She let's go and let's God

"True worship is a heart surrendered to God, and the overflow of that surrendered heart is a life of praise. Staying true to the Word of God these days is getting harder, but remember that while the world mocks you . . . Heaven applauds you. Sinful choices and attitudes stem from a lack of intimacy with God. If our intimacy with Him declines, so does the purity of our hearts. Intimacy and discipline go hand in hand. Intimacy with God is developed by those who are consistently disciplined in their pursuit of Him...If we are weak in prayer, we are weak everywhere." 

-@sherepsChrist

Yesterday my pastor preached a message that touched my very core. My church is doing a series on Worship and yesterday's message spoke about how we must worship with all of our heart. If we're not worshiping God with all of our heart than we're definitely worshiping something or someone else. He talked about how sometimes we allow something to take the place of our worship of God. Our hearts become divided between the things/people in our lives. John 4 tells us that we worship what we do not know and there is so much truth in that, it gave me pause. I realized that I worship my ability to fix things (and at times people.) I'm just being real.

I find myself always trying to fix or take care of things. I seldom relinquinsh my "power" even in the sense of asking for help. I think the Lord is trying to show me that I need to let Him take control of the things that I've been trying to fix. "LET GO AND LET GOD." You cannot serve two gods, so choose Him or the other will choose you. I can't continue on worshiping anything except the true and living God! I want a heart like David, a heart after God's own heart. I want God to look into my heart and it be like a reflection of His own. Anything wrong in my heart, I want to expose and remove and whatever's left over, SURRENDERED fully to Christ.

Before I finish this post, I'll just share the 3 points my Pastor shared with us in case you too are realizing that you've been worshiping something else.

1. Keep your heart open to God (Psalm 139:23, Psalm 51:4-6)
Part of the enemy's plan to keep you worshiping ANYTHING other than God is to give you a closed heart to the things and voice of God. Don't allow it!! God can heal your heart if you leave it open to him. He can turn your heart away from wickedness. He can keep it safe from harm. But you have to invite Him into it. Be open.

2. Keep your heart repentant (Psalm 51:3-4, 10-13, 17)
We often have a misconception about repentance (I know I did until yesterday) where we believe that apologizing to God for our sin is the definition of repenting. That definition is fine but it's missing a key element. When Jesus forgave people of that sin, He forgave them by saying "Go and sin no more!" That means we're required to CHANGE the behavior/mindset/situation that got us in our mess in the first place. Repentance includes change! And you don't know how to repent, the verses above are a great place to start!

3. Keep your heart humble (2 Samuel 6:14, 20-22; 1 Chronicles 29:13-17)
The best way I can explain this is a phrase I often use, "I am nothing! Everything that I am is because of God! Without Him I am nothing. Let everything that I am be found in You!" God cannot use a proud heart (I'll make a post about that issue soon as well.) We must humble ourselves as Jesus did before the Father for He opposes a proud heart but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6.)

You can watch yesterday's message here: Worship: All Your Heart (video)
Or listen to it here: Worship: All Your Heart (audio)