more on praise...

My good friend, Jon, told me about a book called, "When Heaven Invades Earth" by Bill Johnson. I picked it up last night before bed and found myself eating it up til early this morning. So many good truths! In one of the chapters it talked about how we rely too much on what we see and not enough on what we cannot see. Below is an excerpt from the book:

"God is very committed to teaching us how to see. To make this possible He gave us the Holy Spirit as a tutor. The curriculum that He uses is quite varied. But the one class we all qualify for is the greatest of all Christian privileges - worship. Learning how to see is not the purpose for our worship, but it is a wonderful by-product.

Those who worship in spirit and truth, as mentioned in John 4:23-24, learn to follow the Holy Spirit's lead. His realm is called the kingdom of God. The throne of God, which becomes established upon the praises of His people, is the center of that Kingdom. It's in the environment of worship that we learn things that go way beyond what our intellect can grasp - and the greatest of these lessons is the value of His presence. David was so affected by this that all his other exploits pale in comparison to his abandoned heart for God. We know that he learned to see into God's realm because of statements like, 'I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.' The presence of God affected his seeing. He would constantly practice recognizing the presence of God. He saw God daily, not with the natural eyes, but with the eyes of faith. That priceless revelation was given to a worshiper."

Isn't that good!? I thought it was worth noting and even copied it down in my journal. Ah! I so want to be like King David, but more so like Jesus. I want to be the type of person that has an "abandoned heart for God." Ever since I surrendered my heart to God at age 17 I made a vow that I would never settle. I refuse to be the type of Christian who just gets by...living off yesterdays manna. The God I serve is so awesome!

Last night in youth group I shared about what it means to be a follower of Jesus. The word follower in Greek, means to mimic what you see someone else doing. So if I say that I am a disciple of Christ, a follower or a Christian, then I should be doing what Jesus did when He walked this earth! It says in Mark 16:15-18, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."

I challenged the youth to step out and be the type of Christian, Jesus desires us to be! It says in John 14 that, anyone who has faith in Jesus will do what He did and will do even greater things than what He did! I mean, WOW!
We see so little because we believe so little. The church is paralyzed by unbelief! Its time to BELIEVE! It's time to be men and women of faith. It's time to step up! Ah!!!! I ache for it.