daily devotions and thoughts about worship. Matt is a worship-inviter and sometime writer // desperate heart // determined mind // devoted soul // disciplined strength
"Your statutes, Lord, stand firm: holiness adorns your house for endless days.” - Psalm 93:5 It’s funny how the outside of people’s houses tells you something about the inside. Some homes flicker with the warmth of a fire and a family; others look cold and uncared for. Some houses look like the owners are doing everything they can to keep the world on the outside, others are a bit more welcoming. In Psalm 93, the writer tells us that God decorates (adorns) his house with holiness. The idea is that you get an idea of what the indoors is like from the outdoors - it’s holy because He is holy. But it’s not just the temple, or the church building! Of course, as believers, you and I are God’s house too. He dwells in us. That means that His desire is for us to be decorated, adorned with holiness on the outside, to give the world a view of what He is like on the inside. We’re supposed to be beacons of light that welcome the world in to an amazing relationship with our Holy God. Today, think about your ‘decorations’: what you do, what you say, how you react to things. What message are you showing about who you are? Your decorations might already be telling a story. Ask God to help you show the world what He is like.
Have you ever been speechless in front of an incredible view? Sometimes it’s obvious that a photograph won’t capture the splendour of it. The only way to see it, to really see it, is to be there yourself. “Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to his name; bring an offering and come before him. Worship the Lord in the splendour of his holiness.” - 1 Chronicles 16:29 The best response to holiness is worship, and that means something personal, doesn’t it? Worship is something present, live and in the room, you and Father God. In fact, just like that spectacular view, the holiness of God is best encountered one-on-one; it is so incredible it can only be fully experienced face-to-face. What’s more it creates that beautiful environment where only personal worship and offering make sense as that response. Why not pray today for a first-hand view of the spectacular holiness of God. And you might be surprised where you find it: you might see it in a painting, hear it in music or the storyline of a great film. Ask Him to move your heart to worship Him in the splendour and the beauty of holiness.
Think of someone you know. Can you sum up their character in three words? Smart, determined, funny? Brilliant, quiet, generous? How about in one word? It’s much harder to capture the essence of a complex person in a single word isn’t it? And yet... “... I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord.” - Ezekiel 38:23 The word ‘holy’ is used more than any other adjective to describe who the God of the Bible is. It’s His defining characteristic and His nature. It is His one word. Time and time again, the Old Testament writers return to use ‘holy’ - God’s favourite adjective. In Ezekiel 38, God also shows us that His natural ‘holiness’ is far more about being than it is about doing. We get this round the wrong way sometimes, believing that holiness is about all the things you choose not to do. But here it just radiates as God’s absolute nature. Today, think about how you would explain what holiness is to someone who asks. How does it ‘show the nations’ that He is the Lord? Pray and ask Him to show you what holiness looks like, and how you can reflect Him. Can it be a part of your nature too?
What do you picture when you think of a ‘holy man’? Perhaps a pious priest, or a medieval monk, hidden away to pray on an island? Perhaps a humble hermit, too holy to be part of the rest of the world. Holiness it seems, has had a reputation for centuries. But what is it? What was holiness in the very beginning? The Bible talks a lot about what it means to be ‘holy’, and frames it in one particular concept: God, Himself. All the signposts point back to Him. Have a look at what the Old Testament says: “Who among the gods is like you, Lord? Who is like you - majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?” - Exodus 15:11 God is holy, perfectly set-apart and perfectly righteous, because He is the source of holiness. There’s no ruler He measures up against: He is the standard, He is the measure. He is the incomparable, benchmark definition of holiness. What’s more, holiness, true holiness, is defined here as ‘majestic’ - it is powerful, beautiful, and radiant, just as He is. Every journey to find out what holiness is, starts and ends with Him. Today, why not spend some time in worship, focusing on who God the Father is as majestic in holiness. Ask Him to show you His awesome glory, his wonders and His incomparable, majestic holiness.
Which role is most important: leading the team, holding the compass, reading the map, or encouraging the stragglers at the back? Well, if you’ve ever been orienteering, you’ll know that you actually need everyone (all of you) to trust each other completely. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” - Proverbs 3:5-6 Here, in Proverbs, we’re encouraged to defer our own understanding and rely on the Lord to guide our adventure. It’s a little bit like not arguing with the compass-holder about which way North is, or with the map-reader about how to read contour lines. Trust and submission work hand-in-hand. But unlike the typical orienteering team, God’s understanding is perfect, and you can trust Him perfectly with the excursion of your life. Today, if you’re making big (or even small) decisions about your adventure, ask Him what He thinks. Where will this take me? The Map Reader knows. Which way is best? The Compass Holder gets it. What will happen if I struggle? The Encourager is with you. He is your team. And your journey is going to be so good!
Jesus taught His disciples (and us) to pray. I wonder whether you know how incredible a weapon your prayer life is? It links you to Him via a connection of intimacy, so that all the resources of Heaven can flow into this world through you. In the Psalms, the connection is put like this: "You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory." - Psalm 63:1 The power is His power, the glory is His glory. But you and I get to see it at work in our disrupted old world - and prayer, the kind of desperate, intimate prayer that the psalmist shows here, is the key. The power and the glory are awesome, yes, but the only place to find them is in the sanctuary. That’s where He is - and He longs to be sought there by dry and weary pilgrims like you and me. What Jesus shows us is that we can do it; we can actually seek out God in His sanctuary, and ask Him to intervene with power and with glory. What’s more, He loves it when we do. He is our Father in Heaven, and He longs for that connection with us here on Earth, with His children showing His glory, His power in His Kingdom... forever and ever. Amen.
Jesus does everything in the context of the Kingdom. I guess that’s because He’s the King. In Luke 6 though, he shows us that the ‘kingdom’ belongs to more than just Him. “Looking at his disciples, he said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.’” - Luke 6:20 When we pray the Lord’s Prayer we say, ‘yours is the kingdom’ to remind ourselves that everything we’ve asked for is in line with His Kingdom coming and His will being done. But what if it’s also... our kingdom? Not the things we want to happen, but the things He designed, worked out, implemented somehow in us, and through us? What if we’re part of it, and it’s part of us? What if having nothing is a key to being part of everything? Today when you pray, remember that God wants to move through you. In all the things you might ask for, let Him use you to be the answer to prayer that someone else might be looking for. That’s how the Kingdom works. It’s His and it’s ours. And it’s yours.
You have an enemy. He’s smarter, more cunning, and more resourceful than you. At every turn, he seeks to bring you down to his level, and drag you into his dreadful destiny. But you also have a Champion. He defeated that enemy in the fight of all history, twisting death into glorious life, and making a way for you to do the same. Jesus teaches us to pray: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” - Matthew 6:13 You can ask God to rescue you from evil itself, even when its tentacles reach innocuously into your world. That YouTube clip? That place I really really want to go? That thing I just have to say to someone or I’ll burst? That money I don’t have but I’m about to spend anyway? Please help me, Jesus. When you pray today, ask the Champion of Heaven to deliver you from evil you can see, as well as that which you can’t. Ask Him to crush your enemy’s head and shatter his teeth, and to show you how to identify those moments when evil is at your door. Your enemy is cleverer than you, yes. But your Champion is stronger than him. And therefore, so can you be.
Have you ever been in a messy situation that’s made you wonder just how in the world you got there? Perhaps a series of unwise decisions? Perhaps a slippery slope you just couldn’t see coming until it was way too late? Life gets complex quickly. When Jesus teaches us how to pray, He includes this really simple, but powerful line: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” - Matthew 6:13 God doesn’t deliberately lead us to temptation but He does understand how easy it is for us to get there all by ourselves. And it’s His desire for us to be nowhere near the edge of that slippery slope. That’s why this is such a great thing to include in our daily prayers - it’s a guard rail to protect us from the mess that temptation can lead to. Perhaps today, you’re considering something you know deep down won’t do you any good? Ask God to guide you. Perhaps there’s a fun thing ahead that you already know is not the right choice for you, though you desperately want to do it? Don’t allow yourself to be led there. Take a moment, ask God to show you what lies at the end of that path. His heart is for you, He loves you like a Father, and He will always keep you from falling if you allow Him to.