Heart Tracks - The Pharisee Within

      We in the New Testament church have disdain for the Pharisee, seeing them as rigid and unforgiving.  Few of us see ourselves as being like them, of believing that there lurks a Pharisee within.  Yet there can be, and the scripture found in Luke 18 shows how.  Jesus observes two men praying in the Temple, one of them, a tax collector, despised by the Jews and most especially by the religious leaders of the day, simply lifted his eyes to God and prayed, "O Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner."  But of the Pharisee, scripture says, "The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself, 'God I thank you that I'm not like other men, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector."  Jesus said that it was the tax collector, not the Pharisee, who went away justified before God.  Both felt grateful toward the Father, but which one had a thankfulness that would be considered righteous in the eyes of God?

     How does this speak to you and me?  Consider this day just what we are thankful for, and where does that thankfulness take us?  The Pharisee was thankful for the blessings of God on his life, and he was thankful that he was not counted among the "unblessed," or, unblessed as he would define them.  He was thankful for his good life, for the esteem in which others held him, for how well things went for him.  Yet all the blessings in his life did not soften his heart towards others, especially those who didn't seem to have his blessing.  His heart was not opened towards them, but closed off.  He viewed them with disdain, if he viewed them at all.  His heart was focused on himself, and he didn't see the blessings of God as something he received, he didn't deserve, but instead as what he very much did deserve.  He lived in a spirit of entitlement, he lived a blessing dependent life.  If he loved the Father, it was because He blessed him, not simply because He was the Father.  Since he had little real love for the Father, he had even less for those around him.  And, if the blessings were to cease, it's likely that his "love" for Him would as well.  Can we see any of ourselves in that as well?  Can we see where the Pharisee may be lurking within?
   The Pharisee never saw what were the true needs of his life and soul.  He fell into the deception of believing that the blessings of God mean the approval of God.  They don't.  Blessing, and the things that came along with it had become his idol.  That's where his eyes were fixed, and so, he was blind, unable to see the Father, and unable to see himself as he truly was.  The tax collector on the other hand, though likely, because of his occupation, wealthy, saw where true wealth and blessing lay, not in things that could be counted, but in a Father who loves, forgives, and gives, not because of his merit, but because of the Fathers heart.  The Pharisee's heart was closed, as were his eyes.  He knew nothing of true thanksgiving.  Do you and I?  What is our life really?  Dependent on His blessings, or dependent on Him?  Do the matchless blessings He has given us, and above all, the blessing of life in Christ, release within us a humble, broken, sense of gratitude for a gift we never deserved, or, a spirit of entitlement, glad for the blessings, seeing them, counting them, and all the while missing Him?  Where lurks the Pharisee within?

Blessings,
Pastor O 

Heart Tracks - Friend Of God

      Not long ago, I heard a song with the line, "I am a friend of God."  It's an excellent and lively song, but I have to wonder just how much we know of what it is to be a "friend of God."  Scripture tells us that God would speak to Moses "face to face, as to a friend."  It also tells us that the result of these encounters for Moses was face, a countenance, that literally glowed with His glory.  To be a friend of God, I think, is to be one whose very life and spirit glow with His Presence.  In the end, everything else is just words.

     In John 16:27, Jesus says, "The Father Himself loves you because you have loved Me and have believed I came from God."  The love of God is so deep that there is no possible way for us to ever fully understand it or explore the depth of its riches.  Sadly, too many of us never try to, and we end up taking it for granted, and never realizing the depth of power and blessing found in it.  This particular scripture would be case in point, and I came upon an explanation of it that I'd not thought on before, causing me to understand that love a little more deeply, value it a little more completely.
    Writer Chris Tiegreen, commenting on His love wrote, "God loves (agape') everyone in the world, but He has genuine, enthusiastic intimacy (phileo) with those who have affection for Jesus.  It is not unconditional (like agape').  It is a very human kind of love, and God took on a very human form to have it with us."  His love is so much more than emotion and feeling, but there is emotion and feeling involved, yet how many of us can truly say we feel any towards Him?  Could it be that we have so little "feeling" involved in our love for Him because we have so little intimacy with Him?  We're satisfied to know that He loves us unconditionally, and we're interested in all the benefits and blessings to be reaped because of it.  We'll gladly become His sons and daughters, but we seem to have very little interest in being His friends.  We're far more interested in finding out what He has in His hands for us, than we are in hearing what is in His heart towards us.  We look to His hands, when He would have look to His face and heart.  As Tiegreen points out, too often we love Him because "we ought to."  Pleasure and enjoyment in Him is missing.  We lack intimacy, and so, we lack vitality.

    I heard a friend say recently that the only response the people of God can have in the midst of an ever darkening world is to shine more and more brightly with the Light that is the Life of Christ.  This is the very same Light that shone on the face of Moses, the friend of God.  It was, and is, His glory.  This Light doesn't fight the darkness, it crushes it.  The need of our day, of every day, is that we be such people, friends of God, who live so deeply in Him that we shine with His radiance.  There will be those who shrink back, those who despise it, and some of "those" will be found in the church, but there will be none who will be able to extinguish it.  Jesus said for us to "let our light so shine," but that light will come only from lives lived deeply in Him, from those who are truly His friends.  The song line says, "I am a friend of God."  Are we? Do we find pleasure and joy in Him?  As we walk, do we walk in Him?  Do we shine?

Blessings,
Pastor O 

Heart Tracks - A Fair Share

      In the classic "A Charlie Brown Christmas," Charlie's little sister Sally has asked him to write down her Christmas list.  She then proceeds to name a huge amount of things she wants.  Exasperated, Charlie throws up his hands over her greed, to which Sally, dumfounded says,"I just want what's coming to me.  I just want my fair share."  

     It is that attitude that has held captive the hearts of men and women since satan first enticed Adam and Eve to partake of the forbidden fruit in the garden.  All of us are born into this life wanting what we feel is coming to us, wanting our fair share, and we live in delusion as to just what that is.  We are born with a spirit of entitlement, and it's a spirit that lingers, even after coming to Christ in faith.  We believe we're "owed."  If you doubt that, then my challenge for you and me both is to ask ourselves how often we have thought, if not said, that what the Lord was doing, giving in our lives was far less than what we were expecting, what we believed we deserved?  We may not express it with Sally's open greed, but that grasping spirit is there, wanting what's coming to us, wanting our fair share.
    That spirit, that attitude, has visited me more than once in my walk with Him.  When that walk takes me through dark places, through times of want, pain, and suffering, it rises, questions, accuses.  This is not the way it should be.  My life, relationships, ministry, should be so much better than this.  I'm not getting my fair share.  Where are the blessings, at least as to how I define blessing?  I've given Him my all, at least as to how I define "all."  There should be a better return.  I've got more coming to me than this.....don't I?
     I've been walking with Him for some time now, so these times occur less frequently than they once did, but they can still sneak up on me. When they do, the Father brings to me anew His words to the Levites, His priests, in Numbers 18:20.  God is dividing up and assigning the portion of land to be give to each tribe of Israel.  All but the Levites have been given their share.  To them the Father says, "You priests will receive no inheritance of land or share of property among the people of Israel.  I am your inheritance and your share."  I've wondered how they received those words.  Did they feel cheated, or did they feel blessed?  Did they feel they were getting less, or did they know that they were receiving more than all the other tribes combined....Himself?
    With the giving of the new covenant in Christ, all who are His become members of the "royal priesthood of believers."  We are all priests of the Lord.  We are all, as Paul says, inheritors of the all the riches to be found in Christ.  All of them, and those riches are not affected in the least by the circumstances, good or bad, of our lives.  They are abundantly available to us in all places.  Our wealth is not measured in what we are accumulating outwardly, but in the relationship we have with Him in our hearts.  By His grace, we don't get what's coming to us, death, but instead, His life....abundant life.  Our share in Him is a share that no earthly vessel can contain, and no earthly means can measure or count.  This is true blessing, and to know so brings full understanding to Jesus' question as to what it would mean for a person to gain the whole world, and yet lose his soul....if he be found without Him.
    I saw a simple question today that asked if the Lord were to remove all blessing from our lives, would we still love Him?  A blessing dependent life would not, seeing Him only as means to getting what we want, our fair share.  Those to whom He is their portion, are willing to lose all for the joy of having, knowing, and living in Him.  We all desire our share and inheritance.  Where does your desire lead you, me......to Christ and life...or to death?

Blessings,
Pastor O       

Heart Tracks - Holding A Lie

       I've been thinking of late of how much of my life and ministry has been dependent upon outward things giving me a sense of worth and fulfillment.  Like so many others, I thought happiness and fulfillment was found in being loved, in relationships.  Having this would fulfill and complete me, not having it would leave me empty, incomplete.  Likewise, in my field of labor, in my case, ministry, achieving, increasing, being seen and recognized as successful, would enhance my sense of self-worth, that I would be living a life that made a difference, a life that was recognized by others as one that mattered.  The great problem was and is, is that when these things are not happening, are missing from life, than life itself is just the opposite of what is so desired.  I end up being captive to my desires and definition of success and worth, and not only are those things missing from my life, but so is the joy, peace, and fulfillment that can come only from Him.  At root, I have bought into a lie, a lie that slowly eats away at the core of my being, and in doing so, miss the fullness of all that He is and means to be to me.

    In Isaiah 44:20, the Father speaks to the people saying of their trust in things that are not Him, "He is trusting in something that can give him no help at all.  Yet he cannot bring himself to ask, 'Is this thing, this idol that I'm holding in my hand, a lie' "  When we place our value, our worth and well being in anything that is not Him, whether it be a relationship, a profession, and especially I think, a ministry, we hold something in our hand that is a lie, and anything, no matter how worthy, how good, that takes us away from Him, is just that, a lie.  Yet, we can continue to go on in that lie.  Our emotions, our spirits, are tossed in every direction, enslaved to people, results, and the opinions and esteem of others, others who are not Him, yet control us while He does not.
   It is human to desire to be loved.  It is human to want to achieve and be fruitful.  The snare is in the fact that we can so easily allow these desires to become our masters.  Masters that are never satisfied, and like the taskmasters of Egypt towards the Hebrew slaves, constantly whip and beat us.  Therefore, the love of another is never enough because nothing they can do can satisfy that deep desire to be loved, so we end up frustrated and eventually, go looking elsewhere, thinking that in the next person, we'll find it.  Job or ministry achievement can bring temporary satisfaction, but we soon find out that the expectation is always for more of it.  "Fruit" is no longer measured and defined by Him, but by our and others flesh.    The Father said that He has loved us with "an everlasting love."  Until we truly enter into that, know it, and are sustained by it, we will only know emptiness, and constantly seek to satisfy our need for love in others who can never really supply it.  We must first know it and find it in Him.  In the same way, when we allow Him to define what success is, what fruitfulness is, we find a well being, a peace, joy, and fulfillment beyond words.  We are stewards of His life, and His word says of stewards that they are "required to be faithful."  If we have, wherever He has placed us, been faithful stewards of His life, than in that place, we are fruitful, regardless of what appearances may be, for He is always working with eternity in mind, not just today, or even tomorrow.
   I heard Beth Moore say to the effect that if there is anything in our lives that we feel we cannot be without, that we must have in order to go on, and if that "anything" is not Him, than it is in that "anything" that we will be most vulnerable.  In that place, we may expect the enemy to literally "unleash hell" against that vulnerability.....and we will fall.  Yet, if we have found our life, our meaning, the fulfillment of our deepest needs in Him, than we are living, as Isaiah said, "surrounded by the walls His salvation." ......So, to what and whom are we prisoner?  Our own and others expectations?  Our need to be accepted, recognized, loved?  Dare we believe that all of these, and all else, really can be satisfied in Christ?  Paul called himself the prisoner of Christ, and was free.  May we be his fellow prisoner as well, and so free of every other jailer.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Two Witnesses

      Writer Chris Tiegreen said, "We are habitual twisters, making dark things our surest truth and God's light our most uncertain refuge.  Such a distortion is a sure recipe for despair.  Instead, we are to believe what the Word and the Spirit tell us, regardless of the witness of the clouds."  Obviously we are presented with two witnesses, the witness of the Lie, and the witness of the Truth.  Which witness do we believe?  Maybe a better question is which witness, which voice, are we most familiar with?  Which one has the easiest access to our hearts?

    I've a friend who says that the Father has been steadily freeing him in his prayer life so that he may stop "praying the problem."  That is, focusing all of his prayer energy on the need, and as a result, only seeing his anxiety and unrest grow as he does so, and growing with them is the size and danger of the problem.  How much of what we transact with Him in our prayer lives is little more than praying the problem, rehearsing and reviewing how bad the situation is, how deep the need goes, how impossible His moving in response seems to be?  Instead of praying the problem, perhaps we ought to be praying the Answer.  Not the answer we think we should have, but the Answer that is Him.  We want answers, when our true need is for the AnswerGiver.
    I love Exodus 20:21 which reads, "As the people stood in the distance, Moses entered into the deep darkness where God was."  Who do you and I most resemble in our dealing with Him, Moses, or the people?  His Word tells us that the Father often approaches us "covered in darkness." Moses had eyes that could see through the darkness to the God who ruled it, who was there, in the center of it.  So many either flee when any type of darkness in the form of need or crisis comes near.  If we don't outright flee, we, like the people, stand off at a distance.  As a result, all we see is the darkness, we don't see Him.  Moses could enter into what struck fear into the hearts of all others because he saw not darkness, but light.  He saw Him.  He didn't believe the witness of the clouds, the darkness, the Lie, but the witness of the Light, the Truth.  He believed because it was not the clouds he saw, but God Himself.  He didn't pray the problem, he prayed the answer.

   I don't remember the source of the inspiration, but in my prayer journal I have written, "Lord, forgive me for all the years I have spent consumed by the low places of my life, and as a result, not steadily journeyed to the high places found only in You."  Consumed by needs, difficulties, clouds, problems, unbelief, but not consumed by and with Him.  May it not be so any longer for me, for you.  Two witnesses will confront us each day, the witness of the enemy's lie, and that of the Father's truth.  Which will we heed, follow, be consumed by?  Will we stand far off, or, will we enter in....where He is?

Blessings,
Pastor O
   

Heart Tracks - True Prayer

     In many parts of the church, prayer is making a "comeback."  There are 24 hours of prayer gatherings, prayer conferences, and growing exhortations to pray coming from all corners of the church.  It's not new.  About 15 years ago, I was very involved in various prayer gatherings and movements here in Northern Virginia.  I was part of several pastoral groups dedicated to prayer.  We would regularly gather together with our fellowships and plead for revival and renewal.  This all took place over a 2-3 year period.  Eventually, it all came to an end.  Why?  The reasons are varied, but I think the overwhelming one was that God didn't do what we were asking Him to do.  I think at root, we, and I include myself, were seeing prayer not really as a means of experiencing intimately His Presence, but more as a "plan" that would get God to do what we wanted, which was to make our churches what we wished them to be; bigger and more alive.  He was not the focus of our prayer.  Results were.  

    I saw a quote posted on Facebook that "If we wish to have Acts chapter 2, then we must first experience Acts chapter 1."  I agree, but again, what is our true focus in such praying?  Acts 1:14 reads, "These all with one accord continued steadfastly in prayer."  Yet, can we ask what their "one accord" was?  Was it a common desire for God to move and impact in a mighty and miraculous way, all of Jerusalem?  I've no doubt that this desire was present in their hearts, but I don't believe it was the focus.  I don't believe that they came to Him with any agenda of their own, but simply that they might see, hear, and know Him.  They were not looking for a "plan," for something that would "work."  They were looking for Him. All they wanted was Him.  Jesus in effect told them to stay in His Presence until they received the fullness of His Presence.  That was their one accord.  When we come together, is it really ours?
   I said that eventually, all of our prayer gatherings "dried up."  I believe it was because too many of us saw prayer as the latest "tool" we could use in growing the church.  We'd tried many other things but they hadn't worked.  Surely prayer would.  More, it was unified prayer, coming from many different streams of the church.  Surely this would move His heart and His hand.  When we saw that the results fell very short of our expectations, we lost heart, and the meetings and gatherings dwindled away.  His Word says that we ask yet don't receive because we ask in order to fulfill our own desires.  One version says so we might consume it upon our own lusts.  Much as we may not wish to hear it, we can lust after church growth and ministry success just as much as we can after less savory objects.  The Father isn't interested in satisfying such desires.
   Watchman Nee said, "God shows us what He wants, we stand and ask, and God acts from heaven:  this is true prayer and this is what we must see fully expressed in our prayer meeting."  Key phrase; God shows us what He wants.  Then in response, we pray for that desire which is now our desire.  Too often, we approach prayer as a matter of us showing God what we want, and then demand that He act to make it so.  He will not be manipulated and every "prayer movement" that is built upon such a motive will collapse.  
   I'm not saying that this latest move of prayer in the church is likewise tainted, but our hearts can so easily be deceived and so deceive us.  May we come into His Presence with our only desire to experience and know Him, and then out of that, to hear and obey Him.  We will see Him move, perhaps, likely, in ways we did not expect, but it will be His way, and not ours.  May such a movement of prayer take place in His church.  May such a movement of prayer take place in you and I.

Blessings,
Pastor O     

Heart Tracks - The Terrorist

     I so often see, and have so often myself made, prayer requests that ask for peace, strength, joy, rest, and victory.  Yet, in so many cases, that which is sought is not realized.  Why?  Is He unable, uncaring?  I don't think so.  I think the real problem lies with ourselves.  We are praying for something He has already given us in Christ.  He has given peace, victory, strength, rest and joy, and given them in abundance.  He's done so in the resurrection of His Son.  So, it's not a matter of asking, but receiving.  Jesus said "Freely I have given, freely begin to receive."  Too many of us never "begin" to receive what has already been given us.  Watchman Nee said that we are already "more than conquerors" in Christ.  We already have victory, and so we "court defeat" by throwing away what is the believers fundamental position.  Victory. 

     Paul wrote in Ephesians that we are "seated with Christ," and that He is "far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named."  If we are seated with Him, then aren't we also victorious in and with Him?  Most often, we see this as a future state, and not a present one, a lie that our enemy the devil has had great success in getting us to believe.  When he does, defeat, and not victory is what we most often live in.  Satan, as I saw him described somewhere, is a terrorist.  You don't negotiate with a terrorist, you crush him.  He has been crushed in Christ, under his feet.  If we are seated with Him, isn't he under our feet as well?
     One of the most quoted scriptures is Ephesians 6:11, "Put on the whole armor of God that you might be able to stand against all the schemes of the devil."  Of this scripture Nee writes, "Stand implies that the ground disputed by the enemy is really God's, and therefore ours.  It was the Lord Jesus who carried the offensive into Satan's kingdom to gain by death and resurrection a mighty victory.....the territory is His....We only need to fight to hold it against all challengers."  Somehow, the enemy has managed to convince us that we are orphans that must come begging at the door of the rich man, hoping to receive a crust, all the while not knowing that we are sons of the rich man, and our place is not outside the door, but seated at His table, as His child, His son, His daughter.
    Far too long, and far too often, I have been found pounding on His door, seeking to get Him to open to me what is already opened.  Seeking to get what has already been given.  More familiar with defeat than victory.  Negotiating with the terrorist, rather than living as a conqueror.  Might it be so with you as well?  It's not that there won't be challenges or needs.  Roaring lions will still show up, giants will still come at us, and mountains will still block our way, but when we fully realize that we are, as His children, seated with Him in the throne room of the Father, then we needn't beg Him for victory over them, but live in the victory already won.  It will not be costless, but the outcome will be priceless, and the outcome is assured already.....in Christ.  How will we live?  Negotiating each day with the terrorist of our souls, or as conquerors in Christ? 

Blessings,
Pastor O

     

Heart Tracks - In Enemy Country

    There can be no denying that we are living in a time of increasing darkness.  We are in the midst of days where, as scripture speaks of, "good is called evil, and evil good."  For the believer, we must decide as to how we will respond to the darkness.  Will we give in to a fatalistic, gloom and doom outlook, and simply try to last through it till the Lord comes back?  Worse, will we allow ourselves to become immersed in it, slowly taking on the value system and worldview of the culture we are in?  Will we seek to fight back with good intentions and good works, putting all of our effort in an attempt to "change the world?"  There are probably a number of other responses, but there is really only one that's an option, and that is to be His Living Presence, Light and Life, in a world ensnared in deep darkness, death, and sin.
     We are living in "enemy country," and we, the church, are to be, as one man put it, "a colony of heaven in the country of death."  That means that though we may find ourselves in a culture seemingly dominated by the prince of darkness, we are part of a Kingdom culture infinitely greater and more powerful than what the enemy, an already defeated enemy, could ever possess.  If we can grasp this truth, we'll find that no matter how deep we may find ourselves in hostile country, we can overcome it, be victorious in its midst by virtue of how deeply we live, are living, in Him.
     I read recently that more and more, it seems that preachers,teachers, and the church in general, are ignoring the Old Testament, feeling it only speaks of an Old Covenant that was done away with in Christ.  We do this to our great harm, for in the OT, we hear and see witness to Christ all the way along.  There is wonderful beauty, power and life to be found there, if we'll but have ears to hear and eyes to see.  One such place is found in Exodus, as the Father speaks to Moses, telling him how He intends to free the Israelites from their slavery to Egypt, the mightiest nation of that day.  He said to the Pharaoh of Egypt of His intended work to bring their freedom, " Then you will know that I am the Lord and that I have power even in the heart of enemy country."  What He said next cannot be missed, and must be remembered by all who take His name, "I will make a clear distinction between your people, and My people."  The Father has made that distinction.  Are you and I living in it?
    Yes, we are living in a day of deep darkness, but are we living as a people of distinction in its midst?  Not in harsh condemnation of the lives trapped in that darkness, but in the power of a life, His life, that this darkness cannot destroy, not in isolation, but in awesome power and presence, His presence.  Moses had such intimacy with Him that the glow of His glory was much upon his face.  How much more can we as we live in and with the fullness of His Holy Spirit in every place, even the darkest place?  Proving again and again, overcoming the world system again and again, that He is Lord, even in the midst of enemy country.
    In Exodus 7, God said to Pharaoh, "You are going to find out that I am the Lord."  He did find out.  Have we?  Are we, can we, live so deeply in Him that all the power arrayed against His people, His church, His Kingdom, shrinks back because of the power of His life, a life His word tells us can't be destroyed?  Yes, the darkness increases, but Paul said that where "sin (darkness) abounds, grace (His Life) abounds more."  Let us, you and me, live in His "more."  Let us find out that we, in Him, have power, even in the heart of the enemy's country.

Blessings,
Pastor O  

Heart Tracks - Let My People Go

         I've been reading the book of Exodus lately, and just the other day I came across a scripture I've read more times than I can remember.  It's 9:1, where God has directed Moses to go to Pharaoh and say, "Let My people go, so they can worship Me."  They'd been held in bondage for 400 years by Egypt, and the Father had now begun His movement to set them free.  It was to begin with His demand that Pharaoh allow the people to journey three days into the desert that they might offer sacrifice to, and worship Him, but Pharaoh stubbornly refused.  When I read that, I found myself thinking on all the ways we in the church might be hindering not only the worship of our fellowships, be we pastors, "worship" leaders, teachers, or elders and board members, but our own worship of Him as well?

     In his wonderful book, "Real Church - Does It Exist?  Where Can I Find It?", Larry Crabb writes of how many pastors and leaders are confiding in Him just how mundane, how bored they are with the spiritual life of their churches, and their own as well.  It was not that there was a lack of things going on, indeed, there was an abundance.  Many of these men and women were a part of fellowships that can be described as successful and thriving.  Yet the spiritual life, the worship, had become predictable, and somehow, the human element had come to the forefront of all that was going on, and not the spiritual.  Much was crafted to appeal to the senses, but so little seemed to truly reach the heart.  People came, people watched, then people went home.  Pastors preached, teachers taught, worship teams played and sang, but life transforming encounters were few and far between.  The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were much sung and talked about, but it seemed, so rarely "seen."  Physical senses were touched, but the spiritual senses seemed to grow ever duller.  A good show might be put on, but a face to face meeting with Him was not truly taking place.  I was convicted because it is easy to lay such things at the feet of large fellowships, but it's just as true for small ones.  And it carries over into our individual worship as well.  Somehow, our flesh cannot resist the desire to be in control, even as it comes to the worship of our God.  I can hear His voice whispering, "Let My people go (and yourself as well), so they (and you) can worship Me!"
     I expect it's easy to assume that I'm making a blanket statement here on all fellowships and people, but I'm only asking that we examine ourselves in this.  In what ways in our fellowships are we preventing the people from really encountering Him?  Structure is important and so is doctrine, and I'm not talking about a Holy Spirit free for all, but in our desire for both, have we put boundaries up in worship that we won't allow His Spirit to cross?  In our desire to "establish" a worshipful atmosphere, have we put forth the full definition of what that atmosphere is to be, and what must be done to achieve it?  We live in a "special effects" entertainment culture.  How deeply has that penetrated our corporate worship?  How has it carried over to our individual worship?  What do we know today of what it is to pray and meditate on His Word, on Him?
What do we know of hearing Him, listening to Him, relating to Him?  What holds us back from all of this?  What needs to be let go of, and what needs to let go of us that we might truly worship Him?  Can we take the time to ask those questions, and wait upon Him that we might hear His answer?
     To be in His Presence, is to be in the Holy of Holies.  I don't want to be a visitor to this place in Him, I want to be a dweller in there.  I want to see those that He has given me to minister to, be "Let go" that they may worship Him, even if it is me who has to let go.  I want to let go of all that keeps me from His presence, be it stress, anxiety, busyness, and yes, ambition.  To let go so that I, we, may worship Him.  How about you?  Or, will we, like Pharaoh, stubbornly refuse?

Blessings,
Pastor O