Choose Love (19 page)

A lean and empty soul will never be satisfied or filled. There will never be enough. It will always be miserable.

Every time we worship God with all of our heart, He fills our emptiness with Himself. “Oh, that men would give thanks to the L
ORD
for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!
For He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness
” (Psalm 107:8-9).

We can’t ever allow ourselves to get into the situation where we believe we don’t need to worship God. We must not think for a moment that nothing can shake us—that we don’t need God and we can’t fail. We must not have a false sense of security and suppose we don’t need to pour ourselves out before the Lord in praise and empty ourselves before Him in humble worship. We cannot imagine for even an instant that God’s rules don’t apply to us.

That’s what David did the day he ordered his troops to be counted. He listened to the enemy’s lies instead of showing love, adoration, and thanksgiving to God in worship. “Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel” (1 Chronicles 21:1). So David told his leader, Joab, to number the troops. But Joab had the fear
of God in him and tried to talk David out of doing that because he knew it would displease the Lord.

Joab pleaded, “Why then does my lord require this thing? Why should he be a cause of guilt in Israel?” (1 Chronicles 21:3). But David would not be dissuaded and the troops were counted.

David’s thinking was that the number of his soldiers was what gave him strength and security. He forgot it was
God
who was
with them
that brought him victory.

When David finally recognized his sin against God, his “heart condemned him” and He mourned because of it (2 Samuel 24:10). He confessed and repented of it before God, but he still had to pay the consequences, which was a plague that killed seventy thousand men (2 Samuel 24:15).

All this happened because he didn’t humbly worship God, which would have softened his heart to hear God’s voice, and then he would not have listened to the voice of the enemy.

David had been the great lavish worshipper, the one who went all out and gave himself totally to worshipping God, but pride crept into his heart. As a result he suffered a reduction in the number of troops he had, the very thing he was most proud of. He paid an enormous price—but so did his men, I might add. This only goes to show why the Bible says we are to pray for all people who are in authority over us (1 Timothy 2:2).

David was fully restored to God because of his repentant heart. He said to God, “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness,
to the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent
. O L
ORD
my God, I will give thanks to You forever” (Psalm 30:11-12).

David recognized that when things were going well he thought he could not be shaken. He said, “In my prosperity I said, ‘I shall never be moved’ ” (Psalm 30:6). This is the mistake too many of us make when we fail to see where our help comes from and why we should look to the Lord at all times (Psalm 121:1-2).

We have to ask ourselves if there is anything we are counting on
to save us more than we are relying on God. Are we adding up things in order to fortify ourselves instead of adding up what God
has done, is doing,
and
can do
in our lives and thanking Him for that? There is never a time when we don’t need to worship God. If we think there is, then we are listening to the wrong voice.

God Blesses Those Who Worship Him Together

Something powerful happens when we worship God with other people. This doesn’t diminish the worship that happens in our heart between us and God alone, but we receive another powerful blessing when we worship corporately with other believers in unity of spirit and mind. And that blessing doesn’t happen any other way.

Much is said in the Bible about the importance of worshipping with other believers. “
Let them exalt Him also in the assembly of the people
” (Psalm 107:32). “
My praise shall be of You in the great assembly
; I will pay my vows before those who fear Him” (Psalm 22:25).

David told God that he did not want to be in “the assembly of evildoers,” but he wanted to be in the house of the Lord to “proclaim with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all Your wondrous works. L
ORD
,
I have loved the habitation of Your house, and the place where Your glory dwells
” (Psalm 26:5,7-8). “My foot stands in an even place;
in the congregations I will bless the L
ORD
” (Psalm 26:12).

When we are in the house of the Lord proclaiming praise and worship to Him, we are in His presence and our feet are on solid ground. Loving the house of God doesn’t mean we love a building, but that we love where God’s presence is invited to dwell and is exalted among the people with their praise and worship. God’s presence dwells where He is worshipped and invited. In God’s house we can sense the awesome power of His presence in response to our worship. It affects us with strength, rejuvenation, a sense of clarity, and purpose. We are able to better hear from God. There is great breakthrough that may not happen otherwise.

Praising Him corporately by lifting up our hands to Him in worship is an act of surrender and humility (Psalm 134:2). It’s like saying
“We give up.” But we are not giving up on God. We are giving up trying to do things without Him. We are surrendering to Him.

When We Praise God, His Presence Dwells with Us

Our praise is the most immediate and certain way to experience God’s presence. Even though God is everywhere, certain degrees and manifestations of His presence are only experienced by those who express their love for Him through praise and worship.

God dwells in the praises of His people. The Bible says, “
You are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel
” (Psalm 22:3). But God doesn’t just visit for the moments we are worshipping Him and then He is gone. He
stays dwelling with us
. Jesus said, “
God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth
” (John 4:24). When we express our love for God with our worship, we humbly recognize the truth of who He is and who we are in relation to Him, and we open up to a powerful fresh infusion of the presence of His Spirit that stays with us.

Our reverence for God demonstrates humility. A humble heart of worship and praise is beautiful to Him. “Rejoice in the L
ORD
, O you righteous! For praise from the upright is beautiful” (Psalm 33:1). The beauty of the Lord beautifies us when we worship Him. “The L
ORD
takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the humble with salvation” (Psalm 149:4).

Worship beautifies us because as we look to God, His beauty reflects in us
.

When you want to be closer to God, then “enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise” and “be thankful to Him, and bless His name” (Psalm 100:4). When you praise God, He will manifest His power and love to you. His power and love do not fade, nor does His presence, but we cannot tap into it as fully when we don’t have praise and worship of Him in our heart. That’s why we don’t just praise Him once and we’re done. We do
not
summon His presence like a genie. We praise Him continually.

When we praise Him lavishly, He lavishly gifts us with His presence
.

Prayer of Love

L
ORD
, I worship You for who You are and I praise You for all You have done in my life. Teach me how to worship You lavishly with all that is in me. Help me to glorify Your name in worship always (Psalm 86:12). Your name alone is exalted, and Your glory is “above the earth and heaven” (Psalm 148:13). Let Your high praise always be in my mouth and a two-edged sword in my hand (Psalm 149:6).

Help me to never number my assets as David did to give glory to anyone or anything other than You as the source of all my blessings. Show me any place in my life where I am doing that. I don’t want leanness to creep into my soul. I only want the fullness of life and heart that You have for me. Thank You that You satisfy my hungry soul with Your goodness (Psalm 107:8-9). Thank You that “in the day when I cried out, You answered me, and made me bold with strength in my soul” (Psalm 138:3).

I come before You with thanksgiving and worship only You. “You are my God, and I will praise You” and exalt You above all else (Psalm 118:28). I give You all the glory due You because You are worthy of praise. I worship You in the beauty of Your holiness (Psalm 29:2). I proclaim that this is the day You have made and I will rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24). “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let Your glory be above all the earth” (Psalm 57:11).

In Jesus’ name I pray.

Words of Love

Bless the L
ORD
, O my soul;

and all that is within me, bless His holy name!

P
SALM
103:1

Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You.

Thus I will bless You while I live;

I will lift up my hands in Your name.

P
SALM
63:3-4

The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.

J
OHN
4:23

I will sing to the L
ORD
as long as I live;

I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. May my meditation be sweet to Him;

I will be glad in the L
ORD
.

P
SALM
104:33-34

It is good to give thanks to the L
ORD
, and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; to declare Your lovingkindness in the morning, and Your faithfulness every night.

P
SALM
92:1-2

11

Look for Ways to Trust Him Completely

L
ove and trust go hand in hand.

We show our love for God every time we deliberately put our trust in Him. The reason we won’t be disappointed in doing that is “
because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit
who was given to us” (Romans 5:5).

God’s love poured into us by the indwelling Holy Spirit is unfailing. That’s because
He
is unfailing. His love is not a sometimes-maybe-possibly-perhaps-might-happen-comes-and-goes kind of thing. The Holy Spirit poured out in our heart is constant.

Because God shares Himself with us, we can certainly trust Him. Looking for ways to trust God completely doesn’t mean we have to search hard to find anything in our lives that requires faith on our part. Everything we do of any worth requires trust in God. Too often we are tempted to give up—or give in—just when we should decide we are going to give God our complete trust.

You are going to have times in your life when you have to trust God in the situation you are in. You cannot do anything to change it, but you can worry yourself sick over it, and that still won’t change
anything—except that you’ll be sick. You must trust that God is the only source of miracle-working power you need.

My daughter-in-law, Paige, had Ewing’s Sarcoma, a serious bone cancer, when she was eleven years old. She was in the hospital for nearly a year receiving chemotherapy and having multiple surgeries to replace her damaged leg and knee bones. Because so many children her age died of this terrible disease, including kids she knew in the hospital, it was a miracle she survived. And there were no reliable statistics on what the chances were she would ever be able to have children. There were no guarantees from any doctor about this.

After she and our son were married, we all prayed and prayed that she would be able to become pregnant, and in two years in a story that is only hers to tell, she did. After she was expecting, we started worrying whether everything would turn out well for her and the baby. That kind of worry was beyond what we could handle, and so in prayer we came to the conclusion that Paige’s recovery and life were already miracles, her pregnancy was a miracle, and God doesn’t do partial miracles. He does complete miracles. No matter what we feared, we were going to keep praying and trusting Him all the way through the delivery that Paige and baby would be perfectly healthy and have no complications. And that is exactly what happened. Mother and daughter came through with no problems, and we had peace throughout the process.