Articles
Revelation 4
Today’s reading is Revelation 4.
I find it interesting and a little bit challenging, when I search my photo stock using the word “worship,” especially connected with images of “Christian worship,” I am inundated with pictures of people standing up, eyes closed, faces to heaven, arms upstretched. However, when I look through the Bible at pictures of worship, what I find (Old and New Testaments) is people falling down, laying on the ground, bowing, casting off crowns. Don’t get me wrong, I know men are to lift holy hands in prayer. I know through Jesus Christ we are forgiven and undefiled, therefore we have confident access to God’s presence, and we don’t have to come into it with self-flagellation, scraping on the floor, and begging for entrance. Therefore, I don’t want to establish some bodily posture rule about worship. Nor do I want to paint with such a broad brush as to say every prostrate worshiper has the right mindset and every upright worshiper does not. But I wonder if this stark contrast in the majority of “pictures” between modern Google and ancient Bible demonstrates some kind of shift in our view of worship. Obviously, each of us must examine our own heart regarding what we are doing in worship. Here is what I do know. No matter how we are sitting, standing, laying prostrate, raising hands, worship is the casting down of our own selves and our own worthiness before the Lord who is the only worthy One. Whether our bodies lie prostrate or not, worship is the prostration of our hearts and minds before a holy God who was and is and is to come, who is worthy to receive glory and honor and power because He is creator and we are creation. And whether we are actively involved in a worship action or not, this must be the state of our heart before God at all times. He is worthy. Praise God!
A Word for Our Kids
Hey kids, our story continues. In this chapter, we meet the father in the story who sends out his warrior, prince, hero son to win the day, defeat the monster, conquer the enemy king, overthrow the enemy kingdom, and deliver his prospective bride. Of course, in this story, the father is God. He is no doddering, foolish, past His prime, has-been as is often the case in these kinds of stories. He is the all-powerful God whose Son is victorious because the Son is every bit is powerful as He is. What a God we serve. What a God we worship. May we also cast down all claims we have to worthiness and bring glory to Him, His Son, and His Spirit.
Edwin Crozier
