Stand

Going through healing is a bitter sweet thing, there are moments when you feel the hurt even more and there are other days when you will feel so great you will want to stand on the highest point on the earth and let the whole world know how great you feel. I always compare the healing process to ridding on a roller coaster. It scares you to a point when you feel you can’t take it anymore and then suddenly you find yourself descending to some peace and just as you are about to feel comfortable enough to settle in, it takes you right up again. It is exciting and scary at the same time, fun and confusing as well as painful and peaceful. But as I stated earlier, your biggest ally will be to involve a trusted someone who will keep you focused and while family and friends may be good, the best ally, in my opinion is, will be God, a life style of worshiping- worship of the Father. Better put, drawing close to God through worship, developing a life style of worshiping God.

Seeking and going on a journey of healing is good, very good, but you need the ability to sustain that healing and to continuously heal day by day as you go through life and there is no better way of doing that than seeking out God in worship.

Take this scenario, say you step on a nail, a rusted nail and for one reason or the other you neglected to attend to the wound. Soon it gets infected and you will possibly have to be treated for tetanus. Those who have received that treatment will tell you it is quite a painful process especially if you hate needles, but that treatment is important because it paves the way for healing to take place. It is also true that even after you have been treated and you are healed, if you step on a nail again, you will still have to go through the same treatment again and again until you learn to avoid stepping on nails. How to do that is that you make sure you don’t leave any nails lying around and you probably will have to start wearing good protective foot ware.

Worship is the life style that will draw you closer to God and God is the only guarantee you have that will keep you away from getting treated again and again for stepping on nails.

Most often when we talk about worship, what comes to mind is spending time alone playing some worship songs and telling God how much you care and love Him and how much He means to you. That is good, because that is worship; except that worship goes so much further than that period in the day you spend with God.

Worship is a life style; it is a way of living; it is Christianity and that is the very core of the Christian faith. Here let me tell you why:

Romans 12:1-2 ‘therefore I urge you brothers, in view of Gods mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is- his good, pleasing and perfect will.’

Offering your body, which is inclusive of your mind, heart, emotions etc as a living sacrifice, is the form of worship that God is asking of us. And how do we do that? By not submitting to the ways of this world; by not getting complacent with the norm of the age we are living in, but by daily renewing your mind, by daily teaching yourself to surrender a little bit more of your ‘body’ in worship to God. That act of sacrificing your body to God is what God considers as worship. Sacrifice simply means letting go of something you have that means a lot to you.