Abiding and Adoring: Worship

The Lord has brought us through another year and we have said goodbye to 2013.

This stirs up many emotions for me...knowing that Samuel was not with us all through 2013 is very difficult for me to comprehend. He is such a part of our lives and the Lord continues to bless us and others because of Samuel and I am thankful, but I miss him. I was looking through some old pictures and came across a precious memory. In December 2011 my sister and I led a Christmas Children's choir at our church. It was so sweet to hear the children worshipping the Lord! Samuel was so excited and loved to worship, but he would have been agitated to stay on stage for the entire performance. We wanted him to be able to be a part of it, so before we sang the last song, Tim carried Samuel's wheelchair up the steps. As the children sang the last song of "JOY to the world" we all had tears in our eyes. What a precious moment for my boy who could not walk or talk to show us all true worship. His joy in the Lord, his contentedness in the midst of suffering and the "works of God being displayed in his life" John 9:1, were just a few ways he worshipped.
He is now worshipping in the splendor and glory with the Most High!

This song is Samuel's song and constantly allows us to picture him
standing in Glory and worshipping.

John 4:23-24

^23"But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. ²⁴God is ^[a]spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Samuel is on the far left :)

I was working on my Bible Study and we were studying worship. I loved this explanation of worship!

'Worship is casting our perspective beyond what is immediate to that which is eternal. The psalmist was dismayed at the apparent injustices he saw around him until he entered the temple and his eyes were cast high to an eternal perspective and remembered that God would set all things straight eventually. (Psalm 73:16)". (from More Grace more Love by George Robertson

and Mary Beth McGreevy)

Thinking eternally is true worship.

My word for this year is worship.

When I wake up in the morning I want to pray to the Lord,

"what can I do to serve You today?"

This is an act of worship.

I want to thank the Lord throughout my day for His blessings,

this is an act of worship.

I want to have His praises upon my lips,

worship.

I want to have the Joy of the Lord in all I do and say.

I want to sing with joy to the Lord.

I want to pray without ceasing.

I want to give unconditionally.

I want to serve.

I want to encourage .

I want to tell others about Jesus and His love.

worship.

I want to rest in the hope of eternity and knowing that His strength is perfect

when our strength is gone.

And one day all of the hardship of this life will make perfect sense!

Isn't that wonderful news?!

Thinking eternally gives my great joy!

Romans 8:18-25

^18"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. ¹⁹For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. ²⁰For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

²²We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ²³Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently"