Worship isn’t a music program or a band pumping but people compelled to sing and make their own decision to just really declare that God is Lord of their life. This is the craziest thing to be involved in to see how many people God is affecting and the lives that have been changing and are still being changed making their peace with God on this trip.
He doesn’t want our ways of doing things, and our methods. God’s not into appearances, He’s into the heart. And we do what we do, and we give everything we have to God. The best of our creativity, the best of what we can do with our hands, we do it because we love God and we want to give Him the best that we can. So there’s nothing wrong with lights, great music, and everything else as long as the heart is pure and it’s simply to glorify God and to sacrifice by giving our best to Him. I pray that will be the revelation in giving our best to Him. He’s not just after the confession of our lips, but He’s after our action when it comes to reaching others. Being prepared to be inconvenienced enough to kind of lay down our agendas and take up God’s agenda.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
O precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow
No other fount I know; Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Everyone. If we truly came to believe that the blood of Jesus, the gospel that changes lives is for everyone, then we would have less politics or patriotism ruining our message and the kingdom that Christ truly brought. He is no political party, country blesser, or a patch we wear in order to get extra favor. He is an authoritative sword, one whose message is the power of God and foolishness to the world, and He is a King of a kingdom that will not be determined by boundary lines or our finite minds. A kingdom of all nations, tongues, and tribes will gather to worship Him. The sooner we focus on justice, the lostness of our souls without Him, the more we’ll get over our appearance, pride and help those who are weak no matter what political party they are our whatever our political agenda is. People are people, and they are no different because of a land divided by imaginary lines only made by men who wanted power. God is bigger!
Worship and the pursuit of justice actually have to work together for them to have integrity, and one should not be done, and cannot be done healthfully unless the other one is side by side. It’s what makes the church a church. The church is not worshipping if justice is not part of the church.
People aren’t so different as we think. Cultures are different, but we are all people and every soul has the same need and every person wants to feel valued and to feel loved and significant, and have dignity.
In an age where kids are having iPods and phones at the age of eight, there are many other nations where extreme poverty is so stagnant. There’s people who literally cannot put food on the table and their digging in the scrapfeed for food. What I don’t understand is how this can all happen on the same planet? There’s something wrong here. There’s something majorly wrong if it can coexist. There are things that touch us as World Racers and allow us to know more, but we can’t just carry on singing songs and act like these are “wonderful experiences”, we’ve actually got to do something. This isn’t about experiences, it’s about literally changing to bring the kingdom of God in us and those who we are encountering.
But I, Jesus, have come that you might have LIFE.
It’s good to do what we are doing around the world and to see that there’s so much more, but there’s so much need in our community and what you have in your own backyard. What need is there? What person is hurting that needs help and you can be there for right now? One of the biggest things that you realize is that you don’t have to go to the other side of the world to see need. What are you doing in your own backyard? The most important thing is people to God and should be to us. We are called to love our neighbor. Five minutes down the road to church, it happens on our doorstep. As long as you’re preaching the gospel along with your actions then you’re fulfilling the Great Commission.
If you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness and your night will become like noonday. You will be like a well-watered garden like a spring whose waters never fail. Isaiah 58
When humanity responds to the call of God and chooses to do that which we were created for, our circumstances and our differences are forgotten. In that same moment, we realize God is at work amongst His people all over the planet, and who He is and the message of hope that is found in His name, is more relevant than anything on earth to the journey and experience of all people. I realized that we are all a part of the masterpiece that God is painting and though we can’t see the entire canvas, it is so much bigger and more beautiful than we could ever understand or imagine and we all have our place and part to play within it.
“Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others and strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
You will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of the event and then the total of all of these acts will be written in the history of this generation. You and everyone else will have been thrusted upon us a greater burden of responsibility and I believe that in this generation, those with the courage to enter the conflict will find themselves will find themselves with companion in every corner of the world.” John F. Kennedy
