Our spiritual worship depends on how aligned God’s nature and our nature are. This devotional reading looks at becoming holy as He is through wisdom and understanding.
Nuggets
- Our spiritual worship must stem from our quest for godly wisdom and understanding.
- Our spiritual worship must stem from Who God is and His difference from us.
Here we go again. Charnock has given us some points in his sermon that he did not give supporting verses.
So, we have to wing it to determine what Charnock was trying to say. I am going to have to divide this into this devotion and the next one.
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.
Here is a running list of nuggets for the theme.
Devotions in the Finding Jesus through Spiritual Worship study
Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.
The foundation of this series is Menander and Charnock’s Spiritual Worship.
Resource
Charnock’s words are in blue.
Understanding God
We cannot else act towards God according to the nature of rational creatures.
“Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures. Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord, and you will gain knowledge of God.” (Prov. 2: 2-5 NLT)
Our spiritual worship must stem from our quest for godly wisdom and understanding.
First off, we have to determine what else means. That is going to take a second because else can either mean besides or instead.
- We cannot besides act towards God according to the nature of rational creatures.
- We cannot instead act towards God according to the nature of rational creatures.
Okay. I guess we have to figure out what nature of rational creatures means before that. I would guess that is discussing our human nature.
Let’s look at the second one first. We cannot continue to act in our human nature towards God.
God wants all to accept the gift of salvation. Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Sin is not believing that Jesus is our Savior to save us from our actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
- Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart.
- Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
In order to accept the Plan of Salvation, we need to repent. Repentance is acknowledging our separation from God and expressing sorrow for breaking God’s laws and commandments by making the commitment to change our sinful ways to ways of righteousness through obedience.
- Obedience means submitting ourselves to the will of God as it is presented to us and living our lives accordingly.
Glossary
Back to our bullet points. We know that it is a true statement that we have no access to God when our sinful natures reign in our lives. We will not act differently toward Him until we submit our lives to Him.
“ If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved” (Rom. 10: 9-10 NLT).
If we look at acting in line with our human nature in addition to acting with our spiritual nature, we can see how that is applied. God doesn’t want us to be ruled by two masters. “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money” (Mt. 6: 24 NLT).
Either way we take the bullet points is correct. So, how do we get to salvation.
Solomon told us that we get to wisdom by fearing the Lord.
Wisdom is an enlightened acceptance of God’s principles, gained through knowledge, fear, discernment, and good sense, that is put into practice through salvation, increasing our goodness and virtue.
- Discernment means we can evaluate the situation and recognize right from wrong.
- The fear of the Lord means awe, reverence and love, not terror.
Goodwin put it this way. He wrote, “He who would know God aright must love Wisdom and humbly and vigorously seek after her.” God’s wisdom is different from the world’s wisdom.
Resource
In other words, only those who fear God are truly wise. Taylor gave us the steps to gain wisdom.
- Have a teachable heart.
- Concentrate on understanding what is revealed to us.
- Pray to God.
- Seek God.
Resource
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Spiritual worship is when we cry out for this knowledge and understanding. We are looking for knowledge and understanding that only God can supply.
Our Natures
“For the Scriptures say, ‘You must be holy because I am holy’” (I Pet. 1: 16 NLT)
Spiritual worship is due to God because of His nature, and from us because of ours.
Our spiritual worship must stem from Who God is and His difference from us.
Let’s go back to talking about how our nature is different from God’s. God is holy — we aren’t.
Candlish had an interesting sermon. He noted some things God’s holiness couldn’t be if His holiness is different than ours. It can’t be
- Innocence
- Ignorance of wrong.
- Absence (or abstinence) of wrong.
- Several self’s — self-restraint, self-denial, and self-mortification.
Resource
Look at that list. The last three are negatives. That isn’t what being a disciple is about.
Being a disciple focuses on the positive — having a relationship with God, become more like Him, and the presence of grace.
Another positive is that holiness is about imitation. We have to imitate God’s moral attributes by imitating Jesus.
Clarke put it this way. He wrote, “If true religion consists in the imitation of God, and all imitation of God is of necessity confined to His moral perfections only, then it hence evidently follows that moral virtue is the chief end of religion, and that to place the main stress of religion in anything else besides true virtue is superstition.”
Resource
This positive holiness has to get down to the heart level. It has to permeate our lives.
We just have to make sure it is God’s moral attributes and spiritual graces that we are imitating and not the world’s morals. We also have to make sure that we have all of God’s spiritual graces. That is the only way we attain perfection.
Making the Connections
Worship must be totally focused on God. We can’t compromise God’s laws and commandments.
That means our goal is to become righteous and holy. We can do that only when we become as God is.
We do that by looking for God’s wisdom and understanding. We have to submit our own to Him.
How Do We Apply This?
- ABCD
- Imitate Jesus, Who imitated God.
Father God. You are holy and righteous. We are not. We want to imitate You, so that we gain Your moral character. Amen.
What do you think?
Leave me a comment below (about this or anything else) or head over to my Facebook group for some interactive discussion.
If you don’t understand something and would like further clarification, please contact me.
If you have not signed up for the email providing the link to the devotions and the newsletter, do so below.
If God has used this devotion to speak with you, consider sharing it on social media.