When it comes to praise, we can’t just THINK praiseworthy thoughts about God, we must express these thoughts with our lips—it must be verbal and vocal. It’s not enough to have a feeling of gratitude to God; you don’t complete the praise requirement until it is sung or spoken. An inner attitude of gratitude is the root of praise, but it doesn’t become praise it until it becomes the fruit of praise expressed by our lips.
We used to live in a world that was totally literal. You had literal friends and literal experiences. But today we live in a virtual world. You can have virtual friends and you can have virtual experiences. Some people today are looking for a virtual church experience but the writer of Hebrews stresses that we need to have a literal experience of gathering with other believers.
Because we are so used to being entertained, it is easy to make the mistake of thinking a worship service is to entertain the audience. If you think it is like an opera, or a play where this is the stage and we’re the performers—you’ve got it all wrong. Here’s an important spiritual truth about worship: Worship is always for an audience of One. Every song, every prayer, every offering is to be directed to God Almighty. When we applaud, we really aren’t applauding the talents or efforts of the person or group singing. Our applause is to show appreciation to the audience of One who has filled our hearts with grace and made all this possible.
We live in an age of marvelous electronic connection, but it has only created miserable personal isolation. Today a person can sit in front of a computer monitor and feel like they have friends all over the world. There are dozens of websites facilitating social networking. To me, this trend demonstrates how hungry people are for genuine relationships. A Jesus church is a place where all different kinds of people can be united in love. A church is not a showcase for shiny saints, we are a hospital for sick sinners. We are to be a safe harbor for those whose lives have been shipwrecked.
The Transfiguration of Jesus is a preview of a coming attraction—the Second Coming of Jesus. It will be a powerful attraction, too, strong enough to raise the dead and to rapture living Christians. I’m not going to be around to read the Second Coming headline, because when Jesus comes, I’m going to be meeting Him in the clouds.
