This week, we’re exploring how a church community should be committed to connectedness to God in worship.

Humans will never be more connected to God than in the kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God.  The Bible includes the book of Revelation, which recounts John’s vision of the kingdom of heaven.  Here’s what he described about angels, and then humans:

Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop saying: “HOLY, HOLY, HOLY IS THE Lord GOD ALMIGHTY, WHO WAS, AND IS, AND IS TO COME.”  Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever,  the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:  “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” (Revelation 4:8-11)

Even in the kingdom, there is worship.  The word may not appear in this reading, but the core meaning is there.  Worship means “to give worth to something.”  And the words “you are worthy” are right at the beginning of the words the elders say in their heavenly worship.

You can tell what someone values by how they spend money, time.  You can see what’s worth their limited resources.  Worship is spending our limited time on God.  It’s an expression of love.

In our Marriage and Parenting courses, we introduce the five love languages.  Some communicate and receive love through words, touch, acts of service, time, and others through gifts.

In the same way, we can show love to God through various “languages”.  Worship includes prayer, and music, confessing sins, asking forgiveness, reminding ourselves what we believe, reading the Bible together, and more.  All aspects of how communities of Christians worship.

These are all ways to communicate God’s worth in our eyes.  You can see it in this reading.  The elders say, “You are worthy to receive glory and honor and power” but then they tell him why: he is the creator of everything.

He knows all this, of course.  But this is a time for humans, mortals, to feed that back to him.  To acknowledge he is at the cetner of our lives, not the periphery, and we’re not going to deny it.

Question: How do you know someone values you?  What do they say, do, or not?

Reminder: Earlier in this series, we saw the importance of reading the Bible together in sync, so our new daily bible readings start today in our mobile app and web site.

Read the Bible in Sync Today

Ryan Sim - April 17, 2013

Wednesday - Change - Perfection

Jesus said, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." If the Sermon on the Mount was just about a list of rules for us this would be discouraging, hopeless. But it's not. It's about Jesus - his blueprint for his life - showing us what God is really like. We are meant to see that Jesus looks like God. It's not just about how to behave, but how to discover the living God in Jesus, and reflect that into the world. He is the pattern, blueprint for our lives as well. Perfect in greek is teleioi. A word about Identity, where perfection relates to love. God is love…all loving. Some scholars say "all embracing" is what that perfect word means. To be like God is undiscriminating and undifferentiating love toward all. Even those who don’t deserve it. He’s loving and merciful. Of course love doesn’t mean endorsement, or uncaringly saying “I don’t care what you do”. Sometimes God’s love means he protects us, stops us, redirects us, and more. We show we are children of God when we show Christlikeness. All embracing love. Connection back to love last week - Love is not sporadic, but who we are. Even with enemies. "To return evil for good is devilish, to return good for good is human, to return good for evil is divine." - Alfred Plummer Even with Jesus' example, we can be discouraged. He WAS God, so being godly was no great feat. What about us? We'll see tomorrow why there is hope for us being perfect(ed). Question: Jesus actually lived the perfect, loving life he commands us to live. Does this encourage, or discourage you? Why?

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