Present Your Bodies as Spiritual Worship (Exhortation)

Over the years we have emphasized the importance of ritual. Rituals are significant in the Bible, and they ought to be significant to us. We have also emphasized the importance of worshipping God with our bodies and not just with our minds. We have sought to resist the temptation that many Reformed Christians deal with, which is the idea that God gave us bodies as carrying cases to get our brains to church.

And of course, it would be better to have your mind at church and your body elsewhere, than to have your body at church and your mind elsewhere. But fortunately, we don’t have to choose, and under ordinary circumstances, we must not choose. And so here is a brief reminder of the doctrinal reasons for some of the very physical things we do in our worship of God.

We sing throughout the service, which should be strenuous, we kneel in confession, we eat bread and drink wine, and we raise our hands in the Gloria Patri. We worship God physically for three reasons.

First, we believe that Scripture requires this kind of thing of us. We are not in charge of inventing a worship service that we think God might like. He wrote a book; He tells us. Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.

Second, we worship God this way in order to lean against the perennial temptation of Gnosticism the idea that some divine spark inside is all that is necessary, and that the material body is irrelevant. We want to be reminded every week that God has a claim on your lungs, your knees, your hands, and your mouth and throat.

And last, we believe that worship is a conversation a dialogue between God and His people. It is therefore important that you not be passive. You have a role to play that goes far beyond that of simply listening to a lecture. We gather to hear the Word of God, but we also gather so that God can hear from us, observing us as we approach Him.

Here are three posts to whet your appetite for reading through archives. Enjoy!

God is Awake

The Great Physician’s Nurse

Nipping Biting

Tom’s blogging the news, so I guess it’s official.
(I’m excited that he’s blogging again! Leave a cute comment for him )

The health issue is that a fibroid tumor has decided to take over my body to the point where a hysterectomy seems to be the only solution to resolve my symptoms. September 25th is the tentative date for the surgery, followed by a six week recovery.

I have no idea how I’m supposed to prepare for a move like this, care for my family, and recover at the same time. If God is placing me in the midst of this craziness, I’m trusting He’s got a plan to carry me through

Thanks for your prayers!

However, in my heart, I haven’t quite come to terms with them yet.

Even though I have a lot to write, I’m reluctant to “make them real” by posting them to my blog. Perhaps once these changes have corresponding calendar dates, I’ll be ready to write about them publicly.

One thing to note - I did turn in my Academic Package to become a Bradley Method instructor today. I will find out in about six weeks if it passed inspection

Stay tuned, and please pray.

Much love,
SJA

Here’s a beautifully-written description of the burial of an infant who died after being a prematurely born:

“I held my sister, who was never given a name, and who never opened her eyes, and who died in my arms.

I was not afraid to hold that small death. Her face was peaceful, her hands perfectly clean. It seemed she would wake at any moment. The tears from my eyes fell upon her alabaster cheek, and it appeared that she mourned the passing of her own life. My mother came to take my sister from me, but seeing my sorrow, permitted me to carry her to burial. She was shrouded in a scrap of fine cloth and laid beneath the strongest, oldest tree within sight of my mother’s tent. No offerings were made, but as the bundle was covered with earth the sighs that poured from my mothers’ mouths were as eloquent as any psalm.”

Throw Me a Rope
KT Tunstall

I want you between me and the
feeling I get when I miss you
But everything here is telling me I should be fine
So why is it so, above as below,
That I’m missing you every time

I got used to you whispering
things to me into the evening
We followed the sun and its colours and left this world
It seems to me that I’m definitely
Hearing the best that I’ve heard

So throw me a rope to hold me in place
Show me a clock for counting my days down
Cause everything’s easier when you’re beside me
Come back and find me
Cause I feel alone

And whenever you go it’s like
holding my breath underwater
I have to admit that I kind of like it when I do
Oh but I’ve got to be unconditionally
Unafraid of my days without you

So throw me a rope to hold me in place
Show me a clock for counting my days down
Cause everything’s easier when you’re beside me
Come back and find me
Whenever I’m falling you’re always behind me
Come back and find me
Cause everything’s easier when you’re beside me
Come back and find me
Cause I feel alone

Two great posts I’d highly recommend reading are:

14 Ways to Affair-Proof Your Marriage The post is thorough, thoughtful, and well-written. I appreciated the reminder regarding sexual tension in mixed company - not to “rationalize it away.”

and

Write A Love Letter Like A Soldier (Dude! Her name was Sarah!)

(Still have all the letters Tom wrote to me before we were married….)

Happy reading

GMax GM68 Crusader Helmet w/ LED
Status: Shipped

On its way, baby.

God is putting little beacons of light in my path. Admittedly, they are hard to use because my frustration and anger are great and my walls are very high at the moment. My soul feels like my body does when I’m growling through my 30th (girl-style) push-up. One foot in front of other other, numbly, feeling like stopping, yet trusting that the ground will not collapse underneath me.

I’m praying that the Lord will keep working in my heart, and I am begging Him not give up on me.

This was sent to me from my mother-in-law< - check out her new blog!):
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Daily devotions for 06-21-2008:

Title: How to Do the Job You Don't Really Want To Do
Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Book: A Lamp For My Feet

Certain aspects of the job the Lord has given me to do are very easy to postpone. I make excuses, find other things that take precedence, and, when I finally get down to business to do it, it is not always with much grace. A new perspective has helped me recently:

The job has been given to me to do.
Therefore it is a gift.
Therefore it is a privilege.
Therefore it is an offering I may make to God.
Therefore it is to be done gladly, if it is done for Him.
Therefore it is the route to sanctity.

Here, not somewhere else, I may learn God's way. In this job, not in some other, God looks for faithfulness. The discipline of this job is, in fact, the chisel God has chosen to shape me with--into the image of Christ.

Thank you, Lord, for the work You have assigned me. I take it as your gift; I offer it back to you. With your help I will do it gladly, faithfully, and I will trust You to make me holy.
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On Sunday (15 minutes late to church, but we made it in time for the sermon!), Rev. Dr. Don Stone was our guest pastor and he gave an exposition on Romans 6. From the sermon, this quote made it to my feeble notes: “There are no shortcuts in the cultivation of character.”

Today was the first time I was able to get some serious house cleaning done since Tom left. Our floors were so dirty that if one walked across them barefoot, their feet would be blackened by the time they got from one side of the house to the other. My friend’s daughter Anne-Marie came over and helped me with the children while I scrubbed the floors and cleaned bathroom. How nice it was to not be interrupted every other minute, and what peace of mind to know that no one was peeing on our neighbors flowers or smearing peanut butter all over the walls while my attention was focused elsewhere! What a sweet young woman, too. She played with the children, read to them, and even befriended Leah enough that Leah allowed Anne-Marie to carry her around.

Clean floors are good for the soles