the light of a candle against a veil on the window makes for a safe little place to face this day. a soft sunrise shows through our temporary curtain (a green sheet tacked to the wall)- glowing, inviting me to be quiet.
God is.
Jesus Christ is the Lord.
sophistication, education, experience only goes so far with God. in our culture, Image is worshipped, and we are inundated constantly with a flood of this worship- words, pictures and stories, sounds, music, statues, artwork… all carefully crafted expressions of worship to this idol. in our culture, in the church, too often, worshipping God has been badly polluted by this sin. so this morning, i want to share with you what has happened to me: though i have been abandoning the purer worship i used to know, God is bringing me back. as i invited the Holy Spirit to meet me here today, i got stripped of sophistication.
my spirit has been set free, like an unaware, trusting child. i am so thankful.
as i pray for each of you, i wonder: why is it that we fail to really enter in, why do we remain trapped, unable to taste the purity of worship, unable to totally point our whole beings in worship and let it all out? what is the root of this problem? i wonder if it isn’t, more often than not, the sophistication of our self-consciousness that holds us back. this pollution of image-worship and the resulting cloud of confusion, self-absorption?
if i get emotional when i’m singing a worship song then i will be faking myself out, immature.
if i even sing a worship song, it will not match my life, which doesn’t worship God as much, so i will not sing.
i don’t know how to sing or worship in my heart.
if i stand up to worship when no one is around, i will just be religious, trying too hard.
if i stand up to worship when others are also worshipping, i’ll just be copying them.
if i lift my hands, what will that matter?
if i dance, i might tread into the realm of weird or flakey.
if i worship in silence, how will i know it is real? i have too many fleeting thoughts.
if i point my spirit towards God and thank him, while washing the dishes, cleaning, driving, working, it won’t be enough, i should do more. so i won’t, because what i have to offer isn’t enough. i should do more good works, that is more acceptable to God.
if i ask God to meet me, he won’t come. i haven’t been consistent.
Each of these lies, i think, come from a root of the worship of Image, the extreme self-consciousness of our culture. it puts us on a perpetual stage, it entices us with fantasies of having others watch us do great things, or having headlines written about us, of having a movie made about our life. of living such a wonderful saintly life, as we imagine, that we live to what we want our legacy to be. we, as the philosophers say, try to create our own lifestyle. this idol, this lie, this sin, imbeds itself into our concept of what our purpose is, our concept of who we are. it puts the focus of our life on us, as if God was responding to who we are. as if God was the one with the burden of breaking through to us. this pervasive lie tries to make us believe that unless others are impacted or see what God is doing in us, that there is no value in our lives- that there is no value in worshipping. Do you also see this? it’s everywhere if you look.
fortunately for us, there is a way out of this trap, and i think i’ve started to see how to escape. we can be freed from this problem, and we can return to worshipping, and praying in our unseen closets, instead of the public places of our hearts. Back when Jesus walked the earth and he was travelling along the road with his disciples, he asked them a question. “Who do people say I am?”
according to the gospel of mark, they responded, “some say john the baptist; others say elijah; and sill others, one of the prophets.” well, Jesus asked them another question.
“but what about you, who do you say that i am?”
Jesus seeks our response to who he is. In letting go of the idol of image, we can, free of self-consciousness and self-absorption, say as Peter did, “You are the Christ.” (mark 
God is.
Jesus Christ is the Lord.
BE ENCOURAGED, FRIENDS! in our cry of response, we are put before the Lord, and we are aligned. as we respond to Him, he makes us who we are in Him, who he created us to be. we are not, in fact, in charge of creating our own lifestyle or our own legacy after all. we can relax and feel his love. we can worship. may our eyes be opened, may we truly see the one who transforms us, who loves us, who is our only judge. may we see Jesus. may we respond, unafraid and unashamed.
the imagination, filled with the Holy Spirit, can brilliantly set us free to worship without shame or holding back. i pray for each of us to be stripped of sophistication. i pray for God’s holy mercy to light our path. Oh, Lord Jesus, thank you. it’s you who is important, not me. i bring myself to your cross, i open up my eyes to die to my own vain imagination. now, Holy Lord, i worship you, i accept you, i love you. you are risen. you are Lord.
