Memoirs

20070929

Now Listening - Yet Will I Praise Thee - Paradise Worship

Now I know that the Lord saves His anointed;
He will answer him from His holy heaven
With the saving strength of His right hand.
Some trust in chariots and some in horses;
But we will remember the name of the Lord our God.
Psalm 20:6-7

It's 4.02 in the morning of such a wonderful day.

And as I awake to take my bath, I'm reminded of God's goodness in my life for the past 18 years. In a rather comtemplative mood right now huh.

God I thank You for Your love and provision. Like a Father, You never let me go. Always held my hand.

Yet will I praise Thee
Lift my hands and sing
Yet will I praise Thee
I will bow before the King and praise Thee
Give to You my everything

I'm reminded again of how recently many in church have had the revelation of God not as one reprimanding, judging and severe, although we cannot deny that He is sovereign and is the righteous Judge, but we must never forget our place in the Father's house, that we can come as His child, running into His arms, for no reason at all, just to love Him and say proudly to the whole world, "Hey, this one's my papa!"

Hah, isn't it interesting that so many have repeated this within this few months? Jason Tay, William, Newson. Many times, I cannot deny, I realise that we distance ourselves from the Lord thinking that He is holy and we are full of iniquity and unworthy to gain presence before the King. But how I realise, this is not the relationship that God the Father desires to have with His children. Yes, we are unworthy. But God has provided for that on Calvary. We must not irreverent the cross of Jesus Christ and God's holiness, but why should Jesus Christ pay the highest price to rend the veil, afterwhich having His children still afar off from Him and not having that communion which He has so desired for all eternity? For His created ones to walk in the cool of the evening with their Creator God.

Maybe an excerpt from Jason's email would shed some light.

Somehow we don't have a culture of just enjoying worship. Think it's seen as more like a duty and stressful thing. Remember one time I was leading and suddenly I was standing couple of feet behind my body looking at my back and it was no longer me but the Holy Spirit leading.

It was awesome. The key is we must realize it's not going to happen because of us. JESUS is the one and only way, truth and life. We need to get a revelation of that first then have the wisdom and consecration to possess it (as Ps Norman shared last week). Without the revelation, all our soaking will be in vain, going around in circles, akin to a lamp unto our feet without a light to our path.

It's a very long time now that I feel we've actually been the ones who have been putting up barriers between ourselves and the Father. We keep saying, we are not worthy, need to prepare more, need to pay the price, etc...when the FATHER has said "Come, I have already paid the price." Yet in our human striving we keep pushing Him away by saying we have not paid the price. The breakthrough is already paid for. We simply have to get a revelation of it.

We don't change then see the glory. The Bible says "But we all, with unveiled face, *beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory,. That means we can and must first behold His glory and then be changed, not change then behold His glory. We must not in human righteousness reverse that.

Can you imagine me saying to Elizabeth "YYou have to pay a price before you can see me?" Or "You are not worthy to see me?" Of course not! In fact, I look forward to seeing my daughter everyday! When I get home and enter the door, without fail the first thing she will do is exclaim "Daddy!" and rush over to give me a hug. She doesn't think I don't deserve my daddy, I'm not worthy to touch or see him! Neither do I say "Wash your hands first before you hug me!" Or "Show me your homework first!" I embrace her tightly and ask how she is and how her day was, only after that do I check on her progress and I don't scold her if she has made a mistake in her spelling practice, I teach her patiently. Imagine if she spelt wrongly and I refused to talk to her or see her or allow her into my presence till she sorted it out. That would be ridiculous. If she doesn;t know how to spell November and I don't teach her, there's no way I can expect her to learn on her own. She would learn best if I showed and coached her personally.

If then we earthly fathers treat our children like that, how much more our heavenly Father is ever waiting to embrace us and welcome His children into His presence! And then transform us into the measure of the fullness of the stature of Christ. If we believe we have to measure up before He will meet us, then I'm afraid it will never happen because we can never measure up to that standard. That's the whole point of the Gospel, in fact the entire Bible!

Jesus rent the veil from TOP to bottom, meaning God did the tearing. Let's not put up more veils and then try to tear them from bottom to top through our human righteousness. Let us instead come boldly to the throne in full assurance that the Father is eagerly waiting to embrace us. When we have caught that, every worship time will be an awesome and wonderful time which we all will love and look forward to as the Father does.

How rightly put.

adora at 4:00:00 AM