Worship from the inside out

Hmmmm, well I haven’t written for a little bit – man, time flies. SO much going on – how exciting! I’ve been taking a class about purpose and finding our purpose in God (obviously), starting with the every day things that are before us. Being faithful with what we are given each day, making a difference in the little things. My mind immediately goes to worship. How we are to approach the issue of our life’s purpose, God-given destinies, etc. is the same way we worship. We do it as a part of our every day lives. All day, every day.

Romans 12:1-2 (Message Paraphrase):

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

I see worship as a circle (cycle) of obedience. We worship God by obeying Him, but in obeying Him we can’t help but respond in worship as we begin to see the fruit of our lives given over to Him. It’s in laying down our own lives that we truly receive the life God created for us. As we begin to change in His presence we are different from the inside-out. Our lives look different (at first not to the human eye) but the change will eventually be evident on the outside also. Good news is that God looks on the heart, so each and every minuscule change is not only seen but also celebrated, by our great God!

So, my prayer today comes from another favorite Psalm of mine, written by David, in Ps 51:6 (Speaking to God he says:):

“What You’re after is truth from the inside out. Enter me, then, conceive a new, true life.“

God isn’t looking for perfection, He’s looking for pursuit. What we pursue is what we will get. By pursuing God, we will receive all He intended for us since the beginning of time. He forms us with purpose and with identity – but the key to receiving it is obedience. This is an act of worship from me to God (or from you and God) – no one or nothing else.

I promise you, with God as your first pursuit and His word as your guide, your life will change starting from the inside out.

Luke 6:43-45 comes to mind as I think about this today:

“You don’t get wormy apples off a healthy tree, nor good apples off a diseased tree. The health of the apple tells the health of the tree. You must begin with your own life-giving lives. It’s who you are, not what you say and do, that counts. Your true being brims over into true words and deeds.

vs: 45 (Amplified Version): “For out of the abundance (overflow) of the heart, [the] mouth speaks”

From the inside out, eh? Good or bad, the inside is eventually revealed. One of my greatest purposes in life is that my insides are right with God, so I don’t really need to cover up or hide what is coming out. I pray that the overflow of my heart is praise.

I desire for my worship to flow from the inside out. That is the way that God asks…that our worship just be an overflow. Nothing ’staged’ or ‘religious’, just an overflow of the inside, reflecting on the outside, which is what David is talking about when he wrote Psalm 40:3. As God changed him, after he repented of his sin, he explains that he began to worship (sing a new song, a response from the inside out). David had changed and his worship was a by-product that he believed would eventually move from an internal experience to an external manifestion (evangelism in this case).

Psalm 40:3;

“He has given me a new song to sing,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
They will put their trust in the Lord.”

I guess this fires me up the most because it combines my two greatest passions in life: worship and evangelism. This chapter has it all, including the humanity, which I myself am no stranger to.

With love, in Christ,

♥erin