John 15 (Six) Worship His Greatness?

Good day

For as long as it takes we are going to study the gospel of John chapters fourteen to seventeen. Some of it will be what I have already written and some will be new. Therefore it may sometimes appear that I leave off in the middle of a topic to be continued, since I have reached my daily word count limit. We will also return to placing a blog posting daily for the time being.

To pick up the topic, you may need to read the one or two postings preceding this one.

We continue from our previous message.

Another practical example that crossed our way once was a movement that took place in London. About 6000 Christian young people invaded London under the direction of a mission called ‘Soul in the City’. They helped disabled people clean their houses and gardens, entertained children on the streets and many more. In the evenings they worshipped God together with those whom they served practically during the day and had invited to the meetings. These young people, including my daughter, came back rejoicing and changed. Suddenly my daughter had lost her appetite for secular music and spent more time with her Bible. Not only did many give their lives to Jesus at the outreach (the fruit), but also were the ‘branches’, who directed the sap to the fruit, refreshed. With this outreach there were no special gifts required, just a pair of hands and a friendly face with a Jesus attitude.

If only the church could get plenty of her workers to flow in their gifts every week in an organised manner, she will see much, much more fruit. It is not of much use to only do it every once in a while, because when the sap stops flowing through the branch the branch starts to die. When the water stops flowing in and out of the water tank, the water rots. I have seen it already with some of the youngsters who went to the London outreach. The influence of the world already started to take its cut of their time once again. The Lord intended his disciples to be ministering constantly.

Only one of the many indications that Jesus desires everything from us we find in Luke 14: 26 & 27: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters - yes, even his own life - he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follows me cannot be my disciple.” True worship is not just nice singing in church. True worship is to move with God and enjoy seeing Him in action.

Who are the men and women being worshipped by the people of the world – the great men and women? We are talking about movie stars, sports stars, financial giants and so on. Are they not the ones that do things that amaze the ordinary people? ‘Isn’t Bill Gates something? Look at the empire he has built,’ and ‘Michael Jackson was not a superstar, he was a phenomenon’. Why do people worship them? It is because they saw them doing something great.  

We know that God is amazing and sing it every Sunday morning, but when will we mean it with emotion and truth when we say it? I tell you it is when we have seen God in action a moment ago, like when we saw Him supernaturally putting together the play I was talking about in our previous message. During the play we have seen nervous actors forgetting their words and then just started to pray for them. Suddenly their words returned to them – how – the Lord did it and we worship him for it. When after the play all those people came forward to give their hearts to Jesus, was it our good acting that convinced them, or the brilliant words of the script? These things helped, but the Lord convicted them and we worship him for that.

Why do we not create plenty of opportunities to see God in action? Then we will be able to worship Him with all of our heart regularly. ^“Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth," (John 4:23, 24).

Lord, help me to have an experience of your power.

Thank you Lord that your Word went out from your mouth, via your servant’s pen, and it will not return to you empty, but will accomplish what you desire and achieve the purpose for which you sent it.

Please pass this on if you think others may benefit by it.