Personal Wordship and Corporate Worship - Psalms 143-145 and I Corinthians 14:21-40
The book of Psalms contains psalms that are for personal times of worshiping God, and it contains psalms that are for times when believers worship together or corporate worship. I pray that God has spoken to your heart about your own personal worship times, as we have read through all of the psalms. The psalms of David like the ones we read today are a wonderful picture of how we should spend our unhurried time with the Lord. Think about all of the ways he praises God for who He is and thanks God for what He has done. Consider how he prays for his own needs and the needs of the people. He prays for God's provision for his needs and his protection from his enemies. He spends time considering the law of God, too. It is evident that David spent time worshiping the Lord personally to get direction for his life, but mainly it was to make sure God was first and foremost in his life. Each of us needs that type of personal worship every day.
Then, I Corinthians 14 gives us a view of first century corporate worship. The believers at Corinth were having trouble with worshiping together, so Paul wrote these things to help them out. He told them that God is not the God of confusion, but of peace. Therefore, when we worship together there must be order to what is done, and it must be to edify others. It must not be selfish. Paul laid out a plan for the believers that was very clear. They were not to be speaking all at the same time. They were to plan to have two or three speak one at a time, and then, others could respond. The prophets or the preachers were to keep things on track and to make sure nothing false was being shared. He laid out a very informal but structured service of worship, so even the unbelievers who came into the service would understand what was going on. I believe we need to hear all of these things and apply them to our corporate worship. We need to consider whether the focus is on us or on Jesus. We need to make sure there is an order and that the Word of God is clear to those who don't know Him as well as for us who do know Him. Each of us needs to participate in corporate worship each week. That is part of keeping the Sabbath. We are to set aside a day when we worship, rest, and assemble with other believers to be built up in the Lord. If a person will have daily personal worship and weekly corporate worship, that person will be able to stay very focused on God and what He wants for his or her life, instead of getting away from God's plan.
Tomorrow, I intend to read Psalms 146-147 and I Corinthians 15:1-28.
Then, I Corinthians 14 gives us a view of first century corporate worship. The believers at Corinth were having trouble with worshiping together, so Paul wrote these things to help them out. He told them that God is not the God of confusion, but of peace. Therefore, when we worship together there must be order to what is done, and it must be to edify others. It must not be selfish. Paul laid out a plan for the believers that was very clear. They were not to be speaking all at the same time. They were to plan to have two or three speak one at a time, and then, others could respond. The prophets or the preachers were to keep things on track and to make sure nothing false was being shared. He laid out a very informal but structured service of worship, so even the unbelievers who came into the service would understand what was going on. I believe we need to hear all of these things and apply them to our corporate worship. We need to consider whether the focus is on us or on Jesus. We need to make sure there is an order and that the Word of God is clear to those who don't know Him as well as for us who do know Him. Each of us needs to participate in corporate worship each week. That is part of keeping the Sabbath. We are to set aside a day when we worship, rest, and assemble with other believers to be built up in the Lord. If a person will have daily personal worship and weekly corporate worship, that person will be able to stay very focused on God and what He wants for his or her life, instead of getting away from God's plan.
Tomorrow, I intend to read Psalms 146-147 and I Corinthians 15:1-28.