Preparing For Worship

Scripture

The food that you put into your mouth doesn’t make you unclean and unfit to worship God. The bad words that come out of your mouth are what make you unclean.”

~Matthew 15:11, CEV

Quote

God’s purpose in redemption is to make worshipers out of rebels

~A.W. Tozer

I was reading Matthew 15 in the CEV and I saw something that I don’t recall seeing before. The Jews were disciples of Moses or so they thought. Their worship involved animal sacrifice and ritual cleansing. If a Jew was in an “Unclean” state, he or she could not enter the sanctuary or offer sacrifices. Over the years, they had added to the law of Moses and by Jesus day, they had rule upon rule regarding ceremonial cleanness and uncleanness. To be ritually clean, you had to wash your hands in a specific way. I have seen orthodox Jews do this ceremonial hand washing and it is a horse and pony show. Take my advice, don’t get on board a plane with a bunch of orthodox Jews, you will never get the bathroom. It takes them seven minutes to do their ritual hand washing. Jesus told His disciples, “the words that come out of your mouth come from your heart and they are what make you unfit to worship God. I had never given this full consideration: unfit words make us unfit for worship. We don’t need to clean our hands to worship, we need to clean our hearts and that would be reflected in the words that come from our mouth. Would you like to prepare for this Sunday’s worship? Monitor the mouth. If we go into worship with an unclean mouth, reflecting an unclean heart, we aren’t going to have much of a worship experience.

I was leaving the elementary school last week and I got behind a grand mother who was walking a few steps ahead of me and I noticed [of course] a huge tattoo on her shoulder. At first I didn’t know if it was a tattoo our some kind of growth but when I got closer, it was a big green tattoo. You know me, I condescended in my thoughts immediately. Listen, it comes natural to me. To make bad matters worse, I made fun of her to some other folks. It was then that I realized I should keep my condescending thoughts to myself. It is bad enough to think them. I am guilty of a lot of sins but the one that the LORD seems to convict me of the most is a condescending attitude toward others. I am sure God wants me to treat each individual with dignity and worth, tattoo’s or not.

Just send me a bill for the confessions. I know that some times you feel like my therapist. Actually, I don’t have one but I need one. I want to ring a note of praise. Big Mama was more excited about the PLAYGROUND offering than anything going on yesterday. She was elated. You don’t know this and she would never tell you but she gave the first $1,000 on the playground nine years ago. Unfortunately, I put it in the general fund but I told Joe David about it when he started the playground fund. Anywho, she has been contributing a little along the way because this was her dream and Dr. Michael and the folks at DBC have made her dream come true. I just want to thank you. Big Mama cried when she found out about the offering. What about three cheers for Michael Penney and the playground committee. Didn’t I tell you these young folks would do a good job once us old folks got out of their way. I was right: wasn’t I. You know I am right.

Bad News: We have to pay $4,200 in additional taxes. I’m about ready to march on Washington D.C. I did find one of the problems and got that corrected yesterday but this is not right. I am not longer self-employed and everyone is withholding taxes on me.

Meeting with Doug and his brothers for lunch today. I will get a lot of information from David. He is a walking encyclopedia.

Grace Point members are excited about the EXTREME FAITH BIBLE and I am making a second order. Praise the LORD, we have some folks who are going to start this Sunday. One man told me yesterday, “This little book is changing my life.”

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