Salamat, Lord!
Not to us, O LORD, not to us but to Your name be the glory, because of Your love and faithfulness. - Psalm 115:1Sunday, June 08, 2008
Thursday, June 05, 2008
To Worship with a Heart
Peace be with us!
I write this at the time when we celebrate our Lord’s Ascension and commissioning us to continue what He has started. He was very clear --- “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt 28:19-20)… What a privileged time for us to spread the Good News through the music that we do.
But as I read His message for today, what bothered me most was what happened before He said this great commission. The Word said “And when they saw Him they worshiped him; but some doubted.” (Matt 28:17).
I continue to be amazed by how God reveals His words and messages, at least for me. For the past several months, He has swamped me with just one word, this word --- worship. I don’t know why, but all these past months, all He says to me is worship!
I have to confess too, that for the past months, I felt there was something lacking in me. I felt, just as some of my brothers described with their past experience, about “something spiritually dry and empty inside”. It’s the feeling that as if everything that you are doing has come to naught. And in everything that you do, the perennial question always pops out “Why am I doing this?”
And the answer to this emptiness came from His loving deluge of that one word --- worship. It suddenly dawned on me that for the past months what I lacked was indeed worship --- worship with my heart. Worship that is true to Him and for Him, and not just something that goes through the motions, or just an after thought.
With His infinite grace, He even showed me what He meant with worship. He led me to the YFC ILC, and there He made me remember how it was to worship --- youthful praise, total surrender to Him, with all hands up raised, even unmindful of being in tune --- it was all about just being with Him.
Yes, worship for Him is being with Him. Not because of what good you’ve done, or what great talents you have. All these are His anyway. All He needs is you being with Him. I remember a youth once told me “worship is heaven here on earth”. And another, talking about her worship experience, “I just kept on crying, not because I was hurt or anything, but because I was with Him”.
Then the pieces of the puzzle fell into their places. I am just awed when this concert we are doing now was titled “Heart of Worship”. It isn’t a coincidence that all these time, He has saturated me with “worship”, and now Bob comes with a concert title “Heart of Worship” (from “Labor of Love”).
I was taken aback having learned about the story of how the song “Heart of Worship” came to be. At times I see the parallelisms of the song’s story and what we have right now. We may be too engrossed with being a lead singer, or being with the choir, or being a musician, that we may be blurring worship. We may be too engrossed of how good we are, of how many missions we have and will have, that we may be setting aside worship. But, as one of the lines of the song goes, as we worship, we have to bring more than a song. We have to bring our hearts to worship.
Let not our talents and our songs be louder than our worship.
We must learn how to worship more, intensely, intimately, individually and as one. The focus is always worship, worship for Him.
Maybe that’s why for the disciples, when they saw Him, they worshipped Him but “some doubted”. The doubt maybe was not because they didn’t believe like Thomas, but because their hearts were not yet ready for worship, their hearts were engrossed and being blurred with something else. Worship was half-hearted, worship was in doubt.
It may seem that during resurrection, whenever people saw Jesus, they worshipped Him. Backtracking a bit in the same Matthew’s account (28:8-9), he says: So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell His disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," He said. They came to Him, clasped His feet and worshiped Him!
Luke (24) even shortly narrates about His Ascension, and even ends his gospel as the disciples saw Him in His glorious ascension: Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.
Let us pray then that as we do this concert, we may see Him. And as we see Him, we have our hearts of worship.
God bless us all.
I write this at the time when we celebrate our Lord’s Ascension and commissioning us to continue what He has started. He was very clear --- “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt 28:19-20)… What a privileged time for us to spread the Good News through the music that we do.
But as I read His message for today, what bothered me most was what happened before He said this great commission. The Word said “And when they saw Him they worshiped him; but some doubted.” (Matt 28:17).
I continue to be amazed by how God reveals His words and messages, at least for me. For the past several months, He has swamped me with just one word, this word --- worship. I don’t know why, but all these past months, all He says to me is worship!
I have to confess too, that for the past months, I felt there was something lacking in me. I felt, just as some of my brothers described with their past experience, about “something spiritually dry and empty inside”. It’s the feeling that as if everything that you are doing has come to naught. And in everything that you do, the perennial question always pops out “Why am I doing this?”
And the answer to this emptiness came from His loving deluge of that one word --- worship. It suddenly dawned on me that for the past months what I lacked was indeed worship --- worship with my heart. Worship that is true to Him and for Him, and not just something that goes through the motions, or just an after thought.
With His infinite grace, He even showed me what He meant with worship. He led me to the YFC ILC, and there He made me remember how it was to worship --- youthful praise, total surrender to Him, with all hands up raised, even unmindful of being in tune --- it was all about just being with Him.
Yes, worship for Him is being with Him. Not because of what good you’ve done, or what great talents you have. All these are His anyway. All He needs is you being with Him. I remember a youth once told me “worship is heaven here on earth”. And another, talking about her worship experience, “I just kept on crying, not because I was hurt or anything, but because I was with Him”.
Then the pieces of the puzzle fell into their places. I am just awed when this concert we are doing now was titled “Heart of Worship”. It isn’t a coincidence that all these time, He has saturated me with “worship”, and now Bob comes with a concert title “Heart of Worship” (from “Labor of Love”).
I was taken aback having learned about the story of how the song “Heart of Worship” came to be. At times I see the parallelisms of the song’s story and what we have right now. We may be too engrossed with being a lead singer, or being with the choir, or being a musician, that we may be blurring worship. We may be too engrossed of how good we are, of how many missions we have and will have, that we may be setting aside worship. But, as one of the lines of the song goes, as we worship, we have to bring more than a song. We have to bring our hearts to worship.
Let not our talents and our songs be louder than our worship.
We must learn how to worship more, intensely, intimately, individually and as one. The focus is always worship, worship for Him.
Maybe that’s why for the disciples, when they saw Him, they worshipped Him but “some doubted”. The doubt maybe was not because they didn’t believe like Thomas, but because their hearts were not yet ready for worship, their hearts were engrossed and being blurred with something else. Worship was half-hearted, worship was in doubt.
It may seem that during resurrection, whenever people saw Jesus, they worshipped Him. Backtracking a bit in the same Matthew’s account (28:8-9), he says: So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell His disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," He said. They came to Him, clasped His feet and worshiped Him!
Luke (24) even shortly narrates about His Ascension, and even ends his gospel as the disciples saw Him in His glorious ascension: Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.
Let us pray then that as we do this concert, we may see Him. And as we see Him, we have our hearts of worship.
God bless us all.
Monday, June 02, 2008
I'm sorry, Lord
I'm sorry, Lord
For the thing I've made it
When it's all about You
It's all about You, Jesus
The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.
- Isaiah 29:13
For the thing I've made it
When it's all about You
It's all about You, Jesus
The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.
- Isaiah 29:13
Sunday, June 01, 2008
I'm coming back
I'm coming back
To the heart of worship
And it's all about You
It's all about You, Jesus
Not to us, O LORD, not to us
but to Your name be the glory,
because of Your love and faithfulness.
- Psalm 115:1
To the heart of worship
And it's all about You
It's all about You, Jesus
Not to us, O LORD, not to us
but to Your name be the glory,
because of Your love and faithfulness.
- Psalm 115:1
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