Monday, September 22, 2008

Go tell it on a mountain



I feel like God is stirring me up inside again.  I love that feeling.  You know that feeling of God's hands on you, like a potter with his clay, pressing and molding and taking care to get it to be just what he wants.  God is good.  He really is.  I can't declare that enough.  It sounds so puny for how immense it feels in my heart.  GOD IS SO GREAT!  He amazes me over and over again.  I am so blessed by him.  I savor him!
I began reading a new book today by John Piper called The Supremacy of God in Preaching.  In the Preface to the Revised Edition he said something that resounded in my heart.  I will post it here for you to ponder with me...
"There are always two parts to true worship.  There is seeing God and there is savoring God.  You can't separate these.  You must see him to savor him.  And if you don't savor him when you see him, you insult him.  In true worship, there is always understanding with the mind and there is always  feeling in the heart.  Understanding must always be the foundation of feeling, or all we have is baseless emotionalism.  But understanding of God that doesn't give rise to feeling for God becomes mere intellectualism and deadness.  This is why the Bible continually calls us to think and consider and meditate, on one hand, and to rejoice and fear and mourn and delight and hope and be glad, on the other hand.  Both are essential for worship."
I think of that song by Lifehouse that says, "...and how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?"  I've thought about those lyrics a lot in the past.  How can I stand before God and not be moved by him?  How can I see him and not savor him?  Well, I can't.  God is good and I want to shout it from the rooftops!