Highlands: Worship Devotional

Highlands: Worship Devotional

by | Mar 7, 2024 | Devotionals, Worship Reflections

“In the highlands and the heartache
You’re neither more or less inclined
I would search and stop at nothing
You’re just not that hard to find…”
Highlands: Song of Ascents, Hillsong

”7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”

                                     James 4:7-10:

Over and over we hear this promise in the Bible – scattered throughout scripture – and apt in every season: IF YOU SEEK ME YOU SHALL FIND ME.

It is easy for us to think of God as a ‘far-away’ God – like a Wizard of Oz type character sitting behind a curtain pulling levers and pushing buttons. I mean, for much of the Old Testament that is exactly what Israel understood – that God was behind the curtain.

Inaccessible to us. Off limits.

But the reality is that God is the God of nearby and all-around.

We see Him revealed in Creation all around us. Richard Rohr goes as far as to call Creation the first incarnation – God revealing Himself to us in a physical form. We see God in the strength of the mountains, the roar of the ocean and the splendour of the lilies.

We hear His praise in the singing of the trees of the forest and the whisper of the wind. (Psalm 96).

He is all around us – if only we were to open our eyes and look. If only we were to listen. If only we were to consider the lilies.

The reality is that God is the God of nearby and all-around.

His desire from the very beginning has been to dwell in our midst – to walk with us in the Garden, to be a part of our lives.

We see this over and over again in Scripture. This pattern – but for some reason humanity struggles to grasp it. We struggle to take a hold of it.

God wants to be God on the mountain and in the valley. He wants to sit with you under the fig tree and walk with you on the water.

God wants to be involved in the everyday nitty gritty of our lives. He wants to saturate and soak every fiber of our being, our coming and our going with His presence. His blueprint is and has always been relationship.

As humans we have a built in need for relationship. We are made in the image of our Father – He longs for relationship with us.

But every relationship is a two-way street.

In the story of the Prodigal Son we see that when the son once lost returned home his Father was waiting. Standing there – looking out.

The Father is waiting for His children to come home. He is already there. It is time that we show up.

God is not a God of far away. He is not an absent Father. He is the God of nearby and all around.

We are the ones who are far away. We distance ourselves from God.

It is time that we come home. It is time that we show up.

And it starts with us today resolving to do so. It starts with that decision to seek the Lord. It starts with taking the first step out of our situation of separation towards God.

“If you seek Me you will find me.” (Deut. 4:29, Jer 29:13, Matt 7:7, Isa 55:6-7).

The Lord calls us to desire relationship with Him and pursue it. He says: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

The irony is that the moment we become willing to climb every mountain and ford every stream – the moment we become willing to cross every river – the moment we become willing to step out of our boat to find Him, taking that first step of faith – we will find that He has been right in front of us all along.

Prayer: Lord, as I draw near in my brokenness today, draw near to me with Your wholeness. As I draw near in my mourning, Lord, draw near with Your joy. As I draw near, imperfect and hungry, come and flood me with Your perfect love. I repent today and renounce the things that have kept me distant from You. Through Your Holy Spirit, Lord, draw me deeper into Your Word. Call me to prayer. Set a fire here in my soul. Awaken a hunger that cannot be satisfied – a longing after You. In Jesus Name. Amen.

Hungry: Worship Devotional

Hungry: Worship Devotional

by | Feb 25, 2024 | Devotionals, Worship Reflections

“Hungry I come to YouFor I know You satisfy“

Hungry, Vineyard Worship

“For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.” Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

John 6:33-3, NIV

Many of us have reached adulthood and have been privileged enough to never know real physical hunger. The hunger of not having eaten in days. The kind of hunger that leads to emaciation, fainting and convulsions.

Spiritually, however, most of us are in that state today. 

The kind of hunger that consumes and keeps consuming like a black hole.

The kind of hunger that no amount of drugs, sex, food, entertainment, money, fame or viral cat videos can satisfy.

I remember in our Gynecology and Obstetrics course at the Medical Academy, we talked about the cravings that pregnant women get – and how sometimes the cravings were misrepresented by the brain.

For example, a mom-to-be might crave ice or even sand – but eating these things will have negative consequences for the baby as it doesn’t satisfy the nutritional requirement being sent to the brain. What the baby really needs at that stage is IRON – so iron-rich foods or a supplement would be a better choice. Eating sand or ice would leave the baby with an iron deficiency instead.

And so it is with our spiritual lives. Our innermost craves reconciliation and communion with God. Our inner self knows that only Jesus can satisfy the longing and the thirsting of the soul – but the carnal mind misinterprets and misrepresents this craving – this hunger – and leads us down the path to deficiency instead.

Only Jesus can comfort, heal and restore. Only Jesus through the work of His Holy Spirit in us can satisfy.

Psalm 84:2: My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

This is where we find ourselves today – right now – in this moment. Hungry, thirsty and trying to fill that hole deep inside with all kinds of things instead of turning to Jesus.

He is the Bread of Heaven. Those who partake in Him will never hunger again.

Jesus is calling.

He is saying, “come and drink the Living Water, come and thirst no more. Come and eat the Bread of Heaven – come and be satisfied!”

No more eating sand.

No more eating dirt.

Come and be filled. 

Pray with me: Lord, I am hungry, and I am thirsty. I realize today that nothing in this world can fill that hole except for You. It is a God-shaped hole. Lord, come and fill me. Come and restore, come and revive me. Jesus, come and satisfy the longing of my soul. Come and heal me of my loneliness, my emptiness – come and find me again. Come and fill me Lord with Your love, Your goodness and Your grace as I swing wide the doors of my heart to You anew today. Let me hunger and thirst for righteousness and live a life pleasing to You. In Jesus name. Amen.