then to you.'"
Many people can't imagine that doing it God's way - the way of faith alone - could turn things around. Some people are running their business affairs in a way that is dishonouring to God, and they say, "Well, we live in a wicked world. We just have to do some of these little shady things." They're frustrated and in trouble because God has folded his arms and said, "Go on - you try it your way." But if they would get it right with God, he'd bless them. He may not make them millionaires, but they'll have peace - which is something they don't have now.
Some people, though they are Christians, are looking to the world for happiness. They think that by living with that worldly crowd, or by going to one more cinema or one more pub, they will somehow get satisfaction. And they justify themselves by saying, "God understands that I have needs." And God lets them do it - but they don't have peace.
There are two principles here which, if we can grasp them, will result in the kind of worship God seeks of us. The first, as we have seen from Isaiah 30:15 and Hebrews 4:10, is that of operating without any fatigue. This is what happens when we get right with God. We just come to him and do it his way. As the NIV puts it, "In repentance and rest is your salvation.” Repentance means "change of mind." It means saying, "God got it right. I agree with him."
How many people are utterly frustrated? They have tried everything and the result has only been fatique. I was talking recently to a minister who had said to me, "I've had to ask for a sabbatical. I’m burnt out." When we don't wait on God and are always trying to do things ourselves, the result is endless turmoil. But if we really want assurance of salvation, God will knock everything out from under us, untile we trust him alone.
To rest in God means that we leave everything to him. We leave it to him to put us in the right place at the right time, and with the right people at the right time, even in the right financial position at the right time. And why is this the way of no fatigue? Well, it is because we get our approval from the blood of Christ, and not from our works, and because we live by the authority of the Spirit of Christ.
The result is that we live and worship in a state of amazement, awe and admiration: which is the second principle I want us to see from Isaiah 30:15. This is because we believe the promise of I John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." The blood of Jesus washes away our sin as though it had never been committed and a fresh beginning always follows. The result is quietness, peace and ease.
And we have quietness over the most difficult situations. Quietness over our deepest fears. For God says, "Leave it to me." We lose the desire to get even with those who have hurt us, and we feel little need to prove ourselves.
Real worship is directed towards one who doesn't want anything from us for what he has done for us. There are no strings attached: God only wants us to trust him. He wants us to experience the joy of doing nothing, nothing but resting on the fact that he loves us. God wants us just to look to him and say, "Lord, I don't know how much I love you. But I know how much you love me." Rest on that and let God love you. Then you will stand in awe.
Then to our surprise we begin to hear God's voice giving us clear instructions. As verse 21 of Isaiah 30 puts it: "Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying: This is the way, walk ye in it." Note the order: first we rest on the fact that God loves us and then we hear him speak. It is a way of no fatigue and of continual amazement.
Mr Poole Connor, the man who founded the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, lived into his nineties and before he died he said, `The longer I live and the older I get, the more amazed I am that God sent his Son into the world to die on a cross for my sins.'
That's the way we are saved. That's the way we are to live. And that's what will bring true worship by the Holy Spirit.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Remembering my dad - Editorial
I will always admire my dad. I still haven’t quite got over his death from stomach cancer in 1997. He was a class guy, always willing to help someone in need. A man of integrity, possessing a keen sense of justice, a good sense of humor, he always defended the little guy. I remember him being quite active in his labor union, eventually attaining the status of Shop Steward. He passionately believed that the union kept the company bigwigs in line. He was a tough negotiator, and always had his facts at hand.
Both he and my mom voted Democrat, so of course I became a Democrat. I remember in elementary school we had a mock presidential election, and I was the only one to vote for Democrat turned independent George Wallace. I was surprised that Wallace was so unpopular, because after all, my parents supported him. That Wallace was a racist didn’t even register with me.
Both he and my mom voted Democrat, so of course I became a Democrat. I remember in elementary school we had a mock presidential election, and I was the only one to vote for Democrat turned independent George Wallace. I was surprised that Wallace was so unpopular, because after all, my parents supported him. That Wallace was a racist didn’t even register with me.
But people change. Wallace renounced his racism. My dad also changed over time. When a black man was hired at his shop, he never blinked an eye. He set about teaching him everything he knew. The “n” word disappeared from his vocabulary, as did “ch*nk” and “J*p.” I also remember that my parents became good friends with a couple who had emigrated from Thailand.
Anyone can change. We do not have to keep hating. We do not have to remain victims of our pasts. Racists can change. Tokers, smokers and drinkers can change. Greedy CEOs can change. Gays, religionists, capitalists and communists can change. According to Jesus, sinners can change. We do not have to accept ourselves as we are, nor do we have to accept the excuses provided for us or the deceptions that captivate us.
I have changed. I was a Democrat, then a Republican, but now I know that there are no answers in politics. I used to be selfish. And stubborn. Sometimes I still am, but I am changing. God wants me to change, and I must agree with God.
When we learned of dad’s cancer, things changed again. My dad, the self-sufficient, determined, if-I-want-it-done-right-I’ll-do-it-myself kind of guy, became a mere shadow of himself. We used to crawl around underneath hotrods. We used to pull old wrecks out of farmers’ fields and trailer them to swap meets. We used to play a pretty rough game of one-on-one basketball.
But no more. My dad had stomach bypass surgery and was declining fast. Our very last conversation was about eternal things. He hated religion because of growing up in a Catholic school, but we prayed together for the first time. Yes, he had changed.
I wrote a song for him:
“The man who gave me life, and every precious thing
“The man who gave me life, and every precious thing
The main who raised me up, gave me this song to sing
After all the tears and fears, after all is said and done
I am proud to be called my father’s son.”
The night after he died I had a dream. I dreamed we were playing a rough and tumble game of one-on-one basketball. It was in the backyard of my childhood home, on our dirt driveway, shooting at a hoop my dad and I had put up together years ago. He could always outshoot me, and I could never get past his defense. In my dream this was still true. I shot and missed, and dad ran hard after the rebound, just like he usually did.
“Dad,” I said, “shouldn’t you be taking it easy? You’re not well.” He paused, and a smile crossed his face. He looked at me with incredible compassion and love.
“Son,” he said, “everything will be all right.” I knew at that moment that I had been visited by the God of all peace and comfort. My dad could now say, “It is well with my soul.” And he was changed.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Insurance coverage for Global Warming?
This is from Rough Notes magazine, a periodical for insurance agents. This is a record of a court case decided in Alaska.
This issue at hand is, is there insurance coverage for liability from creating greenhouse gases? The court sanely decided that there is not, but for a tenous reason. There is an exclusion for intentional acts, so the court denied the claim. However, this leaves the door open for for rendering coverage for unintentional acts that create greenhouse gases.
Given this, it isn't too hard to imagine a person or entity getting sued for creating greenhouse gases, even if it is incidental to the situation, and having an insurance policy pay for the "loss." Since people emit carbon dioxide simply by breathing, it isn't outside the realm of possibility that they could be found liable for damaging the environment.
Troubling indeed.
------------------
Were greenhouse emissions an "occurrence"?
AES Corporation was in the business of generating and distributing electricity. It was insured under commercial general liability policies issued by Steadfast Insurance Company. In 2008, a small village called Kivalina, located on the northwest coast of Alaska, sued AES for allegedly damaging the village by intentionally conducting activities that caused global warming. According to the lawsuit, AES engaged in activities using fossil fuels that emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The emissions allegedly caused sea ice that protected the village's shoreline to form or melt earlier or later than it had in the past, causing storm surges and resulting in shoreline erosion.
AES asked Steadfast to provide a defense, which it did under a reservation of rights. The insurer then filed a declaratory judgment action claiming it did not owe AES a defense or indemnification. The lower court found that the Kivalina lawsuit did not allege an "occurrence" within the meaning of the policy and that, therefore, the allegations in the complaint were not covered by the policy. AES appealed.
The Steadfast policies provided coverage for damage that resulted from an "Occurrence." "Occurrence” was defined as "an accident, including “continuous or repeated exposure to substantially the same general harmful conditions."
On appeal, the Supreme Court of Virginia noted that when a complaint alleges only intentional acts, if the resulting harm is a natural and probable consequence of those acts, there is no accident. However, if the injury resulted from an unforeseen cause, it may be an accident. Therefore the issue on appeal was whether the lawsuit could be construed as alleging that Kivalina's damages resulted from unforeseen consequences that a reasonable person would not have expected to result from AES's deliberate act of emitting carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases.
Kivalina's complaint alleged that AES intentionally released carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as a regular part of its energy-producing business. It also alleged that there was scientific agreement that these emissions could cause damage such as that suffered by Kivalina. Given these facts, the court found that AES knew or should have known the consequences of its actions, and that therefore there was no occurrence within the meaning of the policy.
The decision of the lower court was affirmed.
AES Corporation vs. Steadfast Insurance Company-No. 1007764 – Supreme Court of Virginia – September 16, 2011-2011 WI, 4139736 (Va. ).
This issue at hand is, is there insurance coverage for liability from creating greenhouse gases? The court sanely decided that there is not, but for a tenous reason. There is an exclusion for intentional acts, so the court denied the claim. However, this leaves the door open for for rendering coverage for unintentional acts that create greenhouse gases.
Given this, it isn't too hard to imagine a person or entity getting sued for creating greenhouse gases, even if it is incidental to the situation, and having an insurance policy pay for the "loss." Since people emit carbon dioxide simply by breathing, it isn't outside the realm of possibility that they could be found liable for damaging the environment.
Troubling indeed.
------------------
Were greenhouse emissions an "occurrence"?
AES Corporation was in the business of generating and distributing electricity. It was insured under commercial general liability policies issued by Steadfast Insurance Company. In 2008, a small village called Kivalina, located on the northwest coast of Alaska, sued AES for allegedly damaging the village by intentionally conducting activities that caused global warming. According to the lawsuit, AES engaged in activities using fossil fuels that emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The emissions allegedly caused sea ice that protected the village's shoreline to form or melt earlier or later than it had in the past, causing storm surges and resulting in shoreline erosion.
AES asked Steadfast to provide a defense, which it did under a reservation of rights. The insurer then filed a declaratory judgment action claiming it did not owe AES a defense or indemnification. The lower court found that the Kivalina lawsuit did not allege an "occurrence" within the meaning of the policy and that, therefore, the allegations in the complaint were not covered by the policy. AES appealed.
The Steadfast policies provided coverage for damage that resulted from an "Occurrence." "Occurrence” was defined as "an accident, including “continuous or repeated exposure to substantially the same general harmful conditions."
On appeal, the Supreme Court of Virginia noted that when a complaint alleges only intentional acts, if the resulting harm is a natural and probable consequence of those acts, there is no accident. However, if the injury resulted from an unforeseen cause, it may be an accident. Therefore the issue on appeal was whether the lawsuit could be construed as alleging that Kivalina's damages resulted from unforeseen consequences that a reasonable person would not have expected to result from AES's deliberate act of emitting carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases.
Kivalina's complaint alleged that AES intentionally released carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as a regular part of its energy-producing business. It also alleged that there was scientific agreement that these emissions could cause damage such as that suffered by Kivalina. Given these facts, the court found that AES knew or should have known the consequences of its actions, and that therefore there was no occurrence within the meaning of the policy.
The decision of the lower court was affirmed.
AES Corporation vs. Steadfast Insurance Company-No. 1007764 – Supreme Court of Virginia – September 16, 2011-2011 WI, 4139736 (Va. ).
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
The Montana Auditor's Office: Great Customer Service?
I don't know why, but this bothered me a lot. This is a government agency, one that is charged with regulating elections, and the insurance industry in Montana, among other things.
Linda McCullough is not my grocer or my cell phone provider, she's the State Auditor.
We are not customers. A "customer" is one of the parties in a voluntary transaction known as a purchase. But there is nothing voluntary when it comes to government agencies. Government agencies make regulations, and compliance is mandatory.
The fact that Ms. McCullough has a standard of performance for her employees has nothing to do with "customer service."
Friday, January 6, 2012
Statements made regarding Tom Burnett, a commentary
There has been quite a discussion going on between some local left-wing types and a conservative legislator named Tom Burnett. I am going to deal with some of the statements made by Bethany Letiecq and Billy McWilliams. First, here are several from Ms. Letiecq:
“Rep. Burnett… argued that he takes no pay or benefits for his legislative work. But that's not our issue. Burnett may be so privileged that he can afford to work for free, but that privilege has rendered him out of touch with the realities of so many in our community.”
Privilege:
a. A special advantage, immunity, permission, right, or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual, class, or caste.
b. Such an advantage, immunity, or right held as a prerogative of status or rank, and exercised to the exclusion or detriment of others.
Notice the not-so-subtle use of language by Ms. Letiecq. She is attempting to make a connection between someone who has gained success by his own hard work with someone who has been given a special advantage. This is a fallacy known as Poisoning the Well (http://www.fallacyfiles.org/poiswell.html), that is, an attempt to discredit him as a person so that anything he might subsequently say will be colored by the mischaracterization.
The use of the term “privilege” is also being employed in an attempt to create an us-versus-them scenario, to separate him out as dangerous, foreign, an oddity, or “not like us.” For the political Left, it is a frequently employed technique to create false dichotomies between people or groups in order to create friction, while simultaneously avoiding any discussion of actual issues. At its heart it is manipulative and anti-intellectual.
“He does not believe in programs like meals on wheels or food stamps and thinks they are unnecessary and wasteful. I disagree. I work with low-income families and elders and see how hard they work to make ends meet. It is crazy that Tom does not know that elders often make decisions about buying prescription drug refills or food for their tables.”
Another frequently used technique of the Left is to conflate a government program with a beneficial activity. So if someone opposes a particular government program, they must be in favor of the problem which the program is ostensibly trying to solve. For the Left, everything revolves around government. If there is a problem, government must be the solution. There is no other possible solution.
Interestingly, Ms. Letiecq makes note of the suffering of senior citizens, yet they are universally covered by various government programs, including Social Security and Medicare. But somehow they still must choose between prescriptions and food? How could this be? If there is a government program, the problem must be deemed solved, unless of course we need even more government programs to solve the problems the government programs didn’t solve.
Beyond that, notice the use of language: “It is crazy that Tom does not know…” First some name-calling, coupled with an assumption about Tom she could not possibly know herself. He is being painted as oblivious to pain and suffering, but Ms. Letiecq is compassionate, engaged, and caring. Tom is callous and unaware, presumably because of his privilege. Again, the strategy is to neutralize Tom without ever having to deal with a substantive argument about issues.
“From Tom's perspective, he suffered, worked hard, pulled himself up from his bootstraps so he does not support social programs that have been put in place to help others in poverty.”
Ms. Letiecq uses a conjunctive adverb (“so”) to connect a proposition (“he suffered and worked hard”) to establish a conclusion (“he does not support social programs”). The conclusion is a non sequitur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_(logic)), and in fact is false. Tom is a conservative, and most conservatives oppose social programs, not because they don't want to help others in poverty, but because:
1) There is no constitutional authority for them
2) They have failed to solve any of the problems for which they were created
3) They cause all sorts of personal and societal collateral damage
4) It is unjust to force some people to serve the interests of others
Once again, it is clear that Ms. Letiecq is attempting to smear Tom by trying to connect him with an imaginary privileged class of people who are aloof and unmoved by other peoples’ suffering. The lack of evidence for this does not deter her from persisting in this false narrative.
“From my perspective, what Tom fails to address are all the programs that have been in place over the past 50 years that allowed him to succeed in business and life...to work hard and get ahead. Tom is now actively working to dismantle the very programs that helped him succeed. It takes an individual working very hard AND government programs to lift us all up. Where would we be without government support of roads, infrastructure that helped establish suburbia, and all the other programs that supported Tom's hard work?”
This is known as a Bait and Switch. Leftists commonly conflate legitimate, constitutional duties like building infrastructure, with social programs that redistribute wealth. The programs of the “last 50 years” are not the same as roads and infrastructure. Food stamps are not the same as post offices. Welfare is not the same as police officers.
Because of her governo-centric ideology, she is convinced that people just can’t succeed on their own. They need help, her kind of help. But unfortunately for her, Tom and others like him didn’t succeed because of government, they succeeded in spite of government. The fact that people succeed even yet today given the arbitrary obstacles government has placed in their path is a testimony to their dogged determination and resourcefulness, people that Ms. Letiecq seems to despise.
Also, it needs to be pointed out that a road does not discriminate between the “privileged” and the regular people. A sewer system processes everyone’s waste without regard for their status. A landfill does not require an earnings statement. All of these things are simply tools to do the business of free enterprise. There is no government intervention to determine outcomes, there is no wealth redistribution, and there is no meddling in economics when it comes to infrastructure.
In Ms. Letiecq’s mind, some people simply do not deserve what they have. She is convinced that they are not going to use their wealth correctly. They are greedy and selfish. In fact, they don’t even deserve their money, they probably obtained it by cheating people. So we need people like her implementing government programs to make sure that these evil people do not get away with depriving the needy. She believes that she has the right to determine how much people need, and if they have too much she thinks government is perfectly justified in taking it from them. You see, wealth needs to be spread around, and the government programs of the last 50 years are designed to do just that.
“His faulty world view, his blinders "privilege" him not to see how government could function to do more for all of us. In Tom's world, he is self-made and government is bad. I challenge that. He needs to own how tax dollars have benefited his life. By disavowing that, he takes a privileged perspective that suggests he is an island and never benefited from the help and service of others.”
Here we have another typical Leftist narrative, that conservatives are anti-government. As already discussed, opposing the unconstitutional activities of government is not the same thing as opposing all government. But what is really noteworthy is the nonsensical statement, “He needs to own how tax dollars have benefited his life.” Can you imagine, Tom needs to realize that the government took his own money from him in order to benefit him? He should be thankful that government doesn't trust him with his own money. One might wonder if Ms. Letiecq is actually thinking about what she is writing!
She also employs another Bait and Switch. She conflates Tom’s accomplishments and self-sufficiency with the idea that he believes he has never benefited from the "help and service of others.” She cannot know this, of course, but it doesn’t stop her from using it as a bludgeon to impugn him. Beyond that, however, is that I do not know of any conservative who believes that they are an island and have never benefited from others. This again is a non-sequitur. Conservatives believe that it is the responsibility of individuals to help others by freely choosing to share of their time, knowledge, and wealth. This is not the same a government program.
Billy McWilliams writes this:
“I agree with you that a discussion on his voting record is sorely needed. I'm certain it would show he has voted against the values of his district, both financially and morally.”
1) There is no such thing as a district having values. People have values, not entities.
2) He assumes that government programs are definitively moral, and if you oppose a government program, you are immoral.
3) He makes a statement of morality, but whose morality is he referring to? And why is it now ok to impose this morality on others, even using the force of government to accomplish it? And what about the Leftist axiom, “you can’t legislate morality?”
4) What are financial values? Mr. McWilliams is throwing out fine sounding phrases that have no meaning but are designed to elicit an emotional response. Implied is that Tom is immoral and is violating some sort of unspoken standards, standards that are determined by MR. McWilliams. We are left to guess what they might be.
“I'm proud of working with Bethany [Letiecq] who is a principled teacher who lives her values and wants to fight for a better Montana. Finally, tell me exactly why Rep Burnett not taking pay is a virtue? (And that hasn't been confirmed.)"
What does “living her values” mean? By what critieria is he deciding that Ms. Letiecq’s values are superior, and how does he know that, by implication, she is doing a better job living her values than Tom is? And why is it noble to live one’s values? I thought it was virtuous to compromise, to be open to new ideas, to be ready to change? When someone lives their values, aren’t they committed to a certain unwavering standard? And here I thought that it was conservatives who were dogmatic.
Mr. McWilliams asks why not taking pay is a virtue. This is an interesting question, which tells us much about the mindset of big government true believers. Mr. McWilliams apparently cannot conceive of a scenario where someone who is entitled to suckle off the government teat would not do so. He doesn’t understand that the money Tom declines is money that came from someone else's pocket. He thinks that there is something wrong with someone who turns down free money. He doesn’t get how people who make a life for themselves, could be repulsed by the idea of receiving money that was taken from someone else.
Mr. McWilliams then takes a petty, small-minded shot at Tom: “And that hasn’t been confirmed.” Until it is confirmed, well, Tom is assumed to be a liar. Here we have a glimpse of the hatred that the Left has for those who disagree with their big government philosophy. Conservatives are evil, they steal and cheat and lie. They vote against the values of people, and won’t even take government money.
These comments are a target-rich environment. It’s time we conservatives learned how the Left manipulates the language, how they engage in misdirection, and how they misrepresent the views of their opposition. The country will be better off for it.
“Rep. Burnett… argued that he takes no pay or benefits for his legislative work. But that's not our issue. Burnett may be so privileged that he can afford to work for free, but that privilege has rendered him out of touch with the realities of so many in our community.”
Privilege:
a. A special advantage, immunity, permission, right, or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual, class, or caste.
b. Such an advantage, immunity, or right held as a prerogative of status or rank, and exercised to the exclusion or detriment of others.
Notice the not-so-subtle use of language by Ms. Letiecq. She is attempting to make a connection between someone who has gained success by his own hard work with someone who has been given a special advantage. This is a fallacy known as Poisoning the Well (http://www.fallacyfiles.org/poiswell.html), that is, an attempt to discredit him as a person so that anything he might subsequently say will be colored by the mischaracterization.
The use of the term “privilege” is also being employed in an attempt to create an us-versus-them scenario, to separate him out as dangerous, foreign, an oddity, or “not like us.” For the political Left, it is a frequently employed technique to create false dichotomies between people or groups in order to create friction, while simultaneously avoiding any discussion of actual issues. At its heart it is manipulative and anti-intellectual.
“He does not believe in programs like meals on wheels or food stamps and thinks they are unnecessary and wasteful. I disagree. I work with low-income families and elders and see how hard they work to make ends meet. It is crazy that Tom does not know that elders often make decisions about buying prescription drug refills or food for their tables.”
Another frequently used technique of the Left is to conflate a government program with a beneficial activity. So if someone opposes a particular government program, they must be in favor of the problem which the program is ostensibly trying to solve. For the Left, everything revolves around government. If there is a problem, government must be the solution. There is no other possible solution.
Interestingly, Ms. Letiecq makes note of the suffering of senior citizens, yet they are universally covered by various government programs, including Social Security and Medicare. But somehow they still must choose between prescriptions and food? How could this be? If there is a government program, the problem must be deemed solved, unless of course we need even more government programs to solve the problems the government programs didn’t solve.
Beyond that, notice the use of language: “It is crazy that Tom does not know…” First some name-calling, coupled with an assumption about Tom she could not possibly know herself. He is being painted as oblivious to pain and suffering, but Ms. Letiecq is compassionate, engaged, and caring. Tom is callous and unaware, presumably because of his privilege. Again, the strategy is to neutralize Tom without ever having to deal with a substantive argument about issues.
“From Tom's perspective, he suffered, worked hard, pulled himself up from his bootstraps so he does not support social programs that have been put in place to help others in poverty.”
Ms. Letiecq uses a conjunctive adverb (“so”) to connect a proposition (“he suffered and worked hard”) to establish a conclusion (“he does not support social programs”). The conclusion is a non sequitur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_(logic)), and in fact is false. Tom is a conservative, and most conservatives oppose social programs, not because they don't want to help others in poverty, but because:
1) There is no constitutional authority for them
2) They have failed to solve any of the problems for which they were created
3) They cause all sorts of personal and societal collateral damage
4) It is unjust to force some people to serve the interests of others
Once again, it is clear that Ms. Letiecq is attempting to smear Tom by trying to connect him with an imaginary privileged class of people who are aloof and unmoved by other peoples’ suffering. The lack of evidence for this does not deter her from persisting in this false narrative.
“From my perspective, what Tom fails to address are all the programs that have been in place over the past 50 years that allowed him to succeed in business and life...to work hard and get ahead. Tom is now actively working to dismantle the very programs that helped him succeed. It takes an individual working very hard AND government programs to lift us all up. Where would we be without government support of roads, infrastructure that helped establish suburbia, and all the other programs that supported Tom's hard work?”
This is known as a Bait and Switch. Leftists commonly conflate legitimate, constitutional duties like building infrastructure, with social programs that redistribute wealth. The programs of the “last 50 years” are not the same as roads and infrastructure. Food stamps are not the same as post offices. Welfare is not the same as police officers.
Because of her governo-centric ideology, she is convinced that people just can’t succeed on their own. They need help, her kind of help. But unfortunately for her, Tom and others like him didn’t succeed because of government, they succeeded in spite of government. The fact that people succeed even yet today given the arbitrary obstacles government has placed in their path is a testimony to their dogged determination and resourcefulness, people that Ms. Letiecq seems to despise.
Also, it needs to be pointed out that a road does not discriminate between the “privileged” and the regular people. A sewer system processes everyone’s waste without regard for their status. A landfill does not require an earnings statement. All of these things are simply tools to do the business of free enterprise. There is no government intervention to determine outcomes, there is no wealth redistribution, and there is no meddling in economics when it comes to infrastructure.
In Ms. Letiecq’s mind, some people simply do not deserve what they have. She is convinced that they are not going to use their wealth correctly. They are greedy and selfish. In fact, they don’t even deserve their money, they probably obtained it by cheating people. So we need people like her implementing government programs to make sure that these evil people do not get away with depriving the needy. She believes that she has the right to determine how much people need, and if they have too much she thinks government is perfectly justified in taking it from them. You see, wealth needs to be spread around, and the government programs of the last 50 years are designed to do just that.
“His faulty world view, his blinders "privilege" him not to see how government could function to do more for all of us. In Tom's world, he is self-made and government is bad. I challenge that. He needs to own how tax dollars have benefited his life. By disavowing that, he takes a privileged perspective that suggests he is an island and never benefited from the help and service of others.”
Here we have another typical Leftist narrative, that conservatives are anti-government. As already discussed, opposing the unconstitutional activities of government is not the same thing as opposing all government. But what is really noteworthy is the nonsensical statement, “He needs to own how tax dollars have benefited his life.” Can you imagine, Tom needs to realize that the government took his own money from him in order to benefit him? He should be thankful that government doesn't trust him with his own money. One might wonder if Ms. Letiecq is actually thinking about what she is writing!
She also employs another Bait and Switch. She conflates Tom’s accomplishments and self-sufficiency with the idea that he believes he has never benefited from the "help and service of others.” She cannot know this, of course, but it doesn’t stop her from using it as a bludgeon to impugn him. Beyond that, however, is that I do not know of any conservative who believes that they are an island and have never benefited from others. This again is a non-sequitur. Conservatives believe that it is the responsibility of individuals to help others by freely choosing to share of their time, knowledge, and wealth. This is not the same a government program.
Billy McWilliams writes this:
“I agree with you that a discussion on his voting record is sorely needed. I'm certain it would show he has voted against the values of his district, both financially and morally.”
1) There is no such thing as a district having values. People have values, not entities.
2) He assumes that government programs are definitively moral, and if you oppose a government program, you are immoral.
3) He makes a statement of morality, but whose morality is he referring to? And why is it now ok to impose this morality on others, even using the force of government to accomplish it? And what about the Leftist axiom, “you can’t legislate morality?”
4) What are financial values? Mr. McWilliams is throwing out fine sounding phrases that have no meaning but are designed to elicit an emotional response. Implied is that Tom is immoral and is violating some sort of unspoken standards, standards that are determined by MR. McWilliams. We are left to guess what they might be.
“I'm proud of working with Bethany [Letiecq] who is a principled teacher who lives her values and wants to fight for a better Montana. Finally, tell me exactly why Rep Burnett not taking pay is a virtue? (And that hasn't been confirmed.)"
What does “living her values” mean? By what critieria is he deciding that Ms. Letiecq’s values are superior, and how does he know that, by implication, she is doing a better job living her values than Tom is? And why is it noble to live one’s values? I thought it was virtuous to compromise, to be open to new ideas, to be ready to change? When someone lives their values, aren’t they committed to a certain unwavering standard? And here I thought that it was conservatives who were dogmatic.
Mr. McWilliams asks why not taking pay is a virtue. This is an interesting question, which tells us much about the mindset of big government true believers. Mr. McWilliams apparently cannot conceive of a scenario where someone who is entitled to suckle off the government teat would not do so. He doesn’t understand that the money Tom declines is money that came from someone else's pocket. He thinks that there is something wrong with someone who turns down free money. He doesn’t get how people who make a life for themselves, could be repulsed by the idea of receiving money that was taken from someone else.
Mr. McWilliams then takes a petty, small-minded shot at Tom: “And that hasn’t been confirmed.” Until it is confirmed, well, Tom is assumed to be a liar. Here we have a glimpse of the hatred that the Left has for those who disagree with their big government philosophy. Conservatives are evil, they steal and cheat and lie. They vote against the values of people, and won’t even take government money.
These comments are a target-rich environment. It’s time we conservatives learned how the Left manipulates the language, how they engage in misdirection, and how they misrepresent the views of their opposition. The country will be better off for it.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
INTRODUCING WORSHIP By Jim Cornwall
INTRODUCING WORSHIP
By Jim Cornwall
Scottsdale Worship Center
6508 E Cactus Rd
Scottsdale, AZ 85254
(602) 483-2401
Several years ago when I founded Scottsdale Worship Center, one of my first considerations was a proper name for the church. I had determined that this church would be a worshiping church, and since it was located in Scottsdale, Scottsdale Worship Center seemed to be a logical choice.
One of the distinctives of our church is our emphasis on public worship. Every service includes a time not only of singing, but of praising vocally and physically. We recognize that the Bible declares: "'Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the LORD" (Psalm 1334:2); "O clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph" (Psalm 47:1), and "Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs" (Palm 150:4).
Every Sunday, as part of my call to worship, I tell the visitors that we may worship God differently from the way they worship. I ask them to be tolerant with us and tell them that we, in turn, will not insist that they join us in our method of worship. I only ask that in whatever way they are comfortable, they praise the Lord with us.
I have found that many persons enjoy the liberty of our worship, but they do not understand why we worship God with such enthusiasm. My simple answer is, "God has commanded it." It is my goal, in writing this booklet, to give the reader a broader understanding of why we worship as we do.
It may be comforting to you to know that my first reaction to a praise based worship service was one of distress. I had many mixed feelings because the style of worship was so different from mine. As I watched, however, I soon realized that I was among people who truly knew how to worship God. I sensed they had moved to a level far beyond my own experience. In all honesty, I finally cried out to the Lord, "I don't know how to worship!"
"But I do," the Holy Spirit seemed to say to me, "and I will teach you if you will let Me."
I must confess I didn't learn how to worship in just one service. But the Holy Spirit was very patient with me, and I was willing to learn. I found my level of worship rising as the months went by. The more I saw of God's loving and holy character, the more I wanted to worship Him with greater freedom.
Sometimes we are unaware of the effect that our nature, culture, and training can have on our spiritual lives. The essence of this world, and our old sin nature, strongly resist -and resent- real freedom in worship. We feel strange and uneasy about any outward display of devotion to God.
True, we may be comfortable with certain forms of worship if we are familiar with them. We hold back, however, when faced with a freedom in worship that goes beyond our past religious training or experience.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of worship. As our teacher and motivator, He deeply wants to move us on to higher levels of worship. It is God's Spirit that enables us to cry, "Abba Father" - the happy cry of a little child to his father. It is hard, however, for the proud minds of men and women to take on the humble, obedient attitude of a little child. Let me discuss with you the who, when, and why of worship and four basic factors of worship.
THE WHO OF WORSHIP
Through the prophet, God declared: "All flesh shall come to worship before Me, saith the Lord" (Isaiah 66:23). This is not merely a declaration of universal worship; it affirms that God will be the sole object of that worship.
"To worship or not to worship" has never been the question, for all God's created beings are inherently worshippers. Heaven is full of worship. It is the stuff of which heaven is made. The book of Revelation progressively shows worship being performed by every inhabitant of heaven, including mankind.
No matter how vehemently he or she may deny it, each person on earth is instinctively a worshipper. It is in his genetic strain! No, the issue has never been shall we worship or not? It is more consistently a question of who, when, and why shall we worship?
The object of our worship is the greatest point of controversy in worship. According to Isaiah 14, Lucifer's fall was perpetrated because of high-level pride that caused him to desire to become the object of heaven's worship. He has never lost this aspiration. From his temptation of Eve in Eden to the temptation of Christ in the wilderness, Satan consistently recruited worshippers from among earth's inhabitants, and he still does.
Satan so greatly desired the worship of Christ that he offered Him full control of this earth and all of its inhabitants in exchange for it. Some have seen an opportunity for Christ to have bypassed the cross through this act; restoring man to God's dominion without the ignominy of becoming sin and suffering Calvary. This proposed "shortcut" was probably the root of that temptation.
Jesus beautifully withstood the temptation by paraphrasing Deuteronomy 6:13: "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve" (Matthew 4:10). These few words of Jesus cut right to the core of our main problem with worship -- the person to be worshipped and the priority of worship.
As to the person of worship, all fundamental Bible-believing Christians agree with Jesus that God the Father is the only acceptable object of worship. They know about God's expressed hatred of idol worship and have read in the Old Testament of God's repeated punishment of those who worshipped anything besides the true and living God. They accept, intellectually at least, God's demand for a monopoly upon their worship.
Most of these have also memorized Christ's pointed statement on worship from John 4:23: "The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." And yet for all of their mental acquiescence to God's exclusive rights to their worship, even a casual observer will discover fundamental Christians offering worship to lesser gods in their lives.
If we will accept the dictionary's definition of worship as: "to adore, to revere, to exalt, to magnify, to dote, to admire, or to esteem," then it becomes quite obvious that many Christians worship, to a lesser extent perhaps, many things that are beneath the image of God.
Some exalt their denomination in a manner that at least borders on worship. Others dote dangerously on their pastor, while still others magnify a doctrinal truth almost to the place of God himself.
We've all seen people, even God-fearing saints, who so loved their possessions as to become worshippers of them, and others have disgusted us as they became worshippers of themselves.
Not that anyone intends for his affections to get out of control and direct his or her worship to something less than God, but still it happens all too frequently. For what we love will soon become what we worship, since worship is merely an expression of love in its highest form. Perhaps this is why the Bible so clearly commands us: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (I John 2:15).
So the key to maintaining the Divine monopoly in worship is to: "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength…" (Mark 12:30). When everything within us loves God fully, He alone will be the object of our worship. Otherwise, we will be as vacillating in our worship as we are in our loving. To worship the Lord exclusively leaves no room for other objects of homage. He will be Lord of all or not Lord at all.
When the Anglican marriage ceremony asks the man to vow to his bride: "and with my body I worship thee…" it exemplifies how easily we can move from love and adoration to reverence and veneration - worship! It seems that idolatry is inherent in each of us, for worshipping something short of God is always easier than worshipping God Himself. We find it easier to relate and respond to the intangible; to the seen than to the unseen. Yet God is the only truly acceptable object of our worship - "Him only."
THE WHEN OF WORSHIP
Still, in reminding Satan that God the Father was the exclusive object of worship, Christ also established the divine priority of worship over service in saying: "Thou shalt worship... and thou shalt serve." Worship first; service second. Until we have fulfilled the worship requirement, we cannot serve properly. All service must flow out of worship lest it become a substitute for worship. We learned long ago that God will curse a substitute, but may well bless a supplement.
Nothing can acceptably substitute worship. Consider the plight of the widower who hires a housekeeper, a cook, and a nurse for his children. He is being served very acceptably, but does this substitute for the love of his deceased wife? Of course not! Neither does our service substitute for loving God in worship.
Still, service is part of our Christian walk. It is not an either/or situation; it is both/and. We will worship and serve the Lord God--in that order!
Christians need to be careful lest they get so busy working for God that they have no time for God. Activity can become the enemy of adoration, as surely as service can become a substitute for submission and supplication.
How many marriage partners become so engrossed in doing for his or her mate that he or she no longer takes the time to love and adore her husband or his wife? The wife is so busy with the house and the children while husband is so taken up with his business and activities outside the home that they become strangers to each other. The love that drew them to one another is consistently neglected and has been replaced with service to each other. But no amount of service, however devoted it may be, can replace the interpersonal relationship so needed to maintain a viable marriage. The home needs the constant undergirding of expressed love, and out of this love-flow will proceed all needed service.
The same principle is true regarding our relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is repeatedly called "our husband," and we are called "His wife." We were drawn to Him by His love, and He responded to us because of our love for Him. If we let this love relationship diminish because we are so busy serving Him, we will jeopardize everything that this relationship has produced. Jesus told His disciples: "Henceforth I call you not servants... but I have called you friends" (John 15:15). We have not been chosen merely to serve, but He has ordained us to be with Him (see Mark 3:14). He enjoys our service unto Him and invites us to serve with Him, but He cannot accept service that is offered as a substitute for worship. He did not die to present to Himself a fully trained servant, but a spotless bride. Out of that marriage will come beautiful service!
THE WHY OF WORSHIP
By observing Christ's statement to Satan, we automatically settle the who and the when of worship, which leaves only the all important why of worship. Just why do we worship? Is it to fulfill a command of God's Word? Is it done to meet needs in our spiritual nature? Or do we do it because it gives such pleasure to God? Hopefully, we worship for all of these reasons and many more. But perhaps the two major reasons for worship are:
1. Worship brings us into a right relationship with God and with ourselves.
2. Worship brings us into a right expression of ourselves to God.
Worship teaches us much about ourselves, about our God, and about' our responses.
Matthew tells about a Syrophenician resident of Canaan who seems to have heard that Jesus was preparing to visit her area of Tyre and Sidon. She practically met the boat at the shore, and the moment she saw Jesus she cried: "Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil" (Matthew 15:22). She may have heard that blind Bartimeus was healed by yelling a similar cry (see Mark 10:47) or that two pairs of blind men, on widely separate occasions, had been restored to sight by crying this plea (Matthew 10:27 and 20:30). Somehow this formula seemed to crop up repeatedly in the stories that had come out of Jerusalem. It had always seemed to work. Until now, that is. For no matter how earnestly, loudly, or passionately she cried this formula, Jesus "answered her not a word" (Matthew 15:23).
The actions of the disciples proved that she had been heard, for they pled with Jesus to send her away to get rid of the disturbances. But instead of complying with their request, Jesus replied: "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 15:24).
In this one stage whisper, spoken loudly enough for the woman to hear, Jesus unmasked the deceit and hypocrisy of her petitioning. She had been claiming a non-existent relationship with Christ. In imploring Him as the "Son of David" she was apparently claiming to be an Israelite. This was untrue, for the gospel writers clearly identify her as a Gentile. But because she did not feel that Gentiles had any claim upon Christ, she masqueraded as a daughter of Israel who had covenant claims on the "Son of David." All this pretense got for her was total silence.
When God gives us the silent treatment, it is usually because we, too, are claiming a non-existent relationship. We, like her, pick up formulas that have worked beautifully for others and cry them religiously, whether they work or not.
How many who have never been born again pray, "Our Father which art in Heaven?" Carnal Christians use the prayer language of the true bride, while the rebellious plead with God in their hour of trouble with the same expressions as the submitted saints. This will always be met by divine silence. God does not respond to hypocrisy, since He is truth by nature. We have been instructed to "draw near with a true heart" (Hebrews 10:22). Any form of deceit will deny us an audience with God. Someone has been quoted to say: "Either live it or don't lip it."
Nevertheless, we go on giving lip service to the words that meant life to our fathers and to the founders of our denominations, often unaware that we have only the liturgy, not the life, of these men. We have expressed the words as fact for so long that we are unaware that they have become a fable. We have extendedly claimed a non-existent faith until we cannot recognize our fraud. What can bring us out of our guile back into His grace? Worship!
Immediately after Jesus unmasked this imposter, "Then came she and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, help me" (Matthew 15:25). Likely, she prostrated herself before Him, perhaps even grabbing Him by the ankles and kissing His feet. She completely submitted herself to Him and poured out both her worship and her plea for help. And it worked. It always works! Worship is a dooropener that gives the supplicant ingress to God. All men have been invited to worship God, converted and unconverted alike.
The psalmist sang: "My mouth shall speak the praise of the LORD: and let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever" (Psalm 145:21), and John saw a great company in Heaven singing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb ending it with these words: "For all nations shall come and worship before Thee" (Revelation 15:4). Even if we can claim no covenant that will afford us entrance to Christ, we can open the door to His presence with worship. When our faith has failed and we falter in our approach to Him, we can always fall back on worship, for worship is a consistent door-opener.
It is only fair to point out, however, that this door-opener to Christ automatically becomes an open door that allows Him to get to us. Immediately after she began to worship Jesus, Jesus began to probe into the depths of her heart. "It is not meet to take the children's bread," He said, "and cast it to the dogs" (Matthew 15:26). In other words, He said: "You've claimed to be a daughter of Abraham, but in their eyes you're nothing but a dog."
These have always seemed like harsh words, but they were spoken by the world's greatest example of a perfect gentleman. Christ was not condemning her, He was merely unveiling her to herself. He was bringing her, "not to think more highly of herself than she ought to think" (Romans 12:3). J.B. Phillips translates this verse: "Don't cherish exaggerated ideas of yourself or your importance, but try to have a sane estimate of your capabilities by the light of the faith that God has given to you all" (The New Testament In Modern English, J.B. Phillips).
Our Lord was merely helping to adjust this woman's self-concept, and He did it while she was worshipping. As she exalted Him in worship, He exposed her worthlessness. While she spoke of His Majesty ("Lord"), He spoke of her hypocrisy. His goal was not to depreciate her, but to help her appreciate her true relationship to Himself, for until she did, He could not respond to her without condoning her falsehood. But if she would accept His appraisal and respond accordingly, He could and would minister to her need. Truth can relate to truth.
Isn't it when we are worshipping that God reveals us to ourselves? It was so with Isaiah. He, who was likely the most godly man of his generation, when caught up into God's presence cried out: "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts" (Isaiah 6:5).
At this season of his life, Isaiah was a counselor and tutor in the courts of earthly kings, but when worship brought him into the presence of the Heavenly King, he not only "saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up" (Isaiah 6:1), but he saw himself defiled and dirty. It is only when we are in the presence of Heaven's majestic King that we gain a true picture of ourselves. Compared with another, we may look great, but contrasted to Him, we lose all artificial glory.
So the Lord's response to the woman's worship was to call her a dog. How did she handle that? The only sensible way we can ever handle His evaluation of us - she said: “Truth, Lord" (Matthew 15:27). For until we acquiesce to His appraisal, communication with Him is ended. He has revealed our position and our condition; the next move is ours.
But admitting the truth that she was as separated from a covenant relationship with Christ as a dog is beneath his owner did not devastate this woman. She wisely changed her style of approach to match His estimate of her and gained everything she desired. She merely told Jesus, "Yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table" (Matthew 15:27). She simply said: "If I am a dog, don't deny me a dog's privileges!" We can learn no greater principle than to approach Christ consistent to our true nature. If we are "a dog," our nature has not yet been changed by a Divine transformation, we can sit up, wag our tail, and lick the hand of the Master.
If we're an infant in Christ, we can make pleasant "gooing" sounds and smile a lot. If we're a toddler, we can crawl to Him, pat Him, and say "da-da."
But for a mature saint to do this would be ridiculous. He should approach Christ as a Christian adult. In worship we must approach Christ consistent with our current relationship with Him.
We need not await a voice from Heaven saying, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 17:5), before praising and worshipping God. We can come just as we are. He can cleanse us as surely as He cleaned Isaiah, and change us as completely as He changed Nebuchadnezzar or Saul of Tarsus. We merely need to respond to Him as we are and from where we are, and it is worship that opens the door for this revelation to come.
It is, indeed, worship that brings us into a right relationship with God and with ourselves. But it also brings us into a right expression of ourselves to God.
Perhaps as dramatic an example of worship to be found in the Bible is the story of Mary washing the feet of Jesus. All four Gospels record the event, and Jesus said that wherever the gospel would be preached, her deed would be spoken of as a memorial to her (Mark 14:9).
Remember that Mary still overflowed with gratitude to Jesus for raising her brother, Lazarus, from the dead. Her whole way of life was rescued in that resurrection, for the lot of the widows and the unmarried woman was tenuous. Too frequently, they were exploited and stripped of all possessions.
When she looked into the home of Simon, the Leper, and saw that Lazarus was being highly honored at the banquet, but that Jesus was being treated like any other guest, it broke her heart. He was not being properly appreciated. Simon's expression of thanks to Jesus was grossly insufficient.
Slipping quickly to her home nearby, she sought out an alabaster box full of liquid nard and returned to Simon's house where she broke it, allowing the spikenard to flow over Jesus' head, down His beard, and onto His garments. Then she bathed His feet with her tears, and wiped them dry with her hair.
In contrast to the others who had merely taken Christ's presence for granted, she made a right expression of herself to her Lord. She worshipped. She loved, not from a distance, but in intimate fellowship. She was not content to say thanks with a dinner; she had to worship with a deed that pleased her emotions of love, adoration, thanksgiving, and reverence. She had to touch, to kiss, to weep, and to bow in order to thoroughly pour out herself on Jesus. The spikenard was merely a symbol of what was really being poured out on Jesus -- Mary herself! This is the heart and core of true worship -- the unashamed pouring out of our inner self upon the Lord Jesus Christ in affectionate devotion.
FACTORS IN WORSHIP
Mark's account of Mary's selfless act of worship (Chapter 14) demonstrates four distinct factors in worship. The first of these is that worship is costly. The disciples quickly calculated that this liquid nard could have been sold for at least three hundred pence, which equaled a full year's salary for a working man. Translated into today's earning power, it would be closer to twenty thousand dollars. That's quite a price to pay just to worship Jesus acceptably.
But the monetary value was probably the smallest part of the price. This costly oil had been saved for one of two reasons: either as a dowry for marriage or to assure a proper burial. Both were vitally important to this Jewish maiden. When Mary poured out the ointment, she was surrendering all her plans, ambitions, and aspirations for the future. Worshipping in the present was far more important than longing for the future. In Verse 8, Jesus said of her act, "She is come aforehand (Greek ' now') to anoint my body to the burying." True worship often costs us some of our self-centered plans and ambitions. It requires us to put God's glory above our goals.
A second factor of worship that is illustrated here is that worship invokes criticism. The fragrance of this perfume had scarcely reached the nostrils of the disciples until they were vocally critical that the ointment had not been sold and the money given to the poor. While social service is laudable, and Jesus even required it, there is also a time and place to minister unto the Lord.
I've received more criticism because of worshipping than any other activity into which I've ever led a congregation. Somehow people still seem to feel that it is a waste to pour out anything directly upon the Lord. I've seen husbands, who had never complained because their wives worked at the church supper or served as volunteer secretary to the staff, become incensed and prohibit their wives from attending worship sessions. We should be prepared for and expect criticism if we become worshippers.
The third factor of worship that Mary illustrates is the need for brokenness. The liquid nard was permanently sealed in a stone container. To release it required breaking the bottle. Similarly, worship, which is resident in the spirit of every saint, is sealed in by the outer container of the soul and body. Worship can never be released until something happens to rupture this stony container. Presenting the bottle would not have been worship; it would have been an offering. Fracturing the alabaster box allowed the oil to flow as an anointing to the body of the Lord.
David, who knew much about being broken before the Lord, wrote: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou will not despise" (Psalm 51:17). The Hebrew words he used are extremely strong. For the "broken spirit" he used the word shabor which means to shiver, to break to pieces, or to reduce to splinters. For "the broken heart," he used the Hebrew word dakah which means to crumble, to beat to pieces, to bruise, to crush, or to humble.
Spiritual worship requires a splintering of our prides, a crumbling of our natural reserves, a bruising of our self-sufficiencies, as well as a crushing of our self-will. The beating to pieces of our carnal nature will release our emotions to flow out in tears of repentance, submission, and love. I am not calling for us to become sadistic or cruelly introspective, but we need to break and crush everything we have developed in our lives that prevents true humility and love from flowing out. Very often hardness of heart is a defense built up against being wounded by others. We need no such defenses when with Jesus. He will never wound--He is the healer of wounds!
The hard-hearted person cannot worship; he or she must be content with mere rituals of worship. It is the tender-hearted, the gentle-spirited people who can pour out their inner spirit upon God. One must be able to respond positively to projected love, for the true essence of worship is love responding to love. In praise we may express our love to God, but in worship we respond to His expressed love for us.
When David was hiding in the cave of Adullam, fully reduced to splinters by Saul's murderous pursuit, he wrote: "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart…" (Psalm 34:18). Brokenness, which is necessary to worship in order to release our inner man, also assures us the nearness of the Lord, without which worship is impossible, for worship can only be performed when we are in His presence--when we are conscious of His love flowing out to us. Worship, you see, is a response.
A fourth factor in worship that is alluded to in this story is that worship is reciprocal; we get something in return. When Mary held the alabaster box over the head of Jesus and broke it with a hammer or a stone, the oil gushed out over His head. She quickly rubbed it into the hair and beard, and transferred the drippings to His feet. Then she let her long tresses fall and used her hair to wipe up the residue. When she left the banquet room, people could sniff and say, "She's the one; I can tell, for she smells exactly like Jesus does."
When we pour worship out on the Lord Jesus Christ, we also get it all over ourselves. As we go out from His presence, we carry the fragrance of Christ everywhere we go. Paul recognized this when he wrote: "God ...maketh manifest the savour of His knowledge by us in every place" (2 Corinthians 2:14). Worshippers tend to smell like the love of God.
Just as the Old Testament priest carried the fragrance of God's incense in his hair and clothes after he had tended the golden altar, so we give the world a demonstration of the sweetness of our Lord after we have worshipped. The worship permeates our very nature and is as pleasant as a rare perfume. Worship is very reciprocal, for we benefit as much from it as He does.
THE HOLY SPIRIT SETS THE MOOD FOR WORSHIP
It is the Holy Spirit who sets the tone or mood of worship. By "mood" we mean a state of mind or feeling. God is a Person. He always has a purpose which is upon His heart and mind for His people whenever they come together. The Holy Spirit always knows the will and mind of God. Therefore, He will seek to set the tone and theme of a service in line with God's purpose.
Sometimes the tone or mood of a meeting may change. There may be a heavy spirit of grief for those who are away from God. After repentance, the mood of the meeting might change to one of great joy. It is important, therefore, for us to be sensitive to the leading of God's Spirit.
The Spirit of God will always bring a sense of expectation to our services of worship. He is always ready to move in the fresh, new ways of ministry. Even familiar forms of worship, therefore, should never become old or boring.
We cannot successfully copy Mary's act of worship. Expressions of worship are unique and varied. We may look on the blessings of last week and say: "This is how it worked then; so let's try it again today." However, in trying to make it "work again," we lose the freshness and life of God's Spirit.
For this reason, we must be careful to follow after the new ways of the Spirit--even if He wishes to lead us beyond the set form of our liturgy. Rather than conform to the pattern of another or to repeat what has been done before, we need to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. He understands worship far better than we do. The Spirit of God is a person, and has many different moods. We need to be sensitive to the mood He brings to a meeting, and move in that direction. If He is in a mood of rejoicing, we also should rejoice. If He is in a giving mood, we should respond wisely by giving to God. Whatever He is doing, we should do it with Him. This is the only way we can really worship the Father as we have been created and called to do!
The Holy Spirit keeps our worship from becoming dull and routine. The Spirit of God always blows where He wills -- in fresh, new ways. It is a glorious thing!
In a way, we have to "open the windows" at the beginning of a service, and ask the Holy Spirit to "blow upon us." In our hearts, we want to be led by God. Sometimes, however, we may be afraid of anything new and different. In that case, sadly, we may try to keep the windows tightly closed.
We are responsible to be open to the Spirit and be aware of where He is taking us. The Holy Spirit wants to glorify Jesus; and we do too. That means He will faithfully lead us into worship -- worship which will be new and different every time!
Since it is inherent in our natures to be worshippers, may God clearly lead us to know the true "who," the correct "when," and the manifold "why" of worship as we embrace the factions of worship and the mood of the Holy Spirit for the service. Both God and we will greatly benefit from this!
By Jim Cornwall
Scottsdale Worship Center
6508 E Cactus Rd
Scottsdale, AZ 85254
(602) 483-2401
Several years ago when I founded Scottsdale Worship Center, one of my first considerations was a proper name for the church. I had determined that this church would be a worshiping church, and since it was located in Scottsdale, Scottsdale Worship Center seemed to be a logical choice.
One of the distinctives of our church is our emphasis on public worship. Every service includes a time not only of singing, but of praising vocally and physically. We recognize that the Bible declares: "'Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the LORD" (Psalm 1334:2); "O clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph" (Psalm 47:1), and "Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs" (Palm 150:4).
Every Sunday, as part of my call to worship, I tell the visitors that we may worship God differently from the way they worship. I ask them to be tolerant with us and tell them that we, in turn, will not insist that they join us in our method of worship. I only ask that in whatever way they are comfortable, they praise the Lord with us.
I have found that many persons enjoy the liberty of our worship, but they do not understand why we worship God with such enthusiasm. My simple answer is, "God has commanded it." It is my goal, in writing this booklet, to give the reader a broader understanding of why we worship as we do.
It may be comforting to you to know that my first reaction to a praise based worship service was one of distress. I had many mixed feelings because the style of worship was so different from mine. As I watched, however, I soon realized that I was among people who truly knew how to worship God. I sensed they had moved to a level far beyond my own experience. In all honesty, I finally cried out to the Lord, "I don't know how to worship!"
"But I do," the Holy Spirit seemed to say to me, "and I will teach you if you will let Me."
I must confess I didn't learn how to worship in just one service. But the Holy Spirit was very patient with me, and I was willing to learn. I found my level of worship rising as the months went by. The more I saw of God's loving and holy character, the more I wanted to worship Him with greater freedom.
Sometimes we are unaware of the effect that our nature, culture, and training can have on our spiritual lives. The essence of this world, and our old sin nature, strongly resist -and resent- real freedom in worship. We feel strange and uneasy about any outward display of devotion to God.
True, we may be comfortable with certain forms of worship if we are familiar with them. We hold back, however, when faced with a freedom in worship that goes beyond our past religious training or experience.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of worship. As our teacher and motivator, He deeply wants to move us on to higher levels of worship. It is God's Spirit that enables us to cry, "Abba Father" - the happy cry of a little child to his father. It is hard, however, for the proud minds of men and women to take on the humble, obedient attitude of a little child. Let me discuss with you the who, when, and why of worship and four basic factors of worship.
THE WHO OF WORSHIP
Through the prophet, God declared: "All flesh shall come to worship before Me, saith the Lord" (Isaiah 66:23). This is not merely a declaration of universal worship; it affirms that God will be the sole object of that worship.
"To worship or not to worship" has never been the question, for all God's created beings are inherently worshippers. Heaven is full of worship. It is the stuff of which heaven is made. The book of Revelation progressively shows worship being performed by every inhabitant of heaven, including mankind.
No matter how vehemently he or she may deny it, each person on earth is instinctively a worshipper. It is in his genetic strain! No, the issue has never been shall we worship or not? It is more consistently a question of who, when, and why shall we worship?
The object of our worship is the greatest point of controversy in worship. According to Isaiah 14, Lucifer's fall was perpetrated because of high-level pride that caused him to desire to become the object of heaven's worship. He has never lost this aspiration. From his temptation of Eve in Eden to the temptation of Christ in the wilderness, Satan consistently recruited worshippers from among earth's inhabitants, and he still does.
Satan so greatly desired the worship of Christ that he offered Him full control of this earth and all of its inhabitants in exchange for it. Some have seen an opportunity for Christ to have bypassed the cross through this act; restoring man to God's dominion without the ignominy of becoming sin and suffering Calvary. This proposed "shortcut" was probably the root of that temptation.
Jesus beautifully withstood the temptation by paraphrasing Deuteronomy 6:13: "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve" (Matthew 4:10). These few words of Jesus cut right to the core of our main problem with worship -- the person to be worshipped and the priority of worship.
As to the person of worship, all fundamental Bible-believing Christians agree with Jesus that God the Father is the only acceptable object of worship. They know about God's expressed hatred of idol worship and have read in the Old Testament of God's repeated punishment of those who worshipped anything besides the true and living God. They accept, intellectually at least, God's demand for a monopoly upon their worship.
Most of these have also memorized Christ's pointed statement on worship from John 4:23: "The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." And yet for all of their mental acquiescence to God's exclusive rights to their worship, even a casual observer will discover fundamental Christians offering worship to lesser gods in their lives.
If we will accept the dictionary's definition of worship as: "to adore, to revere, to exalt, to magnify, to dote, to admire, or to esteem," then it becomes quite obvious that many Christians worship, to a lesser extent perhaps, many things that are beneath the image of God.
Some exalt their denomination in a manner that at least borders on worship. Others dote dangerously on their pastor, while still others magnify a doctrinal truth almost to the place of God himself.
We've all seen people, even God-fearing saints, who so loved their possessions as to become worshippers of them, and others have disgusted us as they became worshippers of themselves.
Not that anyone intends for his affections to get out of control and direct his or her worship to something less than God, but still it happens all too frequently. For what we love will soon become what we worship, since worship is merely an expression of love in its highest form. Perhaps this is why the Bible so clearly commands us: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (I John 2:15).
So the key to maintaining the Divine monopoly in worship is to: "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength…" (Mark 12:30). When everything within us loves God fully, He alone will be the object of our worship. Otherwise, we will be as vacillating in our worship as we are in our loving. To worship the Lord exclusively leaves no room for other objects of homage. He will be Lord of all or not Lord at all.
When the Anglican marriage ceremony asks the man to vow to his bride: "and with my body I worship thee…" it exemplifies how easily we can move from love and adoration to reverence and veneration - worship! It seems that idolatry is inherent in each of us, for worshipping something short of God is always easier than worshipping God Himself. We find it easier to relate and respond to the intangible; to the seen than to the unseen. Yet God is the only truly acceptable object of our worship - "Him only."
THE WHEN OF WORSHIP
Still, in reminding Satan that God the Father was the exclusive object of worship, Christ also established the divine priority of worship over service in saying: "Thou shalt worship... and thou shalt serve." Worship first; service second. Until we have fulfilled the worship requirement, we cannot serve properly. All service must flow out of worship lest it become a substitute for worship. We learned long ago that God will curse a substitute, but may well bless a supplement.
Nothing can acceptably substitute worship. Consider the plight of the widower who hires a housekeeper, a cook, and a nurse for his children. He is being served very acceptably, but does this substitute for the love of his deceased wife? Of course not! Neither does our service substitute for loving God in worship.
Still, service is part of our Christian walk. It is not an either/or situation; it is both/and. We will worship and serve the Lord God--in that order!
Christians need to be careful lest they get so busy working for God that they have no time for God. Activity can become the enemy of adoration, as surely as service can become a substitute for submission and supplication.
How many marriage partners become so engrossed in doing for his or her mate that he or she no longer takes the time to love and adore her husband or his wife? The wife is so busy with the house and the children while husband is so taken up with his business and activities outside the home that they become strangers to each other. The love that drew them to one another is consistently neglected and has been replaced with service to each other. But no amount of service, however devoted it may be, can replace the interpersonal relationship so needed to maintain a viable marriage. The home needs the constant undergirding of expressed love, and out of this love-flow will proceed all needed service.
The same principle is true regarding our relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is repeatedly called "our husband," and we are called "His wife." We were drawn to Him by His love, and He responded to us because of our love for Him. If we let this love relationship diminish because we are so busy serving Him, we will jeopardize everything that this relationship has produced. Jesus told His disciples: "Henceforth I call you not servants... but I have called you friends" (John 15:15). We have not been chosen merely to serve, but He has ordained us to be with Him (see Mark 3:14). He enjoys our service unto Him and invites us to serve with Him, but He cannot accept service that is offered as a substitute for worship. He did not die to present to Himself a fully trained servant, but a spotless bride. Out of that marriage will come beautiful service!
THE WHY OF WORSHIP
By observing Christ's statement to Satan, we automatically settle the who and the when of worship, which leaves only the all important why of worship. Just why do we worship? Is it to fulfill a command of God's Word? Is it done to meet needs in our spiritual nature? Or do we do it because it gives such pleasure to God? Hopefully, we worship for all of these reasons and many more. But perhaps the two major reasons for worship are:
1. Worship brings us into a right relationship with God and with ourselves.
2. Worship brings us into a right expression of ourselves to God.
Worship teaches us much about ourselves, about our God, and about' our responses.
Matthew tells about a Syrophenician resident of Canaan who seems to have heard that Jesus was preparing to visit her area of Tyre and Sidon. She practically met the boat at the shore, and the moment she saw Jesus she cried: "Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil" (Matthew 15:22). She may have heard that blind Bartimeus was healed by yelling a similar cry (see Mark 10:47) or that two pairs of blind men, on widely separate occasions, had been restored to sight by crying this plea (Matthew 10:27 and 20:30). Somehow this formula seemed to crop up repeatedly in the stories that had come out of Jerusalem. It had always seemed to work. Until now, that is. For no matter how earnestly, loudly, or passionately she cried this formula, Jesus "answered her not a word" (Matthew 15:23).
The actions of the disciples proved that she had been heard, for they pled with Jesus to send her away to get rid of the disturbances. But instead of complying with their request, Jesus replied: "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 15:24).
In this one stage whisper, spoken loudly enough for the woman to hear, Jesus unmasked the deceit and hypocrisy of her petitioning. She had been claiming a non-existent relationship with Christ. In imploring Him as the "Son of David" she was apparently claiming to be an Israelite. This was untrue, for the gospel writers clearly identify her as a Gentile. But because she did not feel that Gentiles had any claim upon Christ, she masqueraded as a daughter of Israel who had covenant claims on the "Son of David." All this pretense got for her was total silence.
When God gives us the silent treatment, it is usually because we, too, are claiming a non-existent relationship. We, like her, pick up formulas that have worked beautifully for others and cry them religiously, whether they work or not.
How many who have never been born again pray, "Our Father which art in Heaven?" Carnal Christians use the prayer language of the true bride, while the rebellious plead with God in their hour of trouble with the same expressions as the submitted saints. This will always be met by divine silence. God does not respond to hypocrisy, since He is truth by nature. We have been instructed to "draw near with a true heart" (Hebrews 10:22). Any form of deceit will deny us an audience with God. Someone has been quoted to say: "Either live it or don't lip it."
Nevertheless, we go on giving lip service to the words that meant life to our fathers and to the founders of our denominations, often unaware that we have only the liturgy, not the life, of these men. We have expressed the words as fact for so long that we are unaware that they have become a fable. We have extendedly claimed a non-existent faith until we cannot recognize our fraud. What can bring us out of our guile back into His grace? Worship!
Immediately after Jesus unmasked this imposter, "Then came she and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, help me" (Matthew 15:25). Likely, she prostrated herself before Him, perhaps even grabbing Him by the ankles and kissing His feet. She completely submitted herself to Him and poured out both her worship and her plea for help. And it worked. It always works! Worship is a dooropener that gives the supplicant ingress to God. All men have been invited to worship God, converted and unconverted alike.
The psalmist sang: "My mouth shall speak the praise of the LORD: and let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever" (Psalm 145:21), and John saw a great company in Heaven singing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb ending it with these words: "For all nations shall come and worship before Thee" (Revelation 15:4). Even if we can claim no covenant that will afford us entrance to Christ, we can open the door to His presence with worship. When our faith has failed and we falter in our approach to Him, we can always fall back on worship, for worship is a consistent door-opener.
It is only fair to point out, however, that this door-opener to Christ automatically becomes an open door that allows Him to get to us. Immediately after she began to worship Jesus, Jesus began to probe into the depths of her heart. "It is not meet to take the children's bread," He said, "and cast it to the dogs" (Matthew 15:26). In other words, He said: "You've claimed to be a daughter of Abraham, but in their eyes you're nothing but a dog."
These have always seemed like harsh words, but they were spoken by the world's greatest example of a perfect gentleman. Christ was not condemning her, He was merely unveiling her to herself. He was bringing her, "not to think more highly of herself than she ought to think" (Romans 12:3). J.B. Phillips translates this verse: "Don't cherish exaggerated ideas of yourself or your importance, but try to have a sane estimate of your capabilities by the light of the faith that God has given to you all" (The New Testament In Modern English, J.B. Phillips).
Our Lord was merely helping to adjust this woman's self-concept, and He did it while she was worshipping. As she exalted Him in worship, He exposed her worthlessness. While she spoke of His Majesty ("Lord"), He spoke of her hypocrisy. His goal was not to depreciate her, but to help her appreciate her true relationship to Himself, for until she did, He could not respond to her without condoning her falsehood. But if she would accept His appraisal and respond accordingly, He could and would minister to her need. Truth can relate to truth.
Isn't it when we are worshipping that God reveals us to ourselves? It was so with Isaiah. He, who was likely the most godly man of his generation, when caught up into God's presence cried out: "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts" (Isaiah 6:5).
At this season of his life, Isaiah was a counselor and tutor in the courts of earthly kings, but when worship brought him into the presence of the Heavenly King, he not only "saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up" (Isaiah 6:1), but he saw himself defiled and dirty. It is only when we are in the presence of Heaven's majestic King that we gain a true picture of ourselves. Compared with another, we may look great, but contrasted to Him, we lose all artificial glory.
So the Lord's response to the woman's worship was to call her a dog. How did she handle that? The only sensible way we can ever handle His evaluation of us - she said: “Truth, Lord" (Matthew 15:27). For until we acquiesce to His appraisal, communication with Him is ended. He has revealed our position and our condition; the next move is ours.
But admitting the truth that she was as separated from a covenant relationship with Christ as a dog is beneath his owner did not devastate this woman. She wisely changed her style of approach to match His estimate of her and gained everything she desired. She merely told Jesus, "Yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table" (Matthew 15:27). She simply said: "If I am a dog, don't deny me a dog's privileges!" We can learn no greater principle than to approach Christ consistent to our true nature. If we are "a dog," our nature has not yet been changed by a Divine transformation, we can sit up, wag our tail, and lick the hand of the Master.
If we're an infant in Christ, we can make pleasant "gooing" sounds and smile a lot. If we're a toddler, we can crawl to Him, pat Him, and say "da-da."
But for a mature saint to do this would be ridiculous. He should approach Christ as a Christian adult. In worship we must approach Christ consistent with our current relationship with Him.
We need not await a voice from Heaven saying, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 17:5), before praising and worshipping God. We can come just as we are. He can cleanse us as surely as He cleaned Isaiah, and change us as completely as He changed Nebuchadnezzar or Saul of Tarsus. We merely need to respond to Him as we are and from where we are, and it is worship that opens the door for this revelation to come.
It is, indeed, worship that brings us into a right relationship with God and with ourselves. But it also brings us into a right expression of ourselves to God.
Perhaps as dramatic an example of worship to be found in the Bible is the story of Mary washing the feet of Jesus. All four Gospels record the event, and Jesus said that wherever the gospel would be preached, her deed would be spoken of as a memorial to her (Mark 14:9).
Remember that Mary still overflowed with gratitude to Jesus for raising her brother, Lazarus, from the dead. Her whole way of life was rescued in that resurrection, for the lot of the widows and the unmarried woman was tenuous. Too frequently, they were exploited and stripped of all possessions.
When she looked into the home of Simon, the Leper, and saw that Lazarus was being highly honored at the banquet, but that Jesus was being treated like any other guest, it broke her heart. He was not being properly appreciated. Simon's expression of thanks to Jesus was grossly insufficient.
Slipping quickly to her home nearby, she sought out an alabaster box full of liquid nard and returned to Simon's house where she broke it, allowing the spikenard to flow over Jesus' head, down His beard, and onto His garments. Then she bathed His feet with her tears, and wiped them dry with her hair.
In contrast to the others who had merely taken Christ's presence for granted, she made a right expression of herself to her Lord. She worshipped. She loved, not from a distance, but in intimate fellowship. She was not content to say thanks with a dinner; she had to worship with a deed that pleased her emotions of love, adoration, thanksgiving, and reverence. She had to touch, to kiss, to weep, and to bow in order to thoroughly pour out herself on Jesus. The spikenard was merely a symbol of what was really being poured out on Jesus -- Mary herself! This is the heart and core of true worship -- the unashamed pouring out of our inner self upon the Lord Jesus Christ in affectionate devotion.
FACTORS IN WORSHIP
Mark's account of Mary's selfless act of worship (Chapter 14) demonstrates four distinct factors in worship. The first of these is that worship is costly. The disciples quickly calculated that this liquid nard could have been sold for at least three hundred pence, which equaled a full year's salary for a working man. Translated into today's earning power, it would be closer to twenty thousand dollars. That's quite a price to pay just to worship Jesus acceptably.
But the monetary value was probably the smallest part of the price. This costly oil had been saved for one of two reasons: either as a dowry for marriage or to assure a proper burial. Both were vitally important to this Jewish maiden. When Mary poured out the ointment, she was surrendering all her plans, ambitions, and aspirations for the future. Worshipping in the present was far more important than longing for the future. In Verse 8, Jesus said of her act, "She is come aforehand (Greek ' now') to anoint my body to the burying." True worship often costs us some of our self-centered plans and ambitions. It requires us to put God's glory above our goals.
A second factor of worship that is illustrated here is that worship invokes criticism. The fragrance of this perfume had scarcely reached the nostrils of the disciples until they were vocally critical that the ointment had not been sold and the money given to the poor. While social service is laudable, and Jesus even required it, there is also a time and place to minister unto the Lord.
I've received more criticism because of worshipping than any other activity into which I've ever led a congregation. Somehow people still seem to feel that it is a waste to pour out anything directly upon the Lord. I've seen husbands, who had never complained because their wives worked at the church supper or served as volunteer secretary to the staff, become incensed and prohibit their wives from attending worship sessions. We should be prepared for and expect criticism if we become worshippers.
The third factor of worship that Mary illustrates is the need for brokenness. The liquid nard was permanently sealed in a stone container. To release it required breaking the bottle. Similarly, worship, which is resident in the spirit of every saint, is sealed in by the outer container of the soul and body. Worship can never be released until something happens to rupture this stony container. Presenting the bottle would not have been worship; it would have been an offering. Fracturing the alabaster box allowed the oil to flow as an anointing to the body of the Lord.
David, who knew much about being broken before the Lord, wrote: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou will not despise" (Psalm 51:17). The Hebrew words he used are extremely strong. For the "broken spirit" he used the word shabor which means to shiver, to break to pieces, or to reduce to splinters. For "the broken heart," he used the Hebrew word dakah which means to crumble, to beat to pieces, to bruise, to crush, or to humble.
Spiritual worship requires a splintering of our prides, a crumbling of our natural reserves, a bruising of our self-sufficiencies, as well as a crushing of our self-will. The beating to pieces of our carnal nature will release our emotions to flow out in tears of repentance, submission, and love. I am not calling for us to become sadistic or cruelly introspective, but we need to break and crush everything we have developed in our lives that prevents true humility and love from flowing out. Very often hardness of heart is a defense built up against being wounded by others. We need no such defenses when with Jesus. He will never wound--He is the healer of wounds!
The hard-hearted person cannot worship; he or she must be content with mere rituals of worship. It is the tender-hearted, the gentle-spirited people who can pour out their inner spirit upon God. One must be able to respond positively to projected love, for the true essence of worship is love responding to love. In praise we may express our love to God, but in worship we respond to His expressed love for us.
When David was hiding in the cave of Adullam, fully reduced to splinters by Saul's murderous pursuit, he wrote: "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart…" (Psalm 34:18). Brokenness, which is necessary to worship in order to release our inner man, also assures us the nearness of the Lord, without which worship is impossible, for worship can only be performed when we are in His presence--when we are conscious of His love flowing out to us. Worship, you see, is a response.
A fourth factor in worship that is alluded to in this story is that worship is reciprocal; we get something in return. When Mary held the alabaster box over the head of Jesus and broke it with a hammer or a stone, the oil gushed out over His head. She quickly rubbed it into the hair and beard, and transferred the drippings to His feet. Then she let her long tresses fall and used her hair to wipe up the residue. When she left the banquet room, people could sniff and say, "She's the one; I can tell, for she smells exactly like Jesus does."
When we pour worship out on the Lord Jesus Christ, we also get it all over ourselves. As we go out from His presence, we carry the fragrance of Christ everywhere we go. Paul recognized this when he wrote: "God ...maketh manifest the savour of His knowledge by us in every place" (2 Corinthians 2:14). Worshippers tend to smell like the love of God.
Just as the Old Testament priest carried the fragrance of God's incense in his hair and clothes after he had tended the golden altar, so we give the world a demonstration of the sweetness of our Lord after we have worshipped. The worship permeates our very nature and is as pleasant as a rare perfume. Worship is very reciprocal, for we benefit as much from it as He does.
THE HOLY SPIRIT SETS THE MOOD FOR WORSHIP
It is the Holy Spirit who sets the tone or mood of worship. By "mood" we mean a state of mind or feeling. God is a Person. He always has a purpose which is upon His heart and mind for His people whenever they come together. The Holy Spirit always knows the will and mind of God. Therefore, He will seek to set the tone and theme of a service in line with God's purpose.
Sometimes the tone or mood of a meeting may change. There may be a heavy spirit of grief for those who are away from God. After repentance, the mood of the meeting might change to one of great joy. It is important, therefore, for us to be sensitive to the leading of God's Spirit.
The Spirit of God will always bring a sense of expectation to our services of worship. He is always ready to move in the fresh, new ways of ministry. Even familiar forms of worship, therefore, should never become old or boring.
We cannot successfully copy Mary's act of worship. Expressions of worship are unique and varied. We may look on the blessings of last week and say: "This is how it worked then; so let's try it again today." However, in trying to make it "work again," we lose the freshness and life of God's Spirit.
For this reason, we must be careful to follow after the new ways of the Spirit--even if He wishes to lead us beyond the set form of our liturgy. Rather than conform to the pattern of another or to repeat what has been done before, we need to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. He understands worship far better than we do. The Spirit of God is a person, and has many different moods. We need to be sensitive to the mood He brings to a meeting, and move in that direction. If He is in a mood of rejoicing, we also should rejoice. If He is in a giving mood, we should respond wisely by giving to God. Whatever He is doing, we should do it with Him. This is the only way we can really worship the Father as we have been created and called to do!
The Holy Spirit keeps our worship from becoming dull and routine. The Spirit of God always blows where He wills -- in fresh, new ways. It is a glorious thing!
In a way, we have to "open the windows" at the beginning of a service, and ask the Holy Spirit to "blow upon us." In our hearts, we want to be led by God. Sometimes, however, we may be afraid of anything new and different. In that case, sadly, we may try to keep the windows tightly closed.
We are responsible to be open to the Spirit and be aware of where He is taking us. The Holy Spirit wants to glorify Jesus; and we do too. That means He will faithfully lead us into worship -- worship which will be new and different every time!
Since it is inherent in our natures to be worshippers, may God clearly lead us to know the true "who," the correct "when," and the manifold "why" of worship as we embrace the factions of worship and the mood of the Holy Spirit for the service. Both God and we will greatly benefit from this!
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