Living a Lifestyle of Worship

I’ve mentioned previously that I’ve been going through the Abide in Christ - Growing Disciples Series (Andrew Murray, edited by Bo Stevens). Something occurred to me the other day as I was studying John 15:4. Murray points out that we are reminded to remain connected to the Vine (Christ), for apart from it we cannot bear fruit. It is also necessary that we do not attempt to be the Vine - that is Jesus’ job.

How often do we try to guide and direct the Vine? How often do we think we know what’s best, and therefore try to make it happen? How often do we try to decide when and where we’ll produce fruit? In truth, that is not our place. When we commit our lives to Christ, we are committing to His Lordship of our lives. His will...His way...His time. For me (and many of you, I suspect), that is a much greater challenge than I ever anticipated it to be. What I read the other day, however, has offered me some freedom…

“You are the branch. You don’t need to be more. You don’t need to assume the responsibility of the Vine for even a moment. You don’t need to leave the place of entire dependence and unbounded confidence. You don’t need to be anxious about how you are to understand the mystery, or fulfill its conditions, or work out its blessed aim...You just be the branch.” (emphasis mine)

Just be the branch. Wow! That hit me square between the eyes! Be the branch. It’s so simple, yet seems so hard! I have long been duped into the Nike® version of Christianity - “Just do it!” Get out and find where God is working and join in! For too long I have shouldered the burden of the “where, when, and what” - and it’s got to stop.

A real vine supplies the branches with what it needs at any given time. The nutrients are extracted from the soil, the sap flows, etc. at the appropriate time. It is not the branch’s responsibility to dig into the soil and provide it, or to decide when fruit will be produced. That responsibility remains the function of the vine - all the branch must do is follow the instructions of the vine each day. That’s it...so it is in the Christian life.

Be the branch. I encourage you...no, I challenge you. Let “Be the Branch” be your slogan for the next week. Wake every day, and commit your day to be the branch. Make decisions throughout the day, with this singular thought...be the branch. Release the details to Him, and simply be about doing what He has given you to do each day with passion and zeal for His glory. If you do this for a week, I bet it’ll surprise you how settled your spirit will feel. The Vine is designed to carry those burdens - we are not. No wonder so many of us crack and break underneath the stress! We try to carry weight and responsibility that was never in our design to carry in the first place. It’s an exercise in futility to even try!

Be the branch.

After my mini-rant on the "Disease of Self" I posted earlier this week, I feel that I also need to post a corollary to that idea...something that's similar and complements it, but is not exactly the same.  And one of which I cannot so easily absolve my own actions...


I've been struggling with this revelation for the past few days.  During this time of pruning, God has brought some things in my life to my attention and I've had to deal with them, pray through them, etc.  In all honesty, though, I've not been surprised by most of them.  I need to "trust Him more," need to "commit to spend more time in prayer," etc.  All good things.  BUT, the past few days I've really been kicked in the face by something that I really thought I had a handle on.  And that pruning topic, I hate to admit, is nothing more than good, old-fashioned pride.




I've known for quite some time that pride is a way that satan can get to me.  I was quite prideful in my early days, and God really worked on me in college.  By the time I graduated, I really felt that He had brought me down a level and I was fairly humble.  Over the last 15 years or so, I have grown in knowledge and experience with Him, and (up until now) I thought that I had reached a place where pride was an ever-present stumbling block that satan could use, but which I could identify and avoid.  I know that all good things that come from me are from God, and that left to my own devices I make the wrong decisions and do not choose to love people.  With that knowledge, I've been living each day in a purposeful attempt to exhibit Jesus in my actions and deflect all praise to God.  I thought it was a good system...apparently, I have something new to learn.


God has different ways of speaking to everyone.  Unfortunately, mine is often through insomnia.  My ridiculous mind gets worked up into a tizzy thinking about things and just goes, and goes and goes.  I can't shut it off...really.  Sleep only comes when I get so mentally exhausted that my brain can't think anymore (which usually happens around 3 or 4 AM).  Then, I finally collapse into sleep.  When I get in these periods, I tend to try to find ways to distract my mind so that I don't have to deal with whatever it is.  Often I use movies, games, or Facebook as my drug of choice to alleviate the inner pain and struggle.


I've been struggling with this for several days, and I think I can now put a label of pride on it.  I thought I had pride under control.  I thought I understood what it was to trust God for everything and to give Him all the glory.  At this moment, though, I feel like I'm at square 1.  You see, I've had a few things in recent history happen to me that I deem to be unjust and unfair.  I've trusted God to be my protector and my advocate during this time, but now there's a deeper level that has been open to me.  Decisions beyond my control were made, and the result of those decisions has become a huge stressor for me...but probably not for why you're thinking it is.


Though I'm incensed at the unjustness of the decisions, I've found myself most concerned with what others think about me because of it.  I have been mentally obsessed with what some people may (or may not) think about me (and specifically my competency and ability in some specific areas).  I feel that the way things turned out makes it look like I'm a moron who doesn't know what he's doing, and it bothers me to no end that they might think that.  And if they knew the whole story, they'd understand.


After much pain, angst, and sleeplessness, I've come to the conclusion that it is pride driving those thoughts.  I can handle the unjustness of the bad decisions that were made and trust God in that...that's fine; but what I can't seem to handle is that some people might be thinking negative thoughts about me.  Are you kidding?  Really?  I'm so concerned about what some people I don't really know do (or do not) think about me that I can't sleep?  Ugh!


But that, my friends, is the ugly truth.  The root cause of it is pride.  I care about it because me being perceived in a positive light by others evidentially ranks MUCH higher on my scale of importance than I thought it did.  And as much as I hate to admit it, I again have a pride problem that I need the Holy Spirit to cleanse me of.


What about you?  I'm sure there are plenty of you who've got this figured out and don't focus quite so much on what others think.  You live a Godly life and do what He tells you to do, regardless of the opinions of others.  But, I'm equally certain that there of you who are like me, who have found themselves in the snare of the opinions of others.  We cannot live the life God has created us to live, and we cannot we cannot give Him the honor and worship He deserves if we are so hung up on "public opinion."


Will you journey with me to purge this disease of pride?  I'd love your comments, thoughts, and ideas...

In preparation for our TV appearances in Atlanta tomorrow & Thursday, I spent the morning reviewing marriage data.  (Sifting through endless verbiage, charts, graphs, and tables isn't always a fun thing to do, but the information gleaned always makes it worth your while!)  As I looked at what is going on in our world (statistically speaking), I became more and more grateful for my wife and our experiences together.

The short story on the stats I read is this:

• Fewer people are choosing to get married than years past; cohabitation, however, is on the rise.
• With the exception of a slight fall in the divorce rate this past year (which the researchers attributed to the economic downfall), the divorce rate has been rising steadily to 40-50% since the mid-90's.
• The number of women between the ages of 20 and 34 who are having babies out of wedlock has drastically increased since 2002 (presumably due to the higher cohabitation and divorce rates).

While sad to me, these stats are pretty much what I expected to find.  What I like to call the, Cancer of "Self Above Else" has been slowly infiltrating our society and has reached a saturation point.  In my opinion, the rise in cohabitation is a result of that trend.  There hasn't been enough research on the cohabitation trend to make very many valid scientific assertions, but I believe that some "Common Sense Research" can fairly accurately describe this trend.  Whether it is societal or parental (or both), many young adults are feeling encouraged to "try it out" by living with someone before getting married.  This living arrangement, with the exception of conceiving a child, frees you of legal obligations should you decide that it's not going to work for you.  It's an easy "out" for when the going gets tough...and it will get tough.

In an interesting turn of events, I found myself in a store later today (attempting to buy a shirt for said TV appearances).  Since I'm fashion illiterate, I was asking the sales guy and girl (yes, it required TWO of them to help me!) about the protocol for rolling sleeves.  For instance, you can flip the cuffs on a long sleeve shirt once and still keep some degree of "formal," but how far up the arm can you roll the sleeves before it loses the "nice" and becomes "casual?"  (I know, I know...the deepness of my thought process is staggering!)  ANYWAY, he asked me what I needed the shirt for, so I told him that we were going to be on a TV show to talk about marriage and relationships.  His young, twentyish face brightened up and said, "I want to get married someday...what advice do you have for me?"

Now, I have the propensity to be verbose and overcomplex.  (See!  I just did it!  Dang!  I just used "propensity" and "verbose" in the same sentence...I'm my own illustration!)  I knew that I would only have his attention for a short time, so I quickly asked God to deliver wisdom!  As best as I can remember, this is basically what I told him...

The best advice I can give you is this:  Don't get married for you, get married for her.  We date because we think they're cute and we like it; or we think that they have money, or because they make us feel good about ourselves, right?  When you get married (or are considering getting married), all of that must change.  The relationship ceases to be about meeting your needs - it's now about meeting hers.  Now, that doesn't mean that you disappear in the relationship.  In fact, she should now be about meeting your needs, not her own...so together, you get your needs met while you are meeting hers!  Unfortunately, most people don't treat it that way.  They are about all about getting their needs met; and the other person's needs are secondary.  That's where most relationships break down.  You get married to give yourself to that other person - whatever the cost.  If that's not your attitude, then don't do it!  Don't get married for you...get married for her."

Lord, may we all approach our spouse with Your attitude..."to serve, and not to be served."

It's been a couple of years since I've done one of those Lifeway "read & fill in the blank" style Bible Studies, so I decided to go retro and do another one.  After looking around for a while, I settled on one called "Abiding in Christ," which is a study of John 15:1-17.  Not only does the title really seem to hit me where I am, but it's based off of Andrew Murray's writings called, "The True Vine." Last year I was introduced to Andrew Murray's writings by doing his 31-Day Devotional called, "Waiting on God."  I thought it was rather profound, so when I saw his name attached to this Bible Study I knew it was for me.  Week 1 is officially up and I have begun Week 2 - already I can notice a difference in my life as I view my day through the lens of Abiding in Christ.

Of course, there are myriad applications to the current state of my life right now, but what has struck me most and seems to be on my heart right now is the concept of pruning the branch that bears fruit to bear more fruit (v.2).  Murray points out that while many Christians bear some fruit, they are much like the church of Laodicea - not only lukewarm [in fruit bearing], but content to be so.  As a Worship Pastor and a Christian speaker, I've devoted my life to leading people to worship God with their lives - 24/7/365 (hence the title for this blog).  I've received encouragement from many people who tell me that they see Jesus in me, and I've always tried to live for Him.  I am by no means saying that I have it all together - like everyone else, I am a miserable sinner in need of God's forgiveness and grace.  But suffice it to say, however, that I've never really considered myself to be lukewarm since I truly started to live for Him back in college.

As I read that statement the other day, though, I was stuck by how Murray qualified it:  he pointed out that the standard most of use to measure our "lukewarmess" is other people.  OUCH!  Toes stepped on - hit by a ton of bricks - Holy Spirit slap in the face...all of the above.  I can't believe I've never made that connection before!  I don't measure my service to Christ (or my knowledge of Scripture, or how much I pray, etc.) against anyone else (for instance, I'm not less of a Worship Pastor because I'm not like Chris Tomlin); and I don't look at someone else's sin and say, "Well, at least I'm not as bad as that guy."  Neither do I allow myself to float along w/out trying to use my life to make a difference for Christ.  But paired with the idea of being lukewarm, however, and I am guilty as charged!  It seems that for a long time I have measured my degree of "hot/cold/lukewarm" using others as the standard by which I measure.  I have compared their outward fruits with my own to determine that I'm not really lukewarm because God is using me to do X, Y, and Z.  In truth, though, the true measure of lukewarm comes only from God, and I daresay that it is different for everyone, depending on their own gifts and calling.  Murray has forced me to consider that perhaps the fruit I've been bearing is really only lukewarm compared to what He [the Vinedresser] wants for me...and that I've been content for some time to bear that lukewarm fruit, thinking I was hot.

John 15:2 tells us that God's pruning takes place so that we will bear more fruit.  ONLY HE sets the standard for what amount of fruit each vine should produce.  And does the Vinedresser decide that a vine has produced all the fruit that it needs to?  Does He ever stop pruning it?  I don't know.  What I do know right now is - well, perhaps "know" is too strong of a word just yet.  What I think I know right now is that somehow I have become lukewarm and not bearing the fruit that He desires for me.  Even as involved in Christian Ministry as I have been, and with the fruit of ministry that I've seen, I think that I grew content in what God was doing through me.  Of course, I always wanted God to do more...but I was totally OK if He didn't because I believed that what He was already doing through me was all right.  I'm really thinking that my "bearing fruit standards" have been skewed for quite some time, and that this pruning process I'm enduring is going to run MUCH deeper than I thought...

...snip away, Lord.  Snip away...

What about you?  If you're reading this and are a Christ-follower too, then I challenge you to scrutinize your own standard for bearing fruit.  Do you measure your degree of "hot/cold/lukewarm" against the fruits of other people like I did?  Or do you allow God to set the standard?  Are you content with how He is using you?  Do you welcome His pruning?  Will you open yourself to His pruning?

This is time of spiritual growth for me.  God has orchestrated my my life in such a way that I have clearly heard from Him that I am to be growing in my faith.  I need to learn to hear His voice better; I need to deepen my faith in Him; I need to grow in my personal Bible study time; and I need to learn to depend on Him more, instead of trusting in me.  All of the above I thought I had a pretty good handle on, but it seems that God does not agree with me.  I'm sure on the flip side I'll realize it too...

Anyway, the past few days I've found myself in what I can only call a "Holy Conundrum."  You see, I love God and I want to become more like Christ; and I know that growing spiritually requires the things I mentioned above.  I also know, however, that God is using this time in my life to prepare me for the "next step."  I believe that God has told me that I need to grow in the above areas so I'll be prepared for whatever my next assignment is.  Here's the conundrum:  every time I engage in an activity that I know is going to grow me spiritually, I feel frustrated because I also feel like I'm trying to force God's hand.

I desperately want what's next, so I'm trying to do what I know I need to do so that I'm ready to move on.   At the same time, I need to grow in Christ because of Who He is, not because of what He can do for me.  The two states not only coexist, but they have the same solution.  But since both growing and Christ and preparing to move on require the same thing from me, it causes me to question if I'm really trying to grow to know God better, or if I'm just trying to do what I have to do to get out of this uncomfortable period.

I know that you cannot make God do anything.  He is not a magic formula - if I do X and Y, then He'll do Z.  That's not how He works!  If I'm just trying to elicit a response from God, then I'm definitely NOT growing in Christ.  But since I know that growing in Christ is necessary for my "next step," that's always in the back (and sometimes the front) of my mind when I'm praying, reading my Bible, meditating, etc.  So how do I engage in any spiritual growth activity w/out the companion thought that I'm trying to "get" something from God?  It's such a weird thought process for me to be caught in that loop, and as I struggle to make sense of it and find a solution the only thing I can relate it to is my wife.

Andrea LOVES massages.  Her feet and shoulders are continually sore and achy, and she absolutely loves to have the stress, tension, and pain rubbed out of them.  Personally, I don't amazingly enjoy giving the massages because I have to press and rub so hard that my fingers and hands hurt when I'm done.  But, Andrea being happy, content, and feeling loved is important to me so I try to do it for her whenever I think about it.  Through 15 years of conversation and experience, though, I have also learned that shoulder and foot massages are also a good way to get her "in the mood."  In and of itself, that's a good thing; except that she knows that I know massages are a good way to start the path toward a romantic encounter.  So, whenever I begin a massage, she often comments, "Well I know what you want!"  And I get booted off the road to romance because the "feeling loved" part goes away and the perception of an ulterior motive.  And it's true that I always am wanting to walk that road, I at the same time want to make her feel loved, happy, and not achy too.  And therein lies my boggle.

• As a Christian, I must exercise Spiritual Disciplines to grow in Christ.
• In order to move from my current situation, I must grow in Christ.
• In order to grow in Christ, though, I must want more of Him because of Who He is, not what He can do.
• My desire for both is strong; yet they are in opposition 

What about you?  Do you feel that way with God?  Like you know that He wants something out of you; but in doing that very thing, it's also like you're also trying to get something from Him?  It is a struggle to ensure that your motive to grow in Christ is dominant when your desire for the outcome is so strong?  What do you think?