The Light for Today

My Photo
Name:
Location: Pensacola, Florida, United States

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Prescription for God honoring Worship and Praise

For every thing the Lord requires from us, He also gives us a “pattern” of how to do what He wants. One of the most used patterns given by the Lord Jesus was the “Model Prayer.” This is often referred to as the Lord’s prayer. But He taught this prayer to His disciples when they asked Him to teach them how to pray.

LESSON: When the disciples had reached that place spiritually that they really wanted to know how to pray, they asked Him, and because their hearts were right toward Him, He taught them how to pray. The same holds true for worship and praise. When we have our hearts right with the Lord, and ask Him, He will teach us how to worship and praise Him in a way that is pleasing to Him.
I used the word “Prescription” in the title, but please understand this is just the weakness of vocabulary. This is NOT like those “self-working” math problems. You can not simply take this pattern, repeat it and get the same results as those who study and apply it to their life. This procedure or arrangement of events is from scripture and it is NOT just some motions you can go through and God has to show up. This is an inventory of spiritual and emotional places (attitudes) in the human psyche that each and every individual has to be in to receive the fullness of the presents of God. As each one experience matures, it will lead to the next as it’s natural order is to lead to that next spiritual/emotional attitude. Each attitude or level of worship and praise becomes more focused on the Lord Jesus and more intense to the believer while in the presents of the Lord God. It may be understood as a believer moving through the rooms - mansions - of the Lord’s Heaven. Each grows more beautiful and astounding as the worshipper moves closer to Him. It is a focusing of your attitude on certain aspects of your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ one by one in a certain order that has been prescribed by the Lord Himself in scripture just as He did with the first disciples and the model prayer.

1.) Thanksgiving Celebration: Our first duty as Christians is to get cleaned up by confession of sins so that we may approach the Lord in worship. (This is best done on the spot at the time of reproving by the Holy Spirit.) Don’t wait till you are in the church building to start confessing sin. Get that business out of the way so that you may be able to enter His “Gates” (that’s the opening in the outer perimeter) with Thanksgiving. People leading worship often try to stir up emotions to get people to join in celebration and being joyful toward the Lord. If the believers are truly “Grateful and full of Thanksgiving” no one will have to “persuade” them to celebrate. It will be the natural outpouring for all that the Lord has blessed them with as well as all He has protected them from since the last time they we gathered. As the celebration intensifies it will morph into the next attitude.

2.) Adulation: As a believers celebration becomes more intense because of the focus on how wonderful the Lord God is to mankind, it will take the next natural turn to being a heart full of adulation for the Lord Himself. This will express it’s self just as the birds do when they burst forth in song when spring breaks bright, sunny and warm. If chased away, he will only move higher in the tree, further into the woods and sing even louder. Adulation is open glorifying of God Almighty as Perfect Very God, creator of all the universe, Owner and Master of all. Adulation will naturally follow thanksgiving celebration as night follow day. As adulation is practiced corporately it will lead each individual into a focus on the Lord Jesus in their own personal relationship with Him.

3.) Adoration: When this happens, the believer is still functioning as part of the praise and worship but it is now on a personal level. They are not singing because the people around them are, they are not singing because this is their favorite song, or the choir sounds good or any of those things. It has now become a matter of a song in their heart that must be expressed to their Lord Jesus. It is that place spiritually where the believer wants, more than anything to express his or her own personal love to the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Owner and Master. It is that sweet declaration of un-ending love and devotion, knowing that without His grace we will never be able to carry through our love for Him. As the soul of the believer has been massaged, sweetened and made smooth and soft it naturally is in need of the hand of God writing the words of God on that soul. This moves us to the next level.

4.) Proclamation: At this point, the end of expressing our personal love and devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ, we are ready for the Holy Spirit to come with the word of God that He will write on our hearts. Our hearts are clean, grateful and full of love for the Lord, now He will wash us with the “water of the word.” This is where we have no need to be washed all over but our feet only. (See John 13) Now after He washes us with the water of the word, we can have fellowship with Him. Proclamation is nothing less than the reading and explaining of scripture as it is compared with other scripture. It is a process of “lifting” the great truths of scripture up before the believers, explaining them in true context and holding them in the light of other scriptures on the same subject. The proclamation needs to be in a logical format for the understanding of the believers. The plain, dignified approach of the scriptures telling a narrative should set the best example of the presentation of God’s message for that local body of believers. Being too creative can distract from the message by shifting the focus from the creator to the creature. It is sometime during this process of lifting up and explaining the word that each and every individual one at a time will move on to one degree or another to the next logical transformation in the believer’s attitude.

5.) Acclamation: This is the real crisis point in the entire service. This is that point where the believer makes a conscious decision to accept or reject the message. Were they washed in the water of the word, or did they just get wet? For acclamation to take place, the message has to be internalized by the individual believer on a level that transforms their actions by the renewing of their mind. The Proclamation of scripture must be willingly received and embraced as the full, final authority or true, full acclamation did not take place. And that is the ultimate goal of proclamation. It is possible for a partial acceptance to take place and later the Holy Spirit lead that person to a full transformation by the renewing of the mind and acclamation of the truth as revealed in scripture. The last station for the believer is one that does not take place at the “gathering” of the saints.

6.) Dissemination: This last position or attitude of worship and praise takes place in the world, not at the meeting place of the believers. Because of the “meeting with the Lord” that has taken place -- because of the true worship of Jesus (Thanksgiving - Adulation - Adoration - Proclamation and the Acclamation) in spirit and truth, that has taken place -- the believer has been transformed by the renewing of their mind. If you will, they were transformed into having the mind of Christ. If all else associated with the worship and presentation in glory of our Lord Jesus Christ takes place and this “dissemination” does NOT take place, THERE HAS BEEN NO WORSHIP! If the first five attitudes do not result in dissemination, there was no thanksgiving - no adulation - no adoration - no lasting proclamation and no acclamation. This happens far more often than not, and is usually never noticed if there was a large enough and loud enough celebration. Everyone declares what a meaningful meeting it was, goes home unchanged, and the world remains the same as it was too. True worship will result, not in just you worshipping Jesus, but you will also have a burning desire to see everyone else come to love and worship Him too. That’s dissemination.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

A Lack Of MOral Authority In America Today

Mob mentality in the streets rebelling against legally elected government authority: Government prosecutors rigging evidence to convict innocent people because it is politically expedient for them to be re-elected: Entertainment personalities publicly degrading and insulting innocent people with off hand characterizations: Hypocrite so-called-ministers demanding justice or mercy when it suits their pocketbook. It is a time “When every man does that which is right in his own eyes.” Moral authority has been relegated to the “feelings” of the individual and America is wondering why it is in the mess it’s in.

We have developed into such an adversarial society that many of our children are becoming combat veterans before they graduate from High school. After recent events, we can look for another round of "gun control laws" being made. There may be more things that need to be done to keep guns out of the hands of the irresponsible, but I always get nervous about law makers passing laws under duress. GOD knows they have enough trouble getting it right when it's just day to day business. They don't need the additional pressure.

The problem we face here is not about guns. It's about authority. If gunpowder had never been invented, this controversy called "gun control" would be called "bow and arrow control" or "sling and rock control". Guns, spears, arrows etc. don't kill people. People kill people. Don’t try to laugh that off. The truth will set you free. Remember, “If guns cause violence,” then they same reasoning says “erasures on pencils cause mistakes.”

Face the real issue. It's about "authority". We have taught "rights" over "responsibility" for so long, that any attempt to make people act responsible looks like a violation of someone's rights. This brings about rebellion. When an individual person makes a choice to end another person's life, they have taken on authority that they don't have. To assume this authority a person has to come out from under and throw off all established Divine, parental and civil authority. This is called rebellion and at this level it usually is not the first time rebellion has been seen in this individual's life. One does not make one giant step from being in total submission and obedience to parents, school official and civil authorities, to walking into a building and shooting down anyone who moves.

Influences in our lives will either move us toward being good or move us toward being evil. When you add together the effects of gangsta’ rap and Goth heavy metal - the other music-videos, and the impact of violent video games, you end up with a rebellious worldview. Add to this television's amplified teaching of one's right to assert their preferred perversion and the prevailing notion that "freedom" means "no moral restraint", you end up with rebellion as a standard attitude. Immoral behavior becomes funny or cute, thereby becoming common place and acceptable. As for the music and videos, allow your children to pour garbage into their minds, after awhile you get garbage out. Children are not being taught to properly claim their rights by submission to higher authority. They are learning everything they learn from the cursing, fighting and immoral lives of the adults in the rebellious and broken homes they are growing up in.

Most churches hardly even touch on "moral freedom" any more. Moral freedom is not the right to do whatever your glands tell you to do; it is the power of a disciplined life that gives you the strength to do what you know is right. Remember back when we allowed a hand full of people to throw GOD'S Book out of our schools? Now you hear people ask, "Where is GOD when all of this shooting takes place?" He's out there where you threw Him years ago when you became so enlightened that you didn't need His influence in the lives of your children any more. Is it really any wonder that “in the schools” is where it's all being played out before us?

The Bible is the only proven standard we have. People must be under the authority of an absolute standard of right and wrong for character training. We do not come into this world desiring to respect and acknowledge the rights of the people around us. Children must be taught that other people are not just props to complete the stage of their life. Next, people must be under authority for the sake of their own conscience. The most frustrated and miserable people you know are the ones who always find a way around discipline and authority. They go through life making excuses and shifting blame on to someone else for their bad choices.
To accept authority is to accept responsibility for obedience. People who have no discipline hold other people responsible for their happiness and when life fails to meet their implanted desires and expectations, they blame others, grow to hate authority even more and then go off like volcanoes damaging all of us. If not physically, emotionally damaged.

There are three places for you to learn about authority. First, there is the family. It was here that GOD established the place to start learning to live under authority. Parents can't say, "I'll wait till they start school and let the teachers discipline them". You can't afford to wait till they are old enough to understand. Please, parents, don't tell children to do something if you are not going to make them do it. They just grow up doubting the orders of all who will be in authority over them, even those who may be trying to give them instructions that could save their life. The next place is the government. No, it is not school. School is there to educate them about the government's authority over them, not fix social issues or teach discipline. The basic two functions of government authority is to restrain or punish evil and to protect and reward those who do good. Lastly, the best place to help the family teach authority is in a GOD fearing, Bible believing, teaching and preaching church. A high view of scripture is a sign of respect for and submission to authority. GOD'S authority. WHO IS YOUR FINIAL AUTHORITY?

GOD is the source of all authority, He is "...King of kings and LORD of lords". (I Timothy 6:15) This means all authority is GOD given. Wherever authority is exercised, it is an area of jurisdiction assigned by GOD along with the resources and power to function for society's good. Submission is an attitude of reverence for GOD given authority whereby you willingly place yourself in obedience as an act of faith.

Obedience is the moral freedom to live a creative life under the protection of this divinely appointed authority while conforming to their rules of order. If you are having trouble with these words: "Obedience", "Authority" and "Submission" then you are part of the problem and until you change your attitude you'll never be part of the solution.

Why do you have so much trouble with this basic knowledge of order? Our head functions as authority in relation to our bodies to provide protection, provision and give direction to our lives. It is the same purpose and benefits for being under the authority of GOD. To do anything else is to be out of your head. The Bible speaks to this in, "Children obey your parents in the LORD, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise: that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. Look around you, how well are things with us and how much longer can man live on this earth?

Monday, April 02, 2007

Hope rides alone by Eddie Jeffers

This is an article written by a 22 year old soldier in Iraq. I hope it will impress you, inspire you to do something to change the course of our nation, and I hope it blesses your heart as it did mine. ....................Ed Anthony

Hope Rides Alone By Eddie Jeffers

I stare out into the darkness from my post, and I watch the city burn to the ground. I smell the familiar smells, I walk through the familiar rubble, and I look at the frightened faces that watch me pass down the streets of their neighborhoods. My nerves hardly rest; my hands are steady on a device that has been given to me from my government for the purpose of taking the lives of others. I sweat, and I am tired. My back aches from the loads I carry. Young American boys look to me to direct them in a manner that will someday allow them to see their families again...and yet, I too, am just a boy....my age not but a few years more than that of the ones I lead. I am stressed, I am scared, and I am paranoid...because death is everywhere. It waits for me, it calls to me from around street corners and windows, and it is always there. There are the demons that follow me, and tempt me into thoughts and actions that are not my own...but that are necessary for survival. I've made compromises with my humanity. And I am not alone in this. Miles from me are my brethren in this world, who walk in the same streets...who feel the same things, whether they admit to it or not. And to think, I volunteered for this... And I am ignorant to the rest of the world...or so I thought. But even thousands of miles away, in Ramadi, Iraq, the cries and screams and complaints of the ungrateful reach me. In a year, I will be thrust back into society from a life and mentality that doesn't fit your average man. And then, I will be alone. And then, I will walk down the streets of America, and see the yellow ribbon stickers on the cars of the same people who compare our President to Hitler. I will watch the television and watch the Cindy Sheehans, and the Al Frankens, and the rest of the ignorant sheep of America spout off their mouths about a subject they know nothing about. It is their right, however, and it is a right that is defended by hundreds of thousands of boys and girls scattered across the world, far from home. I use the word boys and girls, because that's what they are. In the Army, the average age of the infantryman is nineteen years old. The average rank of soldiers killed in action is Private First Class. People like Cindy Sheehan are ignorant. Not just to this war, but to the results of their idiotic ramblings, or at least I hope they are. They don't realize its effects on this war. In this war, there are no Geneva Conventions, no cease fires. Medics and Chaplains are not spared from the enemy's brutality because it's against the rules. I can only imagine the horrors a military Chaplain would experience at the hands of the enemy. The enemy slinks in the shadows and fights a coward's war against us. It is effective though, as many men and women have died since the start of this war. And the memory of their service to America is tainted by the inconsiderate remarks on our nation's news outlets. And every day, the enemy changes...only now, the enemy is becoming something new. The enemy is transitioning from the Muslim extremists to Americans. The enemy is becoming the very people whom we defend with our lives. And they do not realize it. But in denouncing our actions, denouncing our leaders, denouncing the war we live and fight, they are isolating the military from society...and they are becoming our enemy. Democrats and peace activists like to toss the word "quagmire" around and compare this war to Vietnam. In a way they are right, this war is becoming like Vietnam. Not the actual war, but in the isolation of country and military. America is not a nation at war; they are a nation with its military at war. Like it or not, we are here, some of us for our second, or third times; some even for their fourth and so on. Americans are so concerned now with politics, that it is interfering with our war. Terrorists cut the heads off of American citizens on the internet...and there is no outrage, but an American soldier kills an Iraqi in the midst of battle, and there are investigations, and sometimes soldiers are even jailed...for doing their job. It is absolutely sickening to me to think our country has come to this. Why are we so obsessed with the bad news? Why will people stop at nothing to be against this war, no matter how much evidence of the good we've done is thrown in their face? When is the last time CNN or MSNBC or CBS reported the opening of schools and hospitals in Iraq? Or the leaders of terror cells being detained or killed? It's all happening, but people will not let up their hatred of Bush. They will ignore the good news, because it just might show people that Bush was right. America has lost its will to fight. It has lost its will to defend what is right and just in the world. The crazy thing of it all is that the American people have not even been asked to sacrifice a single thing. It's not like World War Two, where people rationed food, and turned in cars to be made into metal for tanks. The American people have not been asked to sacrifice anything. Unless you are in the military or the family member of a service member, its life as usual...the war doesn't affect you. But it affects us. And when it is over, and the troops come home, and they try to piece together what's left of them after their service...where will the detractors be then? Where will the Cindy Sheehans be to comfort and talk to soldiers and help them sort out the last couple years of their lives, most of which have been spent dodging death and wading through the deaths of their friends? They will be where they always are, somewhere far away, where the horrors of the world can't touch them. Somewhere where they can complain about things they will never experience in their lifetime; things that the young men and women of America have willingly taken upon their shoulders. We are the hope of the Iraqi people. They want what everyone else wants in life: safety, security, somewhere to call home. They want a country that is safe to raise their children in. Not a place where their children will be abducted, raped, and murdered if they do not comply with the terrorists demands. They want to live on, rebuild and prosper. And America has given them the opportunity, but only if we stay true to the cause, and see it to its end. But the country must unite in this endeavor...we cannot place the burden on our military alone. We must all stand up and fight, whether in uniform or not. And supporting us is more than sticking yellow ribbon stickers on your cars. It's supporting our President, our troops and our cause. Right now, the burden is all on the American soldiers. Right now, hope rides alone. But it can change, it must change. Because there is only failure and darkness ahead for us as a country, as a people, if it doesn't. Let's stop all the political nonsense, let's stop all the bickering, let's stop all the bad news, and let's stand and fight!
Isn't that what America is about anyway?