The Journey

Friday, January 27, 2006

I just had an awesome God moment.....



I was watching a DVD that was given to me by my brother-in-law last Sunday. It shows the worship band from a youth ministry at a church in Australia called Hillsong. I watched the worship set and thought the music was awesome. However, what really hit me tonight was the behind the scenes documentary on the DVD. It really showed these artists' heart for Jesus and their passion for really leading people into the throne room. They talked about how it takes a lot of practical logistics to pull off the service they were recording, but that ultimately their hearts must be in the right place when they lead worship. As I watched this, I was brought to my knees in tears and passionate prayer. The Spirit convicted me of a "cold heart." I have been learning things about God and about myself, working hard at ministry, and playing drums the best I know how, but I haven't been loving God. I haven't been allowing myself to grow closer to God with my heart. I was also convicted of a shallow prayer life and filled with a passion to cover my ministry, my church, and my community in prayer. Our church focuses on doing things excellently and that is good. Excellence is not the enemy. However, the enemy can use the idea of excellence to throw us off our path to a passionate relationship with our Lord. It is called Pride, which can be the evil step sister of excellence. I am determined to bring an atmosphere of prayer and passion to the forefront of our churches attempts to worship with excellence. Our hearts must be turned towards God and I think all pastors, churches, and Christians have a tendency to slide away from that position. I am not judging anyone at the Quarry or criticizing for that matter. We have an awesome church with awesome pastors and awesome people, but I do want all to hear the call of a loving God that wants to hear our hearts crying out for Him in love. Maybe I am the only one who needed that reminder at this time, but He filled my cup tonight and I want to share that with my community.

I really do love God...

4 Comments:

  • At 7:55 AM, Blogger welch said…

    You are not the only one. I can find myself here a lot. With my little knowledge of the Bible, it seems to me that one of the main things Jesus pointed out is that is has to come from the inside out. I think he showed us that you can tithe and pray and fast and do all those things and if what's on the inside is messed up it is all for not.

    We can't strive toward excellence simply for excellence sake. A lot of times when I think that I just can't live up to the gifts required for the job and am reminded of the little boy who gave his lunch to feed the 5000. It seemed so small and insignificant. But he gave it out of love and trust that Jesus could use it. And he did.

    Like you, I have no one at the Quarry in mind. I am not trying to point fingers. I am just saying thank you for reminding me.

     
  • At 10:52 AM, Blogger Lori said…

    Thanks for the reminder - it is amazing how God works. I think that it is in times of serving that, that can get lost. I am so caught up in my steps or processes of getting it right or making sure I don't miss anything, that I can easily slide and forget, my real purpose for doing what I'm doing.

     
  • At 1:54 PM, Blogger Lori said…

    Ok Dude! It's been a week! Practice what you preach! : )
    (I saw your comment on Chris's blog)

     
  • At 1:03 PM, Blogger The Charlebois said…

    Amen, bro. It's so easy to slip out of it. I hope that's the heart cry of everybody.

     

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