Be a Worship Pleader!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote "Our hearts have room for only one all-embracing devotion, and we can only cleave to one Lord". Matthew 6:24 ends with these words of Jesus Christ, "You can’t serve God and money". The word translated "money" is mamona, Aramaic for mammon. The history of the word is interesting. It was not a bad word, from a root meaning to "entrust"; it was anything a person entrusted to a banker or safe deposit of some kind. In time it came to mean not what is entrusted but what you trust in. Spelled with a capital M, it came to stand for anything other than the true God in which you put your trust. Jesus personified wealth or possessions of all kinds as a competing god, an object of worship, a rival to the true God. Service to both this false god and the true God is incompatible.

Jesus knows people. He knew then and now that people get mixed up in pursuing multiple objects of worship. Puts us in a destitute, bankrupt position; which is what Matthew 6:25-34 is all about, people who fixate and worry and are anxious about temporary things when they should be focused on eternal realities. Jesus is speaking of wholeheartedly following, serving, loving, obeying Him; seeking first His rulership and His righteousness.

Serving God alone leads to true worship. In one sense all believers are really "worship leaders"; showing people in their sphere of influence what it means to be devoted to either things or God. The other day I sent an email with a typo in it: I wrote "worship pleaders" instead of "worship leaders". Someone caught it and wrote back that it is actually true: We are pleading with God to do what we cannot. We are looking to Him to provide what we do not have. We are dependent on Him.

God wants "worship pleaders", those who worship Him "in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24), with their whole hearts. Reminds me of Psalms 120-134, the "psalms of ascent" that pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem to worship would would sing as they took the trip to the highest city in Palestine. Whoever traveled there spent much of their time ascending, going uphill. Spiritually the trip pictured a life lived towards God; developing in maturity; pressing on towards the goal of the upward call of God, Phil. 3:14. For us, it means going to God continually with everything that is on our hearts. Receiving what He gives us and developing deeper in life with Christ.

Psalm 130:1-2 says, "Out of the depths I cry to you , O Lord! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy!" In whatever situation you find yourselves today, go to God - let it lead you to Him not away - and be a "worship pleader" - plead to Him on behalf of your life, your family, your co-workers, your friends, realtives and neighbors. Plead with Him for the church of Jesus Christ worldwide, for His people to love His Word and prayer; for the church to reach the communities in which they reside with love, compassion and the gospel. Plead to Him to do what only He can do, for His glory and our good.