40 Days of Prayer, Day 29
Day 29, Sunday, September 18
O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord, let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation, let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods, in whose hand are the depths of the earth, the peaks of the mountains are His. also. The sea is His, for it was He who made it, and His hands formed the dry land. Psalm 95:1-5
The Contrite Heart is a Heart of Worship
The contrite heart worships God. Seeing God as worthy of praise and then engaging purposefully in the worship of God must become a natural extension of the life of every contrite believer. We were created by God in order to see, know, experience and enjoy Him forever. Worship provides the tangible expression of that purpose for which we have been created. Sin blocks our access to God. Sin prevents us from seeing God as worthy of worship. Sin is the barrier to our purpose. God tears down the barriers to His glory by destroying our sin on the cross of Christ and through His resurrection. Because God is holy, He cannot and will not allow unredeemed sinners to have access to His presence. But God made us for worship. As Jesus told the woman at the well, "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. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." John 4:23-24. God seeks worshippers. He made us for this purpose. He seeks worshippers who will worship Him with hearts engaged and minds set in truth. Our hearts and minds are never truly satisfied until they are satisfied in discovering this purpose, the purpose for which we have been made. God seeks us all the way to the death and resurrection of His Son, the greatest display of love possible.
Notice the call to worship from the psalmist. "Let us..." This call reflects the corporate nature of the purposes of God. We were made to see, know, experience and enjoy the presence of God. However, this is not purely an individual act of worship. God has also designed us for fellowship with others. The most binding act of a community of believers is the act of corporate worship. The singularity of purpose, the unifying of common expression, the joyful lifting of voices, all point our hearts and minds toward the One who made us and the One who saved us. As we sing, we engage not only our own hearts, but also the hearts and minds of others, setting their hearts and minds with greater focus on Him.
Today, Sunday, provides the opportunity to gather with the purpose for our own joyful expressions of worship but also to encourage others in corporate worship. "Let us sing for joy to the Lord." Let's come together on this day of worship with contrite hearts, broken before our God. Let's come together with joyful hearts, having been forgiven. Let's come together with worship hearts, longing to see, know, experience and enjoy God in the gathering of His people.
Prayer Focus
Oh Lord, give me a heart of worship today. Let me seek you with heart and mind. Help me in my weaknesses. So many things distract me from the worship for which You have created me. Set my mind on You. Use me as an instrument of encouragement to others. Take our time of worship as a church and fill it with humble expressions of gratitude. Come in power by Your Holy Spirit so that our worship as a church might bring You glory. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
From Bunyan’s The Acceptable Sacrifice
And now the heart lies open, now the Word will prick, cut, and pierce it; and it being cut, pricked, and pierced, it bleeds, it faints, it falls, and dies at the foot of God, unless it is supported by the grace and love of God in Jesus Christ. Conversion, you know, begins at the heart; but if the heart be so secured by sin and Satan, as I have said, all judgments are, while that is so, in vain. Hence Moses, after he had made a long relation of mercy and judgment to the children of Israel, suggests that yet the great thing was wanting to them, and that thing was, a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear until that day (Deut 29:2, 3). Their hearts were as yet not touched to the quick, were not awakened, and wounded by the holy Word of God, and made to tremble at its truth and terror. But I say, before the heart is touched, pricked, made aware, how can it come to a place of thinking that it should repent, cry, bow, and break at the foot of God, and beg for mercy! and yet it must do so; for thus God has ordained, and thus God has appointed it; men cannot be saved without it. But, I say, can the spiritually dead, whose heart is past feeling, do this; before this dead one be awakened, to see and feel its state and misery without it?