Saturday, May 3- Psalm 66:16-20

hey guys!!
I hope this scripture changes you as it did me...

These verses aren't about the act of worship so much as they are about how you need to approach worship. And what should your approach to worship be? Start with a time of confession. It would be hard to enter into a time of worship with the heaviness of sin on your heart (maybe you know what I'm talking about). You NEED to confess your sins to God, cry out for His forgiveness and help to turn from those sins--daily, more than daily, every time you sin!! The less you confess your sin, the more of a barrier you build between yourself and God.


Imagine this little scenario:
Think about all the 'little' and not so little sins you might commit just in one day and forget to confess to God- and each sin is represented by a brick. With each one you don't confess, it gets stacked on top of the next and side by side. For example: lying to your parents about who your hanging out with, cheating on homework, telling bad jokes, your lustful thoughts as you check someone out, disobeying traffic laws(yeah, that's a sin too), disrespecting your parents or teachers, gossip, etc.... That wall is getting pretty high isn't it? It doesn't take long. For some of us, we go days or weeks or months without sincerely confessing sin to God.

How can you expect God to receive your worship when you have a huge wall of unconfessed sin standing in the way??
You NEED (and I'm speaking to myself here) to get into the habit of recognizing when you sin and confessing it right away, with the intention of turning from it(that's called repentance). That way your worship will be honorable and pleasing to God.
PHEW!! I feel freedom just thinking about it!

One more thing-
One Sunday morning, not too long ago, it was the worship time of the service. We were all standing in worship- when two younger guys came in and stood right in front of me. Actually, one stood and began worshiping while the other turned around at his seat and bowed to his knees. He prayed a quick prayer before entering into worship. I was challenged by seeing him take the time to do that and realized how amazing his worship time must have been because he took the time to give his heart to God in prayer before he gave himself up in worship. I think we can all learn a lesson from this man. Our worship can be so much more real if we are continually experiencing God's forgiveness in our lives.

And then we can say as David did, "Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer and did not withdraw His unfailing love from me."





love you guys,

Pam S.