All year, we have been looking at habitual holiness. This devotional reading looks at how spiritual worship should be habitual.
Nuggets
- In order to worship spiritually, we need to get our hearts involved.
- In order to worship spiritually, we need to build spiritual habits.
Charnock has been helping us dig into what spiritual worship is. He wrote next about spiritual activity and habits.
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
Discharged with Spiritual Activity
“Wake up, my heart! Wake up, O lyre and harp! I will wake the dawn with my song” (Ps. 57: 8 NLT)
In order to worship spiritually, we need to get our hearts involved.
The activity of worship has to come out of our desire to praise Him. Praise is our response to God, but it usually involves music.
We must fix our hearts on God. Tuck said that our hearts are our true-life force.
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But what does fixing our hearts mean? Maclaren helped us with that. We have to have
- Fixed determination
- Steadfast affection
- Continuous dependence
Resource
Determination is talking about strength of character. That is what we are growing as we navigate the Sanctification Road. Sanctification is the transformational process of the mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration; gradually changes our nature and morals through the promptings of the Holy Spirit; and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal new birth and requickening that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us new character.
- Spiritual death is the 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.
- 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.
- Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
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
Isn’t that comforting? We don’t think we have a strong faith now, but it can grow with work on our part. Faith is a gift from God and a work of the Spirit that enhances the conviction that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them, a belief which impacts our lives and distinguishes us from others.
Glossary
Spiritual worship can only come out of a strong faith.
Think of it this way. I kind of tripped when I thought of worship as an activity. We think of an activity as doing.
Our focus shouldn’t be doing worship. The focus should be on God, with worship an outpouring of our hearts.
Stevenson connected the dots. He wrote, “‘My heart is fixed;’ this is the fact; and hence, apparently, the resolution, ‘I will sing and give praise.’”
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The foundation is in our hearts. If we don’t fix our hearts on God, we haven’t really accepted His 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.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
- 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.
Glossary
But it is hard to keep our hearts fixed on God. We are bombarded by many temptations. Doubt and uncertainty can reign if we aren’t careful.
In those times, we need to even more have our hearts fixed on God. We have to choose to put our faith in God.
Paul said in all things we must be content. “Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength” (Phil. 4: 11-13 NLT).
It would probably be safe to assume that David thought the same way. He may have been king and a man after God’s own heart, but he didn’t have an easy life.
Yet, this psalm came from him. David said he would “… wake the dawn with my song” (Ps. 57: 8 NLT).
Regardless of the circumstances in which we find ourselves, we must praise God.
Oh, yeah. It is going to fluctuate. We have to have steadfast love for God.
That isn’t just a warm fuzzy feeling. It isn’t an entitled feeling.
What it is is what Vincent calls a sanctified emotion. It has nothing to do with worldview emotions and everything to do with heavenly praise and worship.
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It is a true belief that our Sovereign God loves us so much that He would provide the Plan of Salvation for us to restore us to Him.
Vincent added, in my opinion, a fourth bullet point to Maclaren’s three.
- Habitual preparation.
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Our focus has to totally be on God. We have to have constant communion with Him. He has to have influence in every part of our lives and in every decision.
Our faith is a decision; our worship is a result and a duty.
Discharged with Spiritual Habits
“Let all that I am praise the LORD; with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name” (Ps. 103: 1 NLT)
In order to worship spiritually, we need to build spiritual habits.
Why do we praise God?
- God is righteous.
- He gives us infinite forgiveness.
- He is our Heavenly Father.
- He shows us mercy and grace.
- God constantly showers us with good things.
Resources
God’s mercy is an act of sovereign will that produces an unexpected and undeserved response from God as He responds in love to our needs.
Grace is a free and unmerited gift of love from the Heavenly Father, given through His Son, Jesus Christ, that enables salvation and spiritual healing to believers by the work of the Holy Spirit.
Glossary
Pearce tied this psalm to spiritual worship. He wrote, “The psalmist is solicitous that his praise should be spiritual. It is his soul and not his lips he addresses. He wants nothing formal, mechanical, lifeless, spiritless.”
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The psalmist also says spiritual worship must be with the whole heart. We can’t hold anything back.
We recently talked about being united with God. Spurgeon brought up that we have to be united with ourselves.
Spurgeon elaborated on why this is so important. He wrote, “It is necessary that the whole nature bless God, for at its best, when all engaged in the service, it fails to compass the work, and fails short of Jehovah’s praise.”
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Even our very best praise and worship falls short of what Sovereign God deserves.
But God still says it is our duty to worship Him. He accepts our praise and worship.
Another thing the psalmist pointed out was that it has to be my whole heart. Yes, we are to participate in corporate worship.
More importantly, we have to worship God individually. Spiritual worship isn’t a Sunday-and-done thing.
Spiritual worship is 24/7/365/eternity.
Making the Connections #1
Tuck made a great connection when we talked about being fixed. He talked about neither being hot nor cold.
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Jesus talked about a lukewarm church. “I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other!” (Rev. 3: 15 NLT).
What would that look like today? It would probably be safe to say that is compromising with the worldview.
We see that we have to be in the world even though we are not of it. Many think we have to find a happy medium, so we are not persecuted.
Wrong thought process. Jesus said we are going to be persecuted for His name (Mt. 24: 9).
We can’t think Jesus was just referring to the Twelve there.
Making the Connections #2
I love how Pearce described what praise is. He wrote, “In praising God, we perform one of the highest and purest acts of religion. In praise, we largely eliminate the element of self, and are like the angels in performing the unpolluted services of the skies.”
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Through praise and spiritual worship, we take the focus off ourselves and become like angels.
Making the Connections #3
So, let’s focus on habits for a second. What needs to be habitual?
- Fixed determination
- Steadfast affection
- Continuous dependence
- Habitual preparation.
Resources
If we have those, we will be reading God’s Word, praying to Him, and praising and worshiping Him with our whole hearts.
How Do We Apply This?
- Fix our hearts in God.
- Complete the service God has assigned us.
- Seek God.
- Pray.
- Work to expand God’s kingdom.
- Praise God to eliminate doubts.
- Guard that life does not loosen the bonds we have with Christ.
- Expand the mental hold God has on us.
Resources
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17)
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3)
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16)
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11)
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2)
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11)
Father God. We praise You with everything we have. We worship You continuously with our whole heart. Help us to keep our determination, affection, and dependence focuses totally on You. Help us to prepare for live with You eternally. Amen.
What do you think?
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