Restless - On Silence and Worship

Show Me ~ Audrey Assad w/lyrics

Real Rejoicing

In the book of Acts we find Peter and John rejoicing. They are not glad because a great Christian band came through town to do a concert at their church. They were not excited because wealthy people began to give large offerings. Instead we see them on the way out of court after having been publicly beaten then released!

Acts 4:41 The apostles left the Sanhedrin rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the name. Day after day in the temple courts and from house to house they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.


Maybe our idea of suffering is when the Pastor preaches a long message or when someone says something behind our back in church. It is hard for us to even imagine the day to day reality of the early church. Yet there are many places in the world today where they know what being persecuted really means.  On January 17th 2012 a Pastor in Southeast India was attacked while making a visit to a church member. January 2012 has seen 185 Christians killed by bombings and shootings in Northern Nigeria. On January 17th police beat and imprisoned a Pastor in Khartoum Sudan. The Bible tells us to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep. Today as we pray lets take time to weep and pray for our brothers and sisters in these places. Then we can rejoice, not because we understand, but because Jesus gives us an unimaginable joy that is full of His glory.

God is calling us to take up our cross, get His message out and to do it all with joy. When Paul tells us that God loves a cheerful giver, he wasn't only talking about the money we put in the offering. There is a joy that happens only through really trusting God no matter what. He is really in control even when we suffer, are insulted or despised by the world around us. Lets not wait for our world to give us their approval before we begin to obey God. If Peter and John had waited then, we would still be waiting today. They never stopped, but in fact they accelerated the spreading of the message of Jesus everywhere and every day. That really is the joy that is greater than life! 

One Thing Remains - Jesus Culture (lyric video)

Como Ele nos Ama- Alda Célia

Ministry Highlight: India

Ministry Highlight: India

Yes To Your Will - Kim Burrell & Kathy Burrell (YourWeh Music)

Not ashamed of the Gospel

Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile...

 Amazing music, popular speakers and a luxurious looking sanctuary may bring a full house, but the power of God only comes by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no secret formula, no special approach or clever plan that can take the place of the work of God's Holy Spirit. When the Cross of Christ is preached then a door is opened, an invitation goes out and the evidence of His power is the salvation of souls.

We seem to have it all backwards in our thinking today. We are acting as though when the crowd shows up and we gain the approval and praise of people that we will finally begin to see God move in His church. Jesus never acted or thought in that way. Jesus never ran after the crowd, but he usually withdrew from them, and in one case he sent them away. Jesus was never bothered by the absence of the multitude or worried that somehow His power was lessened when people disapproved of His message. When thousands who had eaten the multiplied bread wanted to come and make Jesus their king, he left them, got into a boat and sailed away. He then went to find a single man who was filled with demons and who needed deliverance and healing. Each one of us is that single person and God has come looking for you. God's power never flows up from the people but comes down from heaven where He is honored and His word is spoken.
We have forgotten the sweet smell of His presence and have tried to cover up his absence with sweet things. But nothing can ever replace our Lord. There is no one who is like Jesus! There is no one we could even compare to him. One single day in His house is better than a lifetime in any where else. Today we have a choice with how we will live our lives and in what direction we will go. We can choose to run after people and their approval and praise, or we can honor God. When we choose God and share His Good News with others then He will give us all of Himself and we will understand what it means to be completely satisfied and at rest in Him...

"God Can" - Dottie Peoples

Heart for the Disabled #3 Doug and Adrian | Radio | Joni and Friends

Heart for the Disabled #3 Doug and Adrian Radio Joni and Friends

Andrew Peterson: "Windows In The World" (Resurrection Letters, Volume II)

Kutless Ready for You

Building 429-Bring Me Back (lyrics)

Build Us Back by Newsboys + Lyrics

Is unforgiveness blocking your worship?

Luke 18:10 Two men went to the temple to pray... Jesus begins to show us how our prayers and praise look like to God. On the outside one of these men seemed holy and spiritual, while the other was no-one anyone wanted for a friend. Yet when we listen to their prayers and see how God answered we get a shock.
The Phairisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer, "I thank you God that I am not a sinner like everyone else..." Wow that sounds terrible to us, yet it sounded just right to the Pharisee... "I'm certainly not like that tax collector." he went on. You see the Pharisee knew that the tax collector had made his fortune by cheating people and stealing their money. That was clearly a sin, and the Pharisee never considered that he should forgive. His attitude of unforgivenesss grew from his own self-righteousness. As Robert Browning put it, "Oh the gift that God would give us, to see ourselves as others see us!"

In this story,Jesus holds up a mirror and when we look at our own reflected attitudes we don't look good at all! We saw ourselves as without any kind of blame and we viewed others as the bad guys. We thought that they were the ones to blame for the struggles we were going through. Yet when God shows us how our prayer sound in heaven, we would see them as pretty shallow and self centered. We are completely blind to our own failures and what keeps us in spiritual blindness is simply a lack of forgiveness for others. We see our neighbor as the source of our problems, but Jesus has placed that cheating tax collector in our lives to be our opportunity to forgive and come into real fellowship with God!
But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even left his eyes to heaven as he prayed, "...O God be merciful to me for I am a sinner!"  If we had been there at that moment it is possible we could have had a completely different reaction than God did. We might have heard those words and jumped up and said, "Yes! I knew it all along! What a liar that guy was!" But God did not do that at all. In fact when God looked down and heard that prayer he responded more like this , "Yes! He finally sees it! I will forgive him. He will become my child and we will be able to talk every day!"
If  God seems distant in our prayers, in our worship, then around  look for the tax collector. He is sure to be somewhere near to us. He might be the other half in our marriage, someone who has cheated us at work, or even one of our own children. Tax collectors are never far away. In fact a lot of us are the tax collectors! An opportunity for forgiveness is always near. Jesus taught us to pray daily, "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us." Don't allow the darkness of self righteousness and unforgiveness cloud your prayers. When we forgive and cry our to God for forgiveness he comes and washes our mirrors clean, and we will begin to see His face reflected again. When we see Him clearly then real worship begins!

Building 429 - Where I Belong - Lyrics

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