before the "gods" i will sing your praise.
2 i will bow down toward your holy temple
and will praise your name
for your love and your faithfulness,
for you have exalted above all things
your name and your word.
3 when i called, you answered me;
you made me bold and stouthearted.
4 may all the kings of the earth praise you, O LORD,
when they hear the words of your mouth.
5 may they sing of the ways of the LORD,
for the glory of the LORD is great.
6 though the LORD is on high, he looks upon the lowly,
but the proud he knows from afar.
7 though i walk in the midst of trouble,
you preserve my life;
you stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes,
with your right hand you save me.
8 the LORD will fulfill his purpose for me;
your love, O LORD, endures forever--
do not abandon the works of your hands.
---
i wanna live for eternity purposes. we're living for this mighty God...isn't praise and worship to Him due? even the mere realization of how great a God He is doesn't really seem enough. there's so much more. living in the spiritual realm is so much more beyond what we could have ever thought of on our own.
yes, we certainly should enjoy life. so many people (including me) think that living for God equals a dull life of just praying and fasting. okay, i admit just thinking of doing that makes me wanna have some spice thrown in there too. but the question lies in are we enjoying our lives over enjoying God? what are those idols? i might say, hey, i can enjoy God by enjoying life! but it says in the Word:
be happy, young man, while you are young,
and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.
follow the ways of your heart
and whatever your eyes see,
but know that for all these things
God will bring you to judgment.
--ecclesiastes 11:9
so there it is. we better be expecting judgment for all we do because it's coming. it makes sense when pastor david was saying at the prayer meeting on saturday how he evaluated his actions over something so small like flushing the toilet.
and on another note. i've been realizing more about how depriving apathy is. it really does eat away at a soul. think about it--doesn't it say so much more to be passionate about something than to utterly not care about anything at all? some pastor was saying how he'd rather see people of our generation be passionate even if it was for something totally ungodly because that's how much apathy is so present. and that's what the Lord says too:
i know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot.
i wish you were either one or the other!
so, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--
i am about to spit you out of my mouth.
--revelation 3:15-16
so last night i went to a screening for invisible children (btw, if you feel really inclined to, i'd suggest signing the petition for ending the war in n. uganda) and it really did break my heart. having young children being stripped of their innocence and forced to become murderers...there's definitely something wrong here. there's just a huge imbalance of the order of life. it made me realize that just about everything involving evil rising up in a huge way...it's a spiritual issue. the leader of this uprising, joseph kony, does spiritual practices and rituals where he is clearly feeding upon the power of satan whether he realizes it or not. he claims to follow after the Christian bible, but how does that make it okay for him to massacre thousands of the innocent? the burden upon my heart for him was so heavy. the burden of satan entangling and choking him into deception. this man needs deliverance more than us trying to have peace talks with him.
anyway...i kinda went off on a tangent. but what i'm really trying to say is that it's one thing to be passionate about something just for the sake of being passionate. like, i could just join and be partners with invisible children because it feels good to be a part of a social movement, right? plus it also makes me look like a good person because it shows that i'm passionate. but is this really my own passion? of course God gave us a passion to love him, but i think that passion could be lived out through other sub-passions, let's say. like a passion for medicine, business, technology, cooking, writing, etc etc. these passions are all God planted and intended to be used for His glory. you know when a certain passion is coming from your heart, that's when you know that this passion is yours.
so, what's your passion?
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