Living Worship: Responding to the Word

We are now in the third week of Advent. Greening services are complete and cantatas are giving us a bit of a breather as we prepare for the last push. Mary now knows that she is pregnant and we are sitting with anticipation for what is to come.

How are you feeling? Have things changed at all as you live more intentionally and incorporate the Sunday worship model into your daily life?

At this point, we are hopefully shifting our focus toward those around us a little bit more and that is likely being influenced by our time spent with Scripture each day. The question now is how do we respond to this shift? As I ponder this in my own life, I am reminded of a question which became a regular part of my faith and ministry vocabulary as a chaplain intern, “What does this say about what you believe about God?”

During this third portion of worship each week, we typically join our voices together in an affirmation of faith and the prayers of the people in addition to giving our offering of tithes and talents. As pastors, our “scripts” might say something along the lines of, “Because God cares for us, we care for one another…” or “Because God has given us so much, we give back…”

So, what are we saying in our own lives? How has this shift or more intentional focus not only shaped what believe but shaped our response to what we believe?

As I work through my variety of daily devotions (I am a 5 year old child at heart and can rarely follow a single one for long), I find myself excitedly taking screenshots of the devotions and sharing them with my youth.  I find myself energized by God’s Word and want others to feel that same energy!

In the midst of several stress inducing circumstances, I am noticing that I am at least striving to live a somewhat less stressed and check-list focused life. My desire for that Sunday morning community has helped me to open my heart and ears to those who come to my office door, rather than continually glancing at the clock to make sure that I will have time to finish what I am working on. At the close of the day, I am able to sit in the peace which I began the day with – enjoying the time with my husband more and worrying about what emails might be coming in less.

In short, as I focus on living my life as worship, a lot more of my actions are in response to the strength and peace which I am finding. It seems that the best way to summarize the way I find myself responding to what I read and discern in this more focused way of living can be found in John’s first letter,

⁷ Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God. ⁸ The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how the love of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins.

¹¹ Dear friends, if God loved us this way, we also ought to love each other. ¹² No one has ever seen God. If we love each other, God remains in us and his love is made perfect in us. ¹³ This is how we know we remain in him and he remains in us, because he has given us a measure of his Spirit. ¹⁴ We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the savior of the world. ¹⁵ If any of us confess that Jesus is God’s Son, God remains in us and we remain in God. ¹⁶ We have known and have believed the love that God has for us.

God is love, and those who remain in love remain in God and God remains in them. ¹⁷ This is how love has been perfected in us, so that we can have confidence on the Judgment Day, because we are exactly the same as God is in this world. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear expects punishment. The person who is afraid has not been made perfect in love. ¹⁹ We love because God first loved us. ²⁰ If anyone says, I love God, and hates a brother or sister, he is a liar, because the person who doesn’t love a brother or sister who can be seen can’t love God, who can’t be seen. ²¹ This commandment we have from him: Those who claim to love God ought to love their brother and sister also.

1 John 4: 7-21

If that isn’t something to get excited about as we round the corner and come closer and closer to the birth of Savior, I don’t know what is!