Worship

Worship - what is it? Is it singing? Is it sitting in a church listening to a preacher preach? Yes. It is all of those. But yet it also includes so much more. As I'm sure we have all heard, worship is a lifestyle. A lifestyle, according to dictionary.com, is defined as, "the habits, attitudes, tastes, moral standards, economic level, etc., that together constitute the mode of living of an individual or group." This is everything we are, every thought, sight, taste, sense, smell - everything. Worship is everything that we as Christians do to serve Christ. Matt this evening talked about miracles. And we came to a conclusion that a miracle is something that happens that is unexplainable, not scientifically stable, or even logically possible. But I got to thinking, miracles happen everyday, every moment, weather we realize them or not, they are there. I believe miracles and worship come hand in hand.

Then the LORD reminded him, "When you arrive back in Egypt, go to Pharaoh and perform the miracles I have empowered you to do. But I will make him stubborn so he will not let the people go.

This verse (Exodus 4:21) happens when Moses is in Egypt pleading with the Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. If you remember in this story, Moses thought of every reason why he should not go, but because of the lifestyle he chose to live, he went. Because he went, and followed through in his worship, miracles came. Miracles happen when our lifestyle matches what God wants us to do. So in a sense, are we not all performing miracles all the time?

Stars

What thoughts do the stars provoke? One of amazement, one of littleness, one of the world? I was looking out at the sky the other night while I was doing the paper route, and saw one of the most breath-taking sites I have ever seen - the stars. I got to thinking about them and night and thought about how stars only appear at night when it is dark. I started looking at just one star, and found that one star, though very powerful (powerful enough to send light to the earth from light years away) almost a tiny detail in the whole picture. One thing I found interesting, while thinking and observing the stars, was that God calls us to each be a light to the world, no matter how dark the sky may be.

You are the light of the world--like a city on a mountain, glowing in the night for all to see. Mat 5:14

One other interesting thing is, if you were to take a step back and look at the world as you would a clear night sky, would you be one of the, seemingly tiny, but yet HUGE, stars?

Changes

This weeks is going to be a little different. This is more of a reflection of my past week and just how God works in my life daily. For a couple weeks now I have finally been having a consistent quiet time where I get to study God's word in a much different way than I ever have before. Since then, my mind has been focused much more and I have been able to see how God works in a much more intimate way. See, since then everything has changed at school, well not my school work, but as far as what I am thinking about while I am there, and also what I do. God has made changed my desires from self-centered to much more generous. For example, I was doing my Dad's paper route last week, and around 3:30 I saw a couple walking down the road. Their car had broken down and had to walk home, and believe me it was frigid. So, to my surprise, when they asked for a ride home, I immediately said yes and took them home. I would NEVER have done that before, I would have just kept driving. God has also allowed me to be more bold in my faith. More people come up to me asking "Why do you carry your Bible around to school?" and I get the chance to minister to them just by having my Bible with me. Since I have started my quiet time before school starts, God has opened up so many doors, allowed me to do many more things for Him and it is AMAZING! For those of you who struggle finding time to have your quiet time, I have found that when I get to school, I have about 15 minutes before the bell rings, so I just sit in my car and do my quiet time. Those 15 minutes a day have changed literally everything, from what I do, to how I think.