Worship 16 When Worship Makes the Difference

[HKHaugan]

Walking back into our memories can sometimes be fruitful not only for ourselves but for our younger generation as well. They will of course have to travel their path to becoming adults but we can be ready at times to share with them the difference between this world with its definition of being free and God's understanding in Jesus. Follow the thought here and be thankful we have a Savior and Lord to worship and share in every next moment.

Graduation night is a big night regardless what level it may take. There is that sense of accomplishment and moments of happiness it brings. But, like trophies, the diplomas and degrees are just that, moments. Another thing about graduation that is fleeting is the idea you are free. You no longer have to tread the halls of academia, chug away at books, worry about exams, please your teachers and professors and write papers. But the morning after brings another realization. It's on to the job market or the graduate program or the 'what-do-I-do-now?' wall.

If anything you are in a much larger room than you anticipated. It's time to prove yourself on a new level. There really is no freedom, only the recognition of a new and larger set of exams, tests, spot quizzes, challenges and competitors that no hall of learning can prepare you for. You are now officially graduated into the land of the unexpected and the unpredictable. It's called the world. Not that you were not already in it but it hits you in the face pretty quickly. The educational structures were really just an extension of the social womb where you were fed, covered and protected.

Now breathing on your own, having to feed yourself and discover the reason for your existence. These pose a whole new set of circumstances day by day and moment by moment. You are now in a new atmosphere. Before you could trust the bricks and mortar that stood firmly there each day as you wound your way through the same daily schedule that was always there to take you through. It was a structure in which your trust was secured by authoritative faces and relative personalities to whom you adjusted.

But now something different is going on. If you are attentive and been warned ahead of time all the smiling faces are not always on your side. You are stepping into an atmosphere where manipulation, greed, competition and 'me-first' is the order of the day. You are alone and you really can't trust anyone. You are in the world of 'learning-the-ropes' and 'fitting-in.' Oh yes, you've experienced that before on teams and in fraternities and on the dating scene, but nothing like this. It's the world wise social and economic elders who will determine whether you sink or swim for the rest of your life. There are emotional traps, social maneuvers and psychological games lying in wait for which there are no written manuals.

We could go into greater detail but we all know this is the world, the fallen world, the world where people find themselves constantly challenged to either fit in or give in. It's a world atmosphere built by media pressure, compromised aloneness and the devil's playground. It's where sin erupts to ply its trade in the most unexpected ways. Sin gives us the illusion that all by ourselves, if we are clever enough, we can live, achieve and survive without restraints. Whoever is master of the moment is the winner. But the more we strive for success the more alone we become. The more we achieve in the world the fewer people we can trust. Who can we really trust when we become rich and famous?

Catch the drift here?

What all of us have to learn is the deeper truth of reality and that is everything is only understood in a spiritual context because that is what we are ultimately living in. It is only when we realize that underneath our supposed freedom we are spiritual beings needing a spiritual authority to show us the spiritual path that doesn't isolate us but fulfills us, that gives us the ability to trust a perfect spiritual guide through the spiritual wilderness through which we walk every day. The perfection we seek, the trust to exercise who we really are, to face the fact of God as our Creator and our sin-induced lostness without Him is why Jesus went to the Cross and rose from the dead. He came with our aloneness in mind and bore the same aloneness with a new ingredient, faith in His Father who is our Father, our spiritual Father. And He said to listen to Jesus and everything He said. This is the truth that brings a new meaning to the word 'freedom.'

Freedom is being freed from the sinful self and reborn spiritually. When we are reborn spiritually we are free to choose, free to follow, free to obey, free to believe, free to trust, free to be faithful, free to ask, free to seek, free to knock and free to receive. Every next moment is filled with the freedom to realize the inheritance we have been given for this world which is a shadow of what we can expect in the life to come. Spiritual freedom is found in the room of belief, the room of trust, the room of faith; these are limitless. “You have not handed me over to the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place (Ps.31:8).”

What Jesus has done for us is to free us from the prison of self-centeredness and the self-centeredness of others by giving us the choice to follow Him through the unseen spiritual manipulation of the devil, his spirits and our inner temptations to take control over what we fear and can't see. This is where fear governs our every next moment. By choosing to follow Jesus and His Word we are free to let the Holy Spirit shape our relationships, our goals and curb our fear and pride. This brings us to the true bottom line when it comes to being human. We are going to serve someone or something. The freedom we have is the freedom to choose the 'whom' and the 'what.' This is the ultimate freedom, a spiritual freedom. “So I say, live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature (Gal.5:16).” Anything less is to be enslaved to the self and the self without God is totally alone, defenseless and self-destructive.

In all of this description of what is the fallenness of human nature and the world comes the words of Jesus to worship God and serve Him only (Mt.4). It is worship that gives the mind, heart and spirit the freedom to be truly human as Jesus was in His humanity. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Gal.5:1).” Every moment is a moment where belief for the mind, trust for the heart and faith for the spirit is worship. Believing the Lord in the mind, trusting Him in the heart and acting in faith with the spirit; all through the Spirit.

“O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom: Defend us, thy humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in thy defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP 1928).”