Worship 21 Helping Someone Believe is Worship

[HKHaugan]

When people you know don't get the picture, the point of why we believe what we do about God, we can help them along the way with some things to think about. What really makes people tick? Why are we like we are? What causes the world to be like it is with all the problems we have? Why am I like I am inside? We need to identify where we are and encourage some personal sharing. It can be in the store or a party or whenever the opportunity presents itself. It starts may be with identifying where we are in the reality of everyday life. Follow along with some ideas along this line:

When you see what you can't see that's when you start seeing, really seeing. Apply that idea to all our senses. When a blind man is in a conversation, asks a question, gets an answer and replies, “I see what you mean,” that has to click. When someone says, “I can hear what you are saying,” he is not referring to vocal vibrations. When this line from Hamlet is quoted, “There's something rotten in the State of Denmark,” it is not the physical smell that is being noted. “That really touched my heart,” doesn't describe a finger experiencing a pulsating bodily organ nor when someone indicates that the anger was so thick “You could taste it,” point to the tongue's reaction.

Apply this unseen meaning idea to your life in the world around you. All of what we do is analogical, that is, we live and breathe reflecting invisibly on what we experience visibly. Analogy is a secular reference to describe what Scripture calls 'light.' This is what it means to be a spiritually conscious being, to be 'en-light-ened.' It's like when Jesus says, “I am the light of the world” and “You are the salt of the earth.” Everything has a meaning and that meaning is spiritual because meaning itself is unseen, invisible, perceived by the mind, processed by reason, analyzed and reacted to by the unseen self-conscious person within. Who can we trust in this unseen reality?

To put it in another way, we are 'lit up' when we believe, when we trust and when we have faith in a person and a way to live this unseen reality. Trace it all back to its source and you can see that it is spiritual because everything you see has a spiritual source. Any way you cut it, define it, ponder it, speculate, analyze, choose, decide and finally respond it is you and me as individuals who will conclude we live out our lives verbally in all of it with a prefacing “I am.” Our language allows no escape, no bartering, no exchange from that premise nor does any other part of our human internal working. Who can we believe has the answer when it comes to processing life?

We may use words, physical diversions, religion, philosophical evaluation, therapy, meditative techniques, geographical and economic change of environment so “we can get away from it all,” but there is no escape from who and what we are. We are spiritual beings living in a human body. We are truly spiritual beings having a human experience. This is the beginning of true awareness, true experience and true response. We can not escape our thoughts and how specific and unique they are within our minds. We're made to delve into them and develop them. Their influence on our feelings only magnify the uniqueness of our personal emotionality and then, as individuals, respond to our relational environment.

The fact that we are constantly processing our present in terms of our past, means we are challenged to be very specific in the way we use our time, our abilities to analyze and conclude. The emotional and reflective means we use make up our character. They are gifts to cherish, to understand and to sort out in order to deepen our personal “I am.” We are aware of being a unique person, consciously 'I', sensitive to the particulars of the moment and curiously wrapped in learning more. This is spiritual reality at work. Is there a spiritual person behind all this?

Well, we are not alone in this effort. The reason we can even begin a conversation like this is because we have a Creator who has revealed Himself to us in the “I AM” that is Jesus through whom every bit of existence came into being. It is belief, trust and faith centered in Jesus, the built-in abilities to exercise our spirit nature, that help us to walk through the unseen, to develop and grow in the universe of seeing what we can't see, having 'insight' about our 'outsight.'

However, there is a 'fly in the ointment.' There is a spiritual negative that makes everything complicated when it comes to launching out into the unseen. Everyone has this nagging sense of caution when we find the world doesn't fit me or I don't fit the world. There is fear, aloneness, pride, anger, struggles, pain, disease and doubt. Distrust and suspicion cloud my horizons in trying to see the unseen. The more I experience the less I am in control. I find there are things I want to do but can't and things I don't want to do that I do. There is this invisible battle going on inside me. I discover there is a whole sea of desire for things, people and acceptance but no easy way to get them. Then the taste of guilt and blame and how fault has to be pinned somewhere on someone and that has to happen as long as I'm not the one who is the their object. All of this is the result of what is called sin, the spiritual negative that erupts and corrupts the moment.

From sin there is no escape. It is a prison cell whose bars are made of self-conscious fear, pride, control and a 'me-first' attitude. The guilt I need to erase, the blame I look to place somewhere beside me, the excuses I use for relief, the looks of others I avoid and the contentious need to be and feel right when I'm not. All these are evidence of sin. Sin is the block to being free to live in the invisible reality that is spiritual. Sin is the reality we are all trying to avoid by denying it exists. It is the root of every conflict and every divisive move in human society. It is the condition that plagues the heart and mind.

Here is where Jesus enters the picture as the perfect image of God in the flesh. He came into the world to reveal what God intended when He made mankind. He is the perfection in the invisible we desire but can't seem to find. He is the good we try but never seem to be. His is the perfect and sinless heart and mind. He is the confidence and balance we all wish we had but never really achieve. He is the relational perfection that exudes honesty and insight, courage and focus that is the ultimate maturity we all wish we had. His first reactions are always those based on His Father's will, His presence and His Word. He summed it all up for us when He gave His life on the Cross to prove who He was and why He came. He who knew no sin became sin in order that we might become right with God, ourselves and others.

Jesus is constantly exercising his awareness of the specific issues that make us human. That is how He relates to everyone He meets. He encourages everyone to react in terms of their uniqueness and to be detailed in it. He gives His Holy Spirit to be our personal developmental guide through special gifts that make us aware of the depth of God and others. This is the spiritual magnitude of unending awareness and growth that await us in every next moment. In Jesus we become more forgiven, more loving, more compassionate, more sensitive, more confident, more alive and more hungry for the spiritual realities for which we were created. In Him we are more personal, more relational and more spiritual.

The risk, the only risk in opening to belief in Jesus is the loss of sin controlling our thinking and behavior. He wants us to experiment with Him, try Him and the things He teaches, be a bit open to talking to Him. It's in this give and take kind of maneuvering that we discover our resistance and reluctance which inhibit our personal growth. Jesus is relational and that's the point. The interesting thing is that we are willing to listen to all kinds of so called authoritative voices in society but most resistant to the One who really makes sense about attitude and heart. That's proof of sin all by itself.

Let's face it. We are all going to worship someone or something. We are all going to try and figure out what is worth doing with our lives and who is worth following to get there. That's what worship is. Why not come with me and let me introduce you to some folks who know and worship Jesus? It just might make a difference. What do you have to lose?