I often learn new insights into God’s Word when I read familiar verses in a different translation. I am not saying that the meaning is changed. Instead, I am saying it’s like when we hear a familiar hymn sung by a person from a different country. The singer brings an interesting accent, phrasing, and emphasis. It’s that fresh experience I had this morning when I read Apostle Paul’s inspired text in the New Living Translation.
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.Romans 12:1
“This is truly the way to worship Him” I wonder how often Jesus shakes His head when He sees the heavy burdens I carry. They are not the light burden He made for me. This is acutely apparent when it comes to my worship of God.
Jesus, my Lord and God (John 20:28), made known to me His power. He walked on water, healed the sick, cast out demons, and raised the dead. With His ascension back to heaven and seated in His rightful place (Mark 16:19), He presented His blood as the single sacrifice once for all eternity (Hebrews 9:23–28. So why do I fail to ask for His help? Why do I practice prescriptive Christianity instead of intimate Christianity? Why have I put Jesus in a worship box, one that has a hymnal, a few worship songs, and a clock for assigning the time and length for when I worship God?
What we see in Romans 12:1 is that with all of the good ways to praise God, the one He desires the most is our worship by the sacrifice of all we are, giving our lives wholely and unconstrained to God’s will; that is worship that God desires more than anything.
So now I stand at a chasm. I see a great divide between my worship and true worship. Can I cross this? No, I don’t have the strength, but the Holy Spirit can carry me there. For the Holy Spirit plucked Phillip out of the water and carried him to the small village of Azotus, located just north of Gaza after Phillip baptized the eunuch. (Acts 8:26–40) Since the Holy Spirit has done that and so much more, I know He can carry me across this great divide, and He will do the same for you if you, too, have put your praise in a box.
33 Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him [Jesus] and told him what she had done. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.”
Do you have a need so great that your knees buckle from their weight? As I read Mark 5:33–34 today, I was reminded of imperatives. We pray about many things, and these are sincere prayers, but there are also imperative prayers, urgent and crucial prayers. This woman prayed an imperative prayer.
This woman had a crushing weight from her condition, and it compelled her to bow before Jesus and tell Him about her act of faith – prayers come in many ways.
Do you have a need that buckles your knees and compels you to bow before Jesus and ask Him to do the impossible? If so, then I have good news. When we ask Jesus to do what no one can, He often declares, “Your suffering is over.” He does this because He loves us and honors our faith. I find great comfort in Jesus; I pray that you also do.
As we head into warmer temperatures, I’m reminded of the value of shade. On a hot summer day, we seek out a shadow. It may be found under a tree or a beach umbrella or even on the shaded side of a building. When we find it, we know it. We are instantly refreshed.
One of the things about shadows on a hot day is that we have to be in them to be refreshed, it’s not enough to just be near them. God created shade, and He makes His shadow available to His children. Just as a shadow from the sun, we must be in God’s shadow to be refreshed.
The thing about a shadow is that we need to be close to its source to receive the most refreshment. The Holy Spirit inspired the Psalmist to use the characteristic of a shadow as a way to open our hearts and see that in this hot desert of a world, God offers us refreshment, safety, and peace, if we come close to Him. If we live close to Jesus, our Savior, our lives will be in His shadow, in His protection.
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
Notice in this verse that, by placing our faith in Jesus we receive perfect righteousness. Jesus is the actual, perfect righteousness of God. When we receive Jesus as our Savior, it’s like He pulls off a piece of Himself and puts it in you and me. Now, when God the Father looks at us, He truly sees the righteousness of His beloved Son instead of our “Swiss Cheese” righteousness.
Sometimes we need to lean back in our chairs, look off into the distance, and think about God, His Word, and His way in the world. We need to zoom out and see the bigger picture. Psalms 39:12 does that for us.
To sojourn means to “live short” to temporarily live in a foreign place. David explains the urgency of his prayer by saying that he recognizes his life is brief; he is but a guest in this world, just like his fathers. And like his fathers, his time will soon pass, so he pleads for God to answer his prayer based on his brief time in this world.
It’s good for us to audit ourselves, to see if we are “living short” in this world, to remember that we are guests in God’s creation. Guests come, and then they go.
“Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry; hold not your peace at my tears! For I am a sojourner with you, a guest, like all my fathers.“ Psalm 39:12
Sometimes we need to lean back in our chairs, look off into the distance, and think about God, His Word, and His way in the world. We need to zoom out and see the bigger picture. Psalms 39:12 does that for us.
To sojourn means to “live short” to temporarily live in a foreign place. David explains the urgency of his prayer by saying that he recognizes his life is brief, he is but a guest in this world, just like his fathers. And like his fathers, his time will soon pass, so he pleads for God to answer his prayer based on his brief time in this world.
It’s good for us to audit ourselves to see if we are “living short” in this world, to see if we know we are guests in God’s creation; guests come, and then they leave.
I was reminded again today of a marvelous benefit we receive when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. That benefit is the ability to worship God. I think this privilege is often taken for granted. We forget that worshiping God is part of the “so great a salvation.” (Hebrews 2:3)”
Only people that are reborn in Jesus can worship God; worship is impossible for an unsaved person. We know this from: “And you, who were dead in your trespasses…” Colossians 2:13
Spiritually dead people are unable to worship God. Only when we are spiritually alive do we have the right and ability to commune with God because “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:24
So, let’s rejoice in this blessing and let’s worship our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and let’s not forget that we can only worship God “in truth.” This means two things. We must have Truth (i.e., Jesus) alive in us, and we must worship God in ways that the Bible teaches us. We must be on guard and stand against any form of worship contrary to the Scriptures.
Yes, you read this headline correctly. Here are the bullet points I want to call out from LinkedIn’s post titled “Hustle culture worships workaholism“
Millennials find their own form of worship – work
Performative workaholism
Apostles of Hustling
Rise and Grind
Here’s a screenshot I took of my computer with this story on it. I was concerned that the article might get pulled.
(sorry for the red circle, it helps me find my cursor.)
I never expected to be writing a “news story” like this one. We’ve all read about the Millennials being the boomerang generation, where they leave home and then come back. And I personally worked with HR staff that took training on how to deal with the Millennial culture that doesn’t respect job role hierarchies, but I never foresaw this condition occurring.
First Some Background
We are the progeny of Adam. So, within every living person, there is a need to worship and serve a “higher power.” We all also need to activate the faith that God has placed in everyone (Ro. 12:3), but for faith to be in one’s employment seems to come out of left field.
Millennials, within all socio-economic strata, have begun rejecting or redefining traditions and the religions of their parents and grandparents. This is causing shockwaves around the world. Who would have guessed that women in Saudi Arabia would be able to get a legal driver’s license and to actually drive motorcycles?
Hanan Iskandar, on the motorcycle, and Doaa Bassem, second from left, received training this month to prepare for this Sunday, the first-day women will be legally permitted to drive in Saudi Arabia. CreditTasneem Alsultan for The New York Times
Millennials Worship Work
So, now that we have some background as to the social and religious tectonic shift taking place right before our eyes let me dig a bit deeper so we understand the Biblical aspect.
Normally, I avoid writing about eschatology, the part of Theology (i.e., the study of God) concerned with end-times. However, when we see “worship of work” in the rather banal business version of Facebook that’s a wake-up call to every Christian.
Let me provide you a quote made in a 2004 teaching series on Revelation by Bible.org. The title of this lesson is “Destruction of Commercial Babylon (Rev 18:1-24)”
The Babylon of this chapter undoubtedly includes an actual city that will be rebuilt on the Euphrates and a politico-commercial system that becomes the means and basis of a new worldwide religious system by which the beast will be worshipped (Rev. 13). If you recall, the beast brings about his own worship by his control of commerce or buying and selling.
This wasn’t what the Left or Right schemed and planned for.
The governments around the work have been feeding their technology companies with the intent to establish their place in the New World Order. Tax breaks, extended visas, government contracts have all been mechanisms used by Socialists, Liberals, and Conservatives to curry favor. Why?
They see what we haven’t seen. The large tech companies ARE the future of government. The “tiger” can’t be kept in its cage. Governments are surviving on loans (e.g., T-Bills) and central bank brinksmanship while Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Salesforce, and so on are reaping massive amounts of after-tax profits. So much so that a big challenge for these companies is where to park all their cash; Ireland seems to be the most popular.
These tech giants are submitting and getting foundational patents on what will be our future world. They are buying small businesses just to get the team of people that were creative enough to start their small company. And, they are buying “tiny” companies to move the word’s commercial chess board. One example is Intel buying a small start-up for $67M dollars. I’ve worked in companies of this size and the only real value is their IP (i.e. intellectual property).
We are living during a fascinating time! Okay, let’s get back to the new religion of the worship of work. To do that, I want you to look at Facebook, with it’s 2.5 billion subscribers.
Facebook
Inc. business magazine recently published a shocking article on the cult of Facebook, titled, “Here’s Why Facebook’s Former Employees Describe the Company as Cult-Like.” In this article, former employes said that “If you disagree with either leadership or co-workers, you may face unpleasant consequences.”
“The pressure for us to act as though everything is fine and that we love working here is so great that it hurts,” an employee reportedly told [Sheryl] Sandberg [COO] during a town hall meeting at the company. “There shouldn’t be this pressure to pretend to love something when I don’t feel this way.”
Wrap-Up
I could go on and on. Once I opened my eyes to what’s happening it’s out in the open and all around us, and Israel has skin in this game. If you go to my technology site, National Tech Front and do a search for Israel or Israeli you’ll see a number of high tech companies features. That’s not because I went in search of Israeli companies but because Israel has become a leader in the world of technology.
Now I’m going to go out on a limb which means I’m a sitting duck! The dispensation of the Gentiles is in the decline, America has lost its leadership position. China, India, and even small countries are taking the lead in biology, AI, nanomechanics, and so forth. A coalescing of new centers of power is taking place and they aren’t part of Western civilization. This is no happenstance; God is shifting the world back towards the Middle East, back to Israel. I believe we are in the twilight of the Gentile dispensation and God is turning His face back to Israel. Israel will hold key technologies and therefore will be at odds with the new world government.
At this point, you’ve probably decided I’m off my meds or taking too many. Discussions about end-times always cause strong disagreements. I have no desire to disturb your nest. But, I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t bring my understanding to you. It’s up to you to do with it as you will.
