While our sin is against God (Ps. 51:4), no matter what the sin is, our sin still has a way to negatively affect others. We must address the sin in our own lives.
Read Psalm 32:3-4 and discover the weight sin can bring upon you:
Psalms
I Wish My Life Would Change
You want a better life than you have right now.
I may not know you personally, but I am sure of that fact. You want more money in your bank account. You wish your boss saw you were deserving of a promotion. If you are married, you wish your wife saw that you were right all the time. If you have children, you would jump for joy if they just obeyed you the first time you gave directions. You may be somewhat pleased with your life right now, but you deeply wish it was better. You earnestly desire a blessed life.
We all desired to be blessed, but are we willing to receive the blessing?
Consistently Inconsistent
Psalm 92:10 You have lifted up my horn
like that of a wild ox;
I have been anointed with oil.
11 My eyes look down on my enemies;
my ears hear evildoers when they attack me.
12 The righteous thrive like a palm tree
and grow like a cedar tree in Lebanon.
13 Planted in the house of the Lord,
they thrive in the courts of our God.
14 They will still bear fruit in old age,
healthy and green,
15 to declare: “The Lord is just;
He is my rock,
and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”
Consistently Inconsistent
I am one of the most inconsistent people you will ever meet. I will bowl great for three frames, and then I will reside in the gutter the rest of the game. That’s not entirely true. I will reside in the gutter of the lane next to me for the rest of the game. At New Years, I will begin a steady diet and exercise routine that lasts until someone brings out the meatballs. I will start a span of regularly responding to emails, and then I will have a setback and not reply to anyone for six weeks. I crave consistency.
In my spiritual life, I am even worse. On a mission trip, I will turn into super-evangelistic boy on the field only to revert to an unashamed coward when I return home. My devotional life will get intense after a convicting sermon only to last until the guilt finally wears off. An answered prayer turns me into an intercessory advocate until I stop seeing immediate results to my prayers. I want to do better. I honestly do crave consistency.
How to Fix Lethargic Worship
(Whenever I am trying to remember how big God is and if he can handle my current problems, I look at this picture and remember: God is good.)
1 Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;
His faithful love endures forever.
2 Let the redeemed of the Lord proclaim
that He has redeemed them from the hand of the foe
3 and has gathered them from the lands-
from the east and the west,
from the north and the south. – Psalm 107:1-3
How to Fix Lethargic Worship
The cure for lethargic worship is a good memory.
In Psalm 107, the psalmist expresses praise to God based upon his faithfulness in the past. He reminds the worshipers that God is always good and deserves our gratitude. He had rescued them from the hands of their enemies. He had rescued them from their circumstances and gathered them back together again.
Have you ever felt in worship that you were just going through the motions? You stood up and sat down when you were instructed. You mouthed the words to some songs on a screen or in a hymnal. You left the same way in which you entered. The best way to describe your worship was lethargic.
The cure for lethargic worship is a good memory. God has shown up all throughout your life. When you have called on God, every time he delivers. The only proper response is worship. Each new day is a reminder of God’s faithfulness to us.
When we were in the middle of our adoption process, I was forced to remember this fact often.
Revival Through Worship
Tonight, we brought our Revival summer services to a close. These services have been a wonderful chance for our church body to unite together in worship and study the psalms. We finished up with a hoedown. Great times! Jeff’s message on Psalm 150 is one I wish every believer could hear on what biblical worship is supposed to be. Incredible!
Tonight, we worshiped to:
Revival Through Intimacy
Had another great worship experience last night at North Side! It was wonderful to watch our team lead without me there! They are so talented and have such wonderful hearts, they didn’t miss a beat! Loved it! Jeff’s message walking through Psalm 139 was fantastic! Listen to it online if you didn’t get to hear it! So good! My time …
A Healthy Fear of the Lord
Psalm 86:15-16
15 But You, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God,
slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth.
16 Turn to me and be gracious to me.
Give Your strength to Your servant;
save the son of Your female servant.
Our fatherless society is killing our perception of God.
Whether you like to admit it or not, your relationship with your father often alters the way you view God. If your father was absent, you might find difficulty accepting that God is near and cares for your smallest concerns. If your father was a temperamental dictator, you might view God as the angry deity in the sky waiting to pummel you with lightning bolts whenever you step out of line. If your father was a softy and a pushover, you might find yourself living more loosely because God would never really punish you for breaking his rules. If your father was simply a detached provider, you might find yourself accepting God’s blessing without ever desiring his company.
Most likely, God is a lot different than you father. God’s plan is that your father imitate him (Eph. 3:14), but unfortunately, that rarely happens. We rarely see a combination of both love and holiness. While God has many attributes, theologians categorize all attributes under those two headings – love and holiness.
This description of God, first mentioned in Exodus, is repeated many times throughout Scripture. The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth. What is so shocking to us modern readers is that someone can be both compassionate and angry.
A common misconception is that Jesus of the New Testament was compassionate and the God of the Old Testament was angry. How do you explain God’s constant rescuing of idolatrous Israel and how do you explain Jesus chasing religious people out of the temple with a whip?
The Walmart Dilemma
We have all experienced the Walmart dilemma. You enter into the massive store full of your city’s most eclectic citizens with the intention of buying one needed item. As the greeter wishes you a good day, you coach yourself that you don’t need anything else except that one item. As you return to your car, you are unaware of how you just spent $50 on drive-by items.
What’s even worse is when you have bags full but have forgotten that one item for which you came. The Walmart dilemma is that you lose focus on what you came for because you are overwhelmed with all the other items clamoring for you attention.
The psalmist is in a similar position. Other gods are present and vying for his worship. The world powers claim they need not to swear their allegiance to the Lord. Circumstances are apparent that distract his focus. So, what does the psalmist pray? He prays for an “undivided mind” in order to fear God’s name (v.11). He is acknowledging the presence of distractions, and he is asking for God’s help to leave the store with solely the one item.
Revival Through the Word
We had another great Revival service tonight! We focused on Psalm 119 and saw how powerful the Word of God is yet again! The band, singers, choir, tech team, and host team did a fantastic job tonight! It was a powerful time of worship as we celebrated together.
Tonight, we worshiped to:
Revival Through Worship
We had a great night last night at our Revival service! We had a great time worshiping together. I pulled out one of my favorites (“Shout to the Lord”) and some other great songs. Our band worked out some intricate “Amens” at the end of a new arrangement to “All Creatures.” The above picture is a snapshot of some of …
Revival Through Adversity
Last night, we picked up our Revival series during the summer months. It was July 4th eve, a storm was brewing, and we still had a great turnout of worshipers! I have loved this time together. We worshiped to: All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name – North Side Worship Blessed Be Your Name – Travis Agnew Band Made Me …
Worship Can Happen Before the Service Starts
At the end of May, we had a united youth worship service that I am still recovering from. The collaboration from area churches and the unity in the Body of Christ that night was amazing. The students were such loud, passionate worshipers that night.
We started the service in a unique way that night. I’ve used this at a camp years before, so I’m sure this idea was stolen from someone, so if you can use it, steal it from me. The idea all centers around the verses from Psalm 100:4:
Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!
I love that verse for what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say enter into his gates, then start with the thanksgiving. He doesn’t say get settled in a comfy seat in his courts and start the praise. The process of entering is is worship. While we are entering into the presence of God, we should be worshiping already!
That verse spurned this idea.
Revival Through the Valley
What an incredible night of our 3rd Revival service for the summer. We focused on Psalm 23 and God reviving our hope even when walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
The service was built around that passage and included Stacy Wideman’s story (pictured here with her daughter, Savannah, and son, Stephen). After being born with Down’s Syndrome and a heart defect, Stephen fought gallantly during his time, but eventually, God brought about his healing in heaven and not on earth.
Stacy’s honest testimony was more than powerful. Her desire to let God “heal the wound but leave the scar” was seen in her desire to share God’s faithfulness with others during this difficult time. After her testimony, Stacy led us in singing “It is Well.” I have never been a part of a time when that song was sung more passionately and honestly than it was tonight. The commitment in the room to those words was breathtaking.
In addition to that song, we worshiped to:
Revive Our Integrity
What a powerful week 2 of “Revival.” Studying Psalm 15, we talked about what it means to have integrity. We also had a Memorial Day special prayer time for one of our own currently serving in the military led by one of our own who is also in the military. Powerful time.
Tonight, we worshiped to:
- In the Sanctuary – Travis Cottrell
- O the Blood – Gateway Worship
- I Stand Amazed – North Side Worship
I was kind of blown away by what happened in worship tonight.
Thirsting for God
1 As a deer longs for streams of water, so I long for You, God. 2 I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while all day long people say to me, “Where is your God?” 4 I remember this as I pour …
Revival
This summer, we are praying for a revival!
During the summer, we will be having Sunday evening services from 5:30-7. We will be teaching through the Psalms in a series called, “Revival.” All ages will be studying the Psalms in order to revive our hearts towards God. The schedule will only have two breaks during the summer (June 19th for Father’s Day and June 26th for the Homeland Choir Concert at North Side).
Here’s the summary of the time together that will begin on May 22nd:
The 2nd Greatest Story You Will Ever Tell Your Children
One of your children’s most beloved books in your home might soon be your high school yearbook. Your children know you as a responsible (or somewhat responsible) adult fully equipped with bills, a job, and a minivan, yet before they ever knew you, a lot of your life had already been lived. Seeing your extracurricular activities, fashion statements, and funny hairdos in your yearbook open up an entire new world to them concerning your life.
For many of you reading this article, you also became a Christian before your children were around. Even if you became a Christian later in life, your personal testimony is not information that they inherently receive. The greatest story you will ever tell your children will be God’s story of how he brought redemption to mankind. The 2nd greatest story will be how your story intersected with God’s story – the story of your salvation.
As your children grow, they will have different levels of doubt concerning the Christian faith. You might even experience a child arguing with you concerning your personal beliefs.
While they may resort to arguments, they can’t argue with results. One of the greatest ways to teach your children concerning salvation and walking with Christ is by sharing your personal testimony with them.
Be Fruitful and Multiply (And Boy, Did We Ever!)
I want to show you two pictures. The first was taken in the Summer of 2007 when four couples went on a beach trip together. At that time, there was one baby in the group.
The next picture was taken in December 2010. Same four couples, nine more children than the photo taken 3 and a half years earlier.
John Piper’s #1 Leadership Tip
The only problem with Passion 2011 was that there was way too much to process and apply. I’m still going through lessons and trying to implement them into my life.
One of they keynote speakers at Passion was John Piper who recently took a 7-month sabbatical and came back into the public scene the week of Passion. His message, “Getting to the Bottom of Your Joy” was huge. Massive implications, but that wasn’t the best part of his involvment.
The next morning, he spoke to the leaders’ group. He had planned one talk, but then decided at 6:30 that morning to change directions.
That morning, he shared with us his #1 leadership principle he has learned.
Tolerating Mediocre Talent in Church
We’ve all been there. Sunday morning, the soloist gets up to perform the special music. It’s not that it’s not your style, it’s the fact that it hurts. This person simply cannot sing. For whatever reason, they got the chance to sing a solo, and you are wishing they were singing so low you couldn’t hear them (sorry, I couldn’t …
What If My Worship Team Won’t Practice?
I get the privilege to talk with worship pastors concerning their worship teams a bunch lately. It is a huge blessing. One of the common questions I hear is: “what if my worship team won’t practice?” This is a temptation for any musician or any vocalist in the system for a while. We tend to get used to the opportunity …
Do We Really Need Homegrown Worship Songs?
I’ve been a songwriter since I started playing guitar. I love it, but when I became worship pastor, a dilemma arose. If I have the choice to lead with a song that I have written or Chris Tomlin has written, if I defer to quality, we would always play Mr. Tomlin. I love his songs, and our people love singing …
Worship Leading Excellence: Honoring or Distracting?
Last night, in our worship team training, I asked the question: when does excellence in leading worship become a distraction? As we are spending this month focusing on worship value #3: capability – leading with excellence, a tension arose in my mind. Psalm 33:3 says: “Sing to Him a new song, play skillfully with a shout of joy.” As musicians, …
Going Through the Worship Motions
This month’s core worship value: Humility – leading with perspective This week’s worship training one-liner: The cure for lethargic worship is a good memory. In Psalm 30, David expresses praise to God based upon his faithfulness in the past. What’s interesting about this psalm is that the title infers that this was written for the dedication of the temple. Only …
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