Poultry

What a great night. To be honest, what a great day. I had a wonderful time chilling and chatting with some of my church peeps today. It’s just nice to finally feel at a place of confidence to be able to build relationships with people. I’m like a car on a cold morning. I love people, it just can take me some time to warm up. We have a crazy bible study tonight and I really want to share. So, I’m taking the short cut out of totally blogging tonight and posting the study. (But to be fair, I did write it all myself (except that I summarized a book chapter)). *The title tonight by the way is inspired by someone who mistook the word portly for poultry, made me smile….

| Chapter Seven: Worship as a Way of Life

 

Re-cap:

What do we desire in life? Do we desire just words being said in affirmation and love? Or do we desire people to act on those words and show us love? I agree with Louie, I want both. God, He’s the same way. He desires not only for us to say how much we love Him, but also to show it. The two meanings of worship in the Bible are: 1) an attitude of honor or reverence.  2) To serve. Paul talked about this in Romans 12:1-2. “Paul was saying, If you’ve seen mercy… if you’ve seen the cross… then offer all of who you are in response to all that He has done. Let’s face it: That kind of full-blown serving is not real high on our priority list. But in the mind of God, worship = serving. Worship =life.” We can never repay what our Savior has done for us, but we can respond to  Him by offering our lives in service. “For far too long, people have been cheating God, somehow thinking that if they just keep telling Him He’s great, He’ll be content.” Words come easy. And for us we can say anything or “sing” it without worrying about our actions or lives backing it up. We can easily become those people in the Bible that God talked about…”These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” God has given us everything. Everything! So how do we respond? But showing up on Sunday’s at church? By dropping a buck in the plate? By serving in a worship band or on a tech team? Praying here and there? Talking to Jesus when we feel like it? No way! The only right response to such mercy and grace is our everything! Worship for too long has been confused with just being music. (and maybe I encourage that by calling it a worship band). Worship is our life’s response to God for who He is and what He has done.

Discussion

1. Think about the word service. What kind of thoughts and impressions – either positive or negative – does it bring to mind?

2. What motivates you most to want to offer yourself fully to God?

3. This chapter includes this statement: “Grace requires that we bring ourselves, laying our lives before this merciful God.” Is grace really grace if it has this or any requirement attached to it? What do you think?

 

Romans 12:1-2