Advent Reflections: Psalm 150

“Hallelujah! Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him in his mighty expanse. Praise him for his powerful acts; praise him for his abundant greatness. Praise him with the blast of a ram’s horn; praise him with harp and lyre. Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and flute. Praise him with resounding cymbals; praise him with clashing cymbals. Let everything that breathes praise the Lord. Hallelujah!” (CSB)

Over the course of the various birth and infancy narratives of Jesus in the Gospels, every time someone encounters the baby who was God in human flesh their response is uniformly one of worship. Worship is something we are called to again and again throughout the Scriptures. Yet it often feels like worship can only happen in a limited number of ways. If you don’t happen to fall into one of those categories, too bad for you. Is this really how things are? Not for a second. Let’s talk about worship and Advent and encountering Jesus in the ways God designed us.

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Morning Musing: Ecclesiastes 5:1-2

“Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Better to approach in obedience than to offer the sacrifice as fools do, for they ignorantly do wrong. Do not be hasty to speak, and do not be impulsive to make a speech before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

How do you approach worship? Is it something you pretty much just do each week? Or, do you put more into it than that? In a book rife with cynicism about the world as it is, Solomon offers some reflections about the attitude with which we should approach the throne of God that should make us think twice about going to worship anything less than fully prepared for what we might experience there. It is a good reminder of not so much what we are doing as it is before whom we are doing it. Let’s talk for a few minutes this morning about getting worship right.

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