Category: The 2nd Loving Word – Worship the Real God

John 14:16, 19-21 (NIV)
16 I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth…19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

“Yahweh is the living God…The only legitimate image of God, therefore, is the image God created in his own likeness—the living, thinking, working, speaking, breathing, relating human being.” (Wright, UBCT)

In John 14, Jesus shares God’s jealous love for us to live by the Spirit. God shows his love to each generation by forming Christ in his people, transforming us to reflect his image. The world may not see Jesus in person anymore, but they can see Christ in us, and we too receive God’s jealous love for others to know him.

Prayer: Thank you, Lord, that by your Spirit, Christ lives in us. Help us to follow your commands and form us to share your love in this generation so that others can see Christ.  In Jesus’ name, amen.

Let’s worship to “Holy Forever” by Chris Tomlin (click here):

-CWR

Let’s proclaim these passages out loud:

John 14:6-7 (NIV)
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would know my Father as well. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Colossians 1:15 (NIV)
15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

“We must take inventory, monitoring how exactly we do imagine God. Once we’ve identified a skewed image, we must remove it and replace it with a biblical one. As C. S. Lewis himself said, ‘My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time.’ A good place to begin is with Jesus of Nazareth…” (Culp, Invited to Know God: The Book of Deuteronomy)

In Jesus, the Son, we now know God and have seen him. What do God’s jealousy, judgment, and steadfast love look like? Let us look to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and see for ourselves.

Prayer: Jesus, thank you that we can know and worship the true God through you. Shatter our skewed images of God and help us to see you more clearly as the way, the truth and the life. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Let’s worship to “Help Us See Christ” by Sovereign Grace Music (click here).

-CWR

 

Deuteronomy 5:8-10 (NIV)
8 “You shall not make for yourself an image …9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

“The jealousy of Yahweh is a function of his covenant commitment to his people. Having committed himself exclusively to them, he requires exclusive loyalty in return. In a context of committed love, the exclusion of rivals (i.e., jealousy) is a perfectly proper concern, as that celebration of human love declares:
Love is as strong as death,
its jealousy as unyielding as the grave. (Song of Solomon 8:6)
So essential is this dimension of divine love to God’s very character that one of the five texts using the expression ‘a jealous God’ actually gives it as God’s name.” (Wright, UBCT)

God’s commitment to us is indeed unyielding, all the way to the cross and to a thousand generations. We are the bride of Christ and the focus of God’s jealous love, which changes us to be able to love him in return.

Prayer: God, thank you for your covenant commitment to us. Help us experience and respond to your jealous love for us with our absolute devotion. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Let’s worship to “How He Loves” by David Crowder Band (click here).

-CWR

Deuteronomy 4:15-16, 20 (NIV)
15 You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, 16 so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape…20 But as for you, the LORD took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are.

“Yahweh is the God who cannot be seen in any ‘form,’ but whose voice was clearly heard. As the speaking God, Yahweh reveals, addresses, promises, challenges, confronts, demands. Any attempt to turn Yahweh into a voiceless statue effectively gags God. Idolatry therefore is fundamentally an escape from the living voice and commands of the living God.” (Wright, UBCT)

We have been brought into relationship with the living God, who continues to speak to us today. By his words we know him more, are set free, and are transformed to become how the people of his inheritance are intended to be.

Prayer: God, thank you that you speak to us through your word and by your Spirit. Help us to hear and obey your voice today and to worship you, the living God. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Let’s worship to “Yes Again” by Darlene Zschech (click here).

-CWR

 

Deuteronomy 5:6-9 (NIV)
6 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

7 “You shall have no other gods before me.

8 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them.”

“How should we form thoughts of God? Not only can we not imagine him adequately, since he is at every point greater than we can grasp…Hence the second commandment, ‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything…’ This forbids, not worshiping many gods (the first commandment covered that), but imagining the true God as like yourself or something lower.” (Packer,  Keeping the Ten Commandments)

Thankfully we are not left to form our own image or understanding of God, for in his great love he is the one who forms us to be his people. May these loving words shape our thoughts of God today and draw us to worship the real God, who is greater than we can imagine.

Prayer: Lord, thank you for making yourself known through your saving work in our lives and loving words to us. Help us turn from the ways we imagined you to truly know you by your Spirit as we worship you today. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Let’s worship to “Known by You” by Gateway Worship (click here).

-CWR