Heart Tracks - Awesome God?

"The church was strengthened and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord." Acts 9:31....."When God's awesome power is unleashed, we feel the urge both to jump up and down with joy and to tremble in our shoes with fear." Chris Tiegreen....."More spiritual progress can be made in one short moment of speechless silence in the awesome presence of God than in ten years of mere study." A.W. Tozer

Rich Mullins' "Our God Is An Awesome God" has been a popular chorus for more than 25 years now. It's been sung a lot, likely by the majority of us, but, how "awesome" do we really believe Him to be? How far removed are our individual and corporate worship lives from the reality of a God whose glory and presence really should elicit heart jumping joy, and at the same time, feet trembling fear and awe?

Tiegreen writes, "We have hints of the power of God in the modern church, but we have two millennia's worth of corruption and stagnation as well. Awe is hard to come by." In short, we know of God's reputation, His power, glory, and majesty, yet how many of us have ever truly witnessed the reality of that reputation. How jaded have we become? We may still sing "I Stand Amazed In the Presence..." but how much nearer to being bored or distracted are we than to the experience of amazement? Too often we enter our sanctuaries mostly with expectations of what the worship team will be singing, and the preacher preaching. We hope for those "hints" God's power, but our expectation of anything more is very low. How could it not be? The sad truth is that too many have little or no interaction with this awesome God in our day to day lives, so how could we hope to experience so much more when we gather together?We hope the worship leader and preacher will come through, and tragically, we're more often than not satisfied with some warm spiritual fuzzies, and hope the good feelings will last at least till Monday. Tiegreen is painfully right; awe is hard to come by.

The first century church knew and worshiped an Almighty God whose presence was before them and flowing out of them daily. They lived in a spirit of amazement. They both leaped with joy and trembled with fear. How much of either do we ever see in that which we call worship? I'm not saying any of this with a critical spirit, but a hungry one, one that I realize needs to be hungrier still. I want to not only call Him awesome, but experience Him as such in the depths of my spirit.

I think we're nearer to being dry bones before Him, than Holy Spirit breath filled worshipers. We can't correct this by hyping up our services. We need the fresh breath of a move of His Holy Spirit, not just when we come together, but when we come before Him each day. "Breathe on me, breath of God" needs to be our heart prayer. "Show me Your glory," needs to be the overwhelming desire within us. He's an awesome God. When's the last time our hearts and bodies leaped for joy and our feet trembled with fear because of that?

Blessings,
Pastor O