Worship and Worthiness.

I was thinking the other day about a song by Passion Worship Band.
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You are worthy of my praise- this version done by Charlie Hall
I will give, you all my worship
I will give, you all my praise
You alone, I long to worship
You alone, are worthy of my praise

I will worship, with all of my heart
I will praise you, with all of my strength
I will seek you, all of my days
I will follow, all of your ways

I will give you, all my worship
I will give you, all my praise
You alone, I long to worship
You alone, are worthy of my praise

You are worthy of my praise

I will bow down, and I'll hail you as king
I will serve you, I will give you everything
I will lift up my eyes to your throne
I will trust you, I will trust you alone

I will give you all my worship
I will give you all my praise
You alone I long to worship
You alone are worthy of my praise

I will give you all my worship
I will give you all my praise
You alone I long to worship
You alone are worthy of my praise

You are worthy, You are worthy
You are worthy of my praise

Oh, I will give you all my worship
I will give you all my praise
You alone I long, I long to worship
Well, you alone are worthy of my praise

You are worthy of my praise
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"You alone are worthy of my praise"

This really struck me and got me thinking about worthiness, and what we place value on. Everything we covet on this planet has value solely because WE place value on it. Not one material thing possesses any real intrinsic value independent of what humans assign it. Maybe its rare, or in high demand. Maybe it has a particular history. Maybe some celebrity told us it was valuable. Or maybe we just believe the hype. In any case, the merit of any object is due entirely upon society's desire to possess it, or in some instances, our inability to do so.

Our ability to assign value to things, rendering them priceless (flawless diamonds) or worthless (soggy trash) places us in an extremely powerful position. This alone demonstrates a type of dominion over the world in which we live. We could ramble for days on the prospects of assigning value to things that really matter, versus those that we currently place high value on. Imagine if people voluntarily and gleefully sacrificed, saved and worked for the new school housed at their church as we do for the new big screen plasma TV, or newest year model of our favorite cars. But that is another rant all together.

Then there is God, who is the pinnacle of value judgement. Let's face it, he who created ALL is most certainly in the best position to determine its value. With us he likes the word worthy. I listened to this song over and over and something just seemed to ring. "You alone are worthy of my praise."

Well of course he is. He's the Alpha and the Omega, The beginning and the End. He is the God of Gods. How could we assume anything other than he is worthy of all our praise. Yet there is something in that proclamation that just reaches out at me. "You alone, are worthy of MY praise." Then it hit me.

God calls us to worship him. He tells us that He alone is worthy of our praise. Don't miss that. HE tells us that HE ALONE is worthy of OUR praise. Do you see how God calling for our praise grants us unspeakable value? For him to call us to worship him in the first place increases our intrinsic value. (As if sinners were worthy to enter into his presence to offer anything at all.) But, The Lord says that he alone is WORTHY of OUR praise, making our value, in his eyes, immeasurable.

I think we miss this so much. We get caught up in the hows and wheres and what-nots of worshiping that we overlook so much of this exchange. In glorifying the father, we are honoring him for what he is; pure, holy, loving, graceful and merciful. Yet in doing so, or rather being ALLOWED to do so, we attain indescribable value of our own. And its so vital that we realize that this value is granted to us by God BECAUSE he calls us to worship him.

The creativity of the father is amazing. Nothing else can provide us any merit, value or worthiness simply because we need the thing. It is only through the father that we experience this paradox. We desperately need him. It doesn't take long for us to understand and embrace this once he goes to work on us. Once we admit we need him and accept him, he calls us to worship him. In doing so, he assigns us such value, that HE ALONE is worthy of our praise. It is exactly as if we have ceased to exist, in a sense, in the material world. Because nothing in the material world if worthy of us. We have become "spiritual" beings since only God is worthy of us. This of course is in perfect keeping with what we are told over and over by Jesus who worked so hard, even to the point of being crucified, to show us how much God values us.

It really puts the 60 inch plasma TV into a different perspective.

What I would Say to AD.

I don't hate you. I don't even dislike you. I never have. You frustrate me sometimes, because you try so hard to insult by bashing my Lord. You work so hard to make this personal between you and me. It's not about you and me. It never was.

Its about conviction. Its about the brokeness that looms over your heart. Its about that void in the center of who you are that can't be filled with those things you've shoved into it up until now. It's about coming to terms with what you know is true about God. He loves you. He desires you. He wants to restore you to the beautiful crature he created you to be. He patiently awaits the day when, through acceptance of his Son, he enters into your heart and fills that void with the only thing that was ever meant to be there; Jesus.

I pray for you; genuinely, and earnestly. And I will not stop praying for you. All I have ever done was extend my hand in friendship to you. You reject it. That is ok. But I will still pray for you. I will still stand in the gap for you and wait expectanly for the day when I call you sister. You won't understand it, but I love you. Simply because Christ never turned his back on me, I will never turn my back on you. Simply because he loved me when I did not understand or want his love, I will love you in the same way though you don't understand or want mine. So with the love of Jesus, I pray for you. I I will continue to do so.

This is the Life that Mike Built

This is where I come from. This is the life that Mike built. A man talking in incoherant circles, seeing his daughter through the fog of bong smoke. Her beautiful blue eyes look up at him with absolute acceptance, seeking his guidence and unconditional love. With an unsteady hand I hug that precious, beautiful child. Too many lines, too little sleep. Even then her beauty was inescapeable. Had I not been so committed to my own destruction, I may have appreciated it more.

There was a time not so far off where I took great pride in my body's ability to withstand such excess. At one point, it was like a game. I wanted to see if I could set a new "personal record." I spent years with barely a day going by where I was not consuming some sort of drug. Meth, LSD, Mushrooms, Pot. I drew the line at cocaine and heroine because I didn't want to "go too far." And I had other addictions, too. But that is another story. Other than my wife, very few know exactly how far I went with my attempts to flee from things I didn't want to face. I only write about it now to glorify the father, who even in that time of suicidal self destruction, held back the consequence of my sin that I might come to him and find his purpose for my life. If this is not shocking and disturbing enough, know that I had a child for 3 years of this time.

I once heard that children are blank tablets and that our job as parents is to write on their hearts those things that will teach and serve them through this thing called life. By the grace of God, the things I have written on my daughter have run and are now indistiguishable. By the tears of Jesus, he has washed away the life and legacy of pain and bondage that I would have given to her. As is always the case, there is more to the story than the picture above. But the "who's and why's" are so much less important than what I did with the independance I so defiantly insisted on having. Jesus said whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever would lose his life for my sake will find it. I live today as a testimony of what he was saying.

This is where I am.


Let no man tell me God is lacking in grace and mercy. Last year he blessed me with the gift of baptizing my daughter. Tears sting my eyes when I look at the contrast of these two photos. Let all who grieve know the sweet hand of the father who reaches out to those in pain, offering peace, love and mercy.

And this is where we are going.
We welcome Mackenzie Ellise.