By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC
There isn’t a much better place to be in the middle of summer than our beautiful Pacific Northwest. This is God’s country! The mountains and hills will burst into song, and the trees of the field will clap their hands! (Isaiah 55:12). Jesus said that if we don’t praise him, the stones will cry out. We join the psalmist, Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! (Psalm 150:6).
We often hear that mission begins and ends with worship. It’s only when we see God’s worth that we follow Him; that we join His work. But when Jesus returns there will be no more mission, but our worship will go on. We worship now and we will worship in the new heaven and new earth!
We answer Creator’s call to join His family and work. We respond to God’s holy and infallible Word because It is real – God breathed. We know that we are filled with the very presence of God Himself as the Holy Spirit fills, seals, gifts, enlightens, comforts, and leads. God sets us on redemptive pathways and invites us into healing and wholeness. God pours out His infinite love and endless grace to us His precious ones. He’s not just an idea, a moral code, or a life accessory. He is our God! How can we not worship Him? When we are asked to do something difficult…when God asks us to go somewhere we don’t want to…when we have to let go of something…when something is costly… – it is there, in those telling moments, when God is most real and present. We give ourselves to Him.
“Worship” comes from the Old English for “ascribing worth.” We are worshippers of what we give our best to: our time and resources, our affections and imagination. All around us, there are worshippers of achievement, entertainment, knowledge, material consumption, even different causes. As a follower of Christ, how are you ascribing worth to God in your life?
As I walk these beautiful days of summer, I want to share just a few ways I’ve been worshipping God. I share these not as some kind of formula or as one who has arrived, but I share as one who is desperately wanting and needing to give God my all.
God is an amazing artist. I keep looking to Mt. Rainier and our surrounding mountain ranges. They take my breath away. The bounty of the land, beauty of our waters, and those breath-taking sunsets bring me closer to God. Every evening that I’m home at 9pm, the kids and I have sat outside and we’ve shared Scripture and reflections with each other through Lectio Divina. I continue to pray to the Lord of the Harvest daily at 9:38PM (reflecting Matt 9:38), even while at the night market in Arcadia, CA and just before a movie started! I’ve actively been journaling and spending more time reflecting on where God has taken me and what He might be saying. I’m nearing 100 pages completed in my bullet journal. At moments of desperation this summer, I’ve fasted and prayed. I’ve cried out to God when it’s been hard. Right now, I share with the conference staff a hunger for God’s presence. I’ve put on worship music or sermons instead of podcasts or news. I’m sitting still and slowing down more. Yes, I’m so inconsistent and not perfect, at all. But I love to worship God
My prayer is that you would grow in worshipping God during this backside of summer. Worship and serve God with nothing less than your whole beings. Surrender, turn, confess, reconcile, and walk in the light. Be deliberate. Be accountable. Share your worship and invite others into in. Remember that old Matt Redman classic?
“I’m coming back to the heart of worship
It’s all about you
It’s all about you.
I’m sorry Lord for the things I’ve made it.
When it’s all about you.
It’s all about you, Jesus.”
(The Heart of Worship)
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:1-2