Worshipping 'ministry' rather than Christ

Six days before the Passover feast, Jesus journeyed to the village of Bethany, to the home of Lazarus who had recently been raised from the dead, where they hosted Him for dinner. Martha was busy serving as the hostess, Lazarus reclined at the table with Him, and Mary took a pound of fine ointment, pure nard (which is both rare and expensive), and anointed Jesus’ feet with it; and then she wiped them with her hair. As the pleasant fragrance of this extravagant ointment filled the entire house, Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples (who was plotting to betray Jesus), began to speak.

Judas Iscariot: How could she pour out this vast amount of fine oil? Why didn’t she sell it? It is worth nearly a year’s wages; the money could have been given to the poor.

This had nothing to do with Judas’s desire to help the poor. The truth is he served as the treasurer, and he helped himself to the money from the common pot at every opportunity. John 12:3-6


I wonder how often we are Judas in this story, rather than Mary.

The perfume she poured over Jesus was worth a years wages. It is true that amount of money could help a lot of people.

But Jesus is more important than people. Yes, you heard me. Even poor people.

But doesn't Jesus care about poor people? Of course He does. And of course he wants us to care about them also. He wants us to love others as He does. But the thing is, if we are focused on the others without first focusing on Jesus, then we are actually missing the point.

Jesus is more important. If we can get that, and truly live it, then our lives will become Christlike. Then the compassion and service and ministry to others will follow, as Jesus leads.

But if we focus on 'doing' - even if it is for others - and just try to add Jesus in to it, then we have made 'ministry' our idol and object of worship.

Perhaps we are trying to cover up our own fallibility, insecurity or guilt. Deflect from our own faults. Or gain for ourselves. Like Judas. If we make an obvious show of how much we care for others, perhaps people won't notice how broken we still are ourselves. Perhaps others will look up to us. Perhaps we can even fool ourselves into thinking that we are 'good' enough because of everything we sacrifice for others.

How much of our desire to help those 'less fortunate' comes from our love for Jesus overflowing, and how much comes from self focused desires?

It is a tough question and sometimes takes laying bare the deepest corners of your heart and motivations.

How can something 'good' be bad?
When it's motivated by self and not love.

It's a question I've had to ask myself. In writing this blog. In wanting to go on volunteer and missions trips. All 'good' things, objectively. But too much of my motivation at times rested in myself, and not in God.

Have you ever told God you are willing to sacrifice anything for Him, but heard yourself add in the mental footnotes a few conditions about what that actually looks like, about the recognition, about how much, how often or where?

Are we willing to pour out our whole jar of perfume - our whole life in worship - on Jesus feet, regardless of how others react, regardless of how 'wasteful' it seems to the natural mind to not be 'doing' something more.

Even when we truly want to be serving Jesus, we often find it difficult to take the time to just lay everything down at His feet first. To stop and be lavishly excessive with our worship and praise and sacrifice.

Just worship. Without thinking of what we are getting, what others are thinking, what we will do with it later...

What use is all the service and ministry we can muster if we didn't give it all to Jesus first.

I hope it's clear I'm not saying doing things in service of God and others in bad. I'm not saying helping the poor is bad. Of course not! How we love others is a direct and natural result of how we love God.

But I think this time is coming where we will be called on to do big things, to have great compassion, to radically change the world and radically love those whom others have oppressed and ignored.

If we are going to do that right, we need Jesus. We need to know what it means to really pour out ourselves in worship of God first. Because if we can't first give ourselves wholly and unreservedly to Jesus, then we will never be able to do it for others. There will always be a large portion of 'self' tying it up.

No matter how much we act or give or do, it will be empty. No matter how powerful and influential our lives seem to be, without Jesus as Lord first of all, our lives will be shallow. And what is the good in our 'good' deeds if they are motivated by self. If we end up saying 'Lord, Lord' only to hear "I never knew you."

Where's the fruit.

Maybe I'm too skeptical. Though many would say not skeptical enough. But when I turned on the TV this morning to the Christian channel and saw a moodily lit band leading a large auditorium of people in arm raising, eye closed worship, I thought...

Really?

Every single one of you is having an encounter with God that causes you to sway in rapture? Is it a real moment?

Or is it a feel good moment? One you could get from a good piece of chocolate if the mood was right, and someone dimmed the lighting just so....

I can't judge what is going on in people's hearts, though. And it's not as if I don't think that during corporate worship it's all emotionalism. I know God can be with each and every person in a powerful way. I've experienced it. Worship where I lay it all down and came away changed.

But there have also been times where I felt the warm and fuzzies, but I've been firmly planted in my own head rather than laying at the feet of Jesus.

And I came away on a little high, but I wasn't changed. Once away from that experience, everything felt as flat and empty as before.

And that's the difference. We can't judge people's hearts - sometimes even our own are confusing mysteries to us - but we can look for fruit. Are we being changed by our worship and glorifying of God?

And it's not because I think the purpose of worship is all about us - because it's not. But I know that when you lay yourself down and come in to the presence of God, you cannot help but be changed.

Not necessarily in big ways. It doesn't mean you should be going in like a murderer and coming out like a nun each time you get together and sing some songs. But if we are really being filled with the spirit during our worship, we should be seeing a bit more of his fruit. We should be a little more patient as we try to exit the car park after the meeting. We should have a little more joy on Monday morning when we get up to start the week.

Not because we've been inspired by great music and a rousing sermon, and are trying extra hard this week to be a good person, but because its the natural fruit of coming close to God.

If we're not seeing any fruit - not even just a tiny bit - what are we doing as we worship? Who are we worshipping? The people singing up the front? You could be mistaken for thinking that sometimes, the way we all face them and reach our hands out in their direction, like we think that's where God is standing.

Are we worshipping ourselves? Admiring the sounds of our own voices in our heads? Thinking how holy we are for lifting our hands a little higher than the person next to us?

Are we just carried off emotionally by the corporate experience? By peer pressure?

Maybe I'm being cynical, but I'm not happy to substitute and emotional experience for a true spiritual one anymore. None of us should be.

Lets not settle for just a great high like we are mindless worship-drug addicts.

I'm not saying everything is all wrong. I'm not saying that we should just chuck anything out.

But I'm not saying everything is all right either.

Let's all not just settle for emotion. It might make things quieter for a moment. It might not seem so exciting at first. Maybe you won't come away on a high like you are used to.

But then you will see the fruit. Then you will know that your roots run deeper than ever before. The changes we will see from real worship are better than a thousand mega-bands and technical light shows.

And the best bit - you won't need a room full of people, or even any music playing to come into the presence of God. You're living room won't feel empty when you worship there alone or with just a few people because you will learn to be filled with the real, life changing, heart changing presence of God.

'Your best life'

"Your best life". I hate that phrase. I've seen it as the tag line for churches, and I hate it. Because everyone is looking at that tag line, and I just know the life they are thinking of. They are thinking of this earthly, temporary one. They are thinking 'how do I get my best life, right now?'

Is that really your best life? Is this best part of your existence?

As Christians, why aren't we looking past the physical to see what our 'best life' should really look like?

I've been wrestling with decisions lately that have made me really contemplate what living my 'best life' looks like - and I'm finding that sometimes the best life according to Jesus is going to look like craziness to other people. How do you explain to a world fixated on having and earning and gaining, that I'm taking time - unpaid, financially unprofitable time - to study the Word of God, to sit at the feet of Jesus, to live in faith that what I'm sowing into right now, though it's not putting money in the bank, it's going to pay off so much more richly? How do you explain that?

Well, you can't really. People are going to think you are wasting your time. They are going to wonder why you seem to be just sitting there when there are things to be done.

I guess it depends on where you are sitting. If you are just sitting down in front of the TV, well, they're probably right. Why are you just sitting there?

But if you are sitting at the feet of Jesus - if you are truly waiting on him and letting him lead you no matter where it takes you - then you have 'chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from [you].' Luke 10:42

Other things to look at:


http://sammyadebiyi.com/blogs/sammy-adebiyi/butt-chins-forehead-feet-and-jesus

Seek and you will find - but what are you looking for?

Have you ever sought hard, earnestly, til you hurt...and then nothing happened. It makes you wonder, where exactly is God? What about all that 'seek and you will find' business, huh?

God does say that we when seek after him, he will be found. So what's going on?

And at times like that, when we feel let down, we know that God says he'll never leave us or forsake us, but it can be hard to really understand it.

But it doesn't seem to "work" - when I seek and don't seem to find God, perhaps I was actually looking for myself and not for God at all.

Worship is about glorifying God, and yet how often do we come away thinking about what we did or didn't get from it, how we felt, what God did for us?

Seek and you will find. It's true. But what are we looking for? If we look for ourselves, we're always going to find it. And we'll always be disappointed. Because our spirit longs for God.

Just a thought...