Worship: 24/7

In the fourth chapter of John, Jesus is conversing with the Samaritan woman, and in verse 23, Jesus tells her,

"But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him."

This brings up a few points. First, let me say this. God is desiring you to worship Him. God is blessed by the Christian who lifts up His name regardless of circumstance.
Because of our sin, we have no access to God on our own. Jesus died that we could have right standing and relationship with God, part of that is the access to worship Him freely.

However, we can often fall into the pattern of thinking that says worship is just singing "Lord I Lift Your Name On High" during the service on Sunday morning.

This idea is incredibly false.

Jesus says worshipers who worship in spirit and truth. What this means, is that we are not called to just worship Jesus with our voices at church, we are called to worship the Lord from our hearts. It is to be a sincere proclamation, glorifying Jesus Christ with our hearts, and beyond that even, with our lives.

Paul brings this out when writing to the church in Colossae, in Colossians 3:23 Paul states, "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men."

Jesus touches on the same thing in Matthew 5:16, "In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works, and give glory to your Father who is in Heaven."

The definition of the word glorify, literally means "to honor with praise, admiration, or worship."

This goes to show that we are to do everything in our lives to worship God, from driving to work, to taking out the trash. And beyond that, the way that we live our lives should cause other people to worship.

That is heavy.

How we live, every minute of every day, should make people want to worship God.

Sometimes, this is easy, when things are fun, and life is great, worshiping God comes naturally. Its when things are hard, and they don't go our way, that worshiping God becomes a challenge.

However, it is when we worship God through those difficult times that it becomes a testimony of His great name.

Can you honestly say that you live like that day to day?

I challenge you to examine yourself. Is what you're doing at work, or in school, or at home alone when nobody is looking bringing glory to God?
Is your life lifting Jesus' name higher?

Let me close with a prayer that Jesus prayed in John 12. He was approaching the crucifixion, and while expressing how He is troubled over what lies ahead of Him,

in verse 28, He simply prays, "Father, glorify Your name."

I Wish I'd Waited | Teens

I Wish I'd Waited | Teens

That's All Folks

On Sunday night at THEFOUNDRY, we talked about the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem, which took place only five days before He would die on the cross to save us from our sins. He rode into Jerusalem riding on a donkey. Back then, when kings were proclaiming peace, they entered towns on donkeys.
(see 1 Kings 1:32-38)
When kings are coming in war, proclaiming their dominion over an area, they show up on horses. Creatures they used for war.
In Revelation 19:11-16, Jesus is entering into this world. He is riding on a horse, proclaiming His dominion over it.
We talked about the return of Jesus a lot.
He is coming back!
He told His disciples that it would be like a thief in the night. UNEXPECTED.
We won't know when it is going to happen, but there are things that we can watch to discern the times.
There are also things we can do to prepare for His return.

Lets look at some of the things we can watch for to know about the approach of His return.
in Daniel 9, an angel comes to Daniel and gives him a prophecy. He tells him that from the time the decree is made to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (happened in Nehemiah 1:6) there would be 69 weeks.
In looking at this, it doesn't make sense for these to be literal weeks (a little bit less than a year and a half)
However, if we look at these 69 weeks as sets of seven years, that adds up to 483 years. Daniel prophecied the exact date that Jesus would enter into Jerusalem.
This leaves one of those sets of seven years left. The 70th week.
At the end of Daniel 9, the prophecy ends with the description of that final week.
Daniel 9:27 "And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, untill the decreed end is poured out on the desolator."

That verse is probably the shortest possible description of the book of Revelation.
For seven years, the antichrist will rule the earth. For 3.5 years, there will be a peace treaty, and halfway through that peace treaty, the antichrist will set himself up to be god in the holy of holies in the temple.
Israel then realizes who he is and flees. He declares war on them, and so on and so forth, but in the end, God wins!

We are in between the 69th week and the 70th. The 69 weeks ended when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey, and the 70th week begins the great tribulation, and will end when Jesus comes again, riding on the white horse.

We don't know when that last seven years will take place. Nobody does except for God, and I'm not going to try and guess it, or tell you that I do.
However, Jesus does give us some help of signs that will happen before that takes place.
In Mark 13, Jesus is talking with some of His disciples. In verse 10, He says "And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations."
That is one thing that we are still waiting on. It does not mean that the moment the gospel makes it to that last nation, things will happen, but it is just something that has to happen first.
In Matthew 24, Jesus is explaining the signs of the end of the times to some of His disciples, and He tells them that there will be wars and rumors of wars. There will be famines, and earthquakes, and that is just the beginning. Many false prophets will arise. A lot of this is already happening. Think about all the wars going on in the middle east. Think about all of the earth quakes and natural disasters that we hear about, or experience on a regular basis!
Jesus uses the analogy of a tree in Matthew 24:32-35. He says that we know summer is coming becasue of what the tree is doing, and in the same way, if we watch the world, we can know when the end will be getting closer.
Matthew 24:44, "Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not expect."

We must be ready. How do we do that? Jesus goes on after that verse, talking about the wise servant, who is serving his master and prepared for his master's return.
The ways that we prepare are by obeying Christ. Abiding in Christ.
Christ told us in Matthew 28, and in Acts 1, to go and preach the Gospel, to everyone.
Paul and the other writers of the New Testament epistles continue this thought beyond just preaching the gospel into living it out.
One of my favorite passages is in Galatians 5:22-26, where Paul gives the fruit of the Spirit.
Just like we can watch trees to know what season it is, and watch the world to see where we're at, we can watch our lives to see where we stand Spiritually. The fruit that we have, whether it pertains to the list of the fruit of the Spirit, or the works of the flesh seen before the fruit of the Spirit, will give us a great picture of where we are Spiritually.
1 Peter 4:7, "The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers."
BE READY for Jesus to come back!!! Stand FIRM!!

I've talked a lot now.
Everything I've said can go right in one ear and out the other. You can get up and walk away from your computer, and not do a single thing about it.
But is that the best thing to do?

Reader, I challenge you here to examine yourself. 1 Thessalonians 4:3 tells us that God's will for our lives is to be sanctified, to be set apart. to be DIFFERENT from the world!
We can do that in His power.
Before you stop reading, and disregard everything I've said, do one thing for me. Examine your heart. Examine the fruit in your lives.
Are you living entirely as God calls you to?
What needs to change?
What are you going to do to make that change?

My prayers go out to those of you who have read this, whether you read the first line alone, or made it all the way down to the end. May God pour out His grace on you, and reveal Himself to you more every day.

In Christ,
-Wes Weber

A Good Start

Proverbs 9:10, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight."

The phrase "the fear of the Lord" can sound really negative, almost like "you'd better watch out for God, because He's coming for you." However, it is important that we remember that this fear is not the same kind of fear that we might have for spiders, or clowns, or heights. On the contrary, this word fear is speaking more of respect, honor, or obedience.

So respecting Jesus, and obeying Him is the beginning of wisdom.

The opposite of wise is foolish, so the opposite of a wise person is a foolish person. and it doesn't say that once you've obeyed Christ, you have completed wisdom, it says that this honor and obedience of God is the very beginning of wisdom. Its a good start to being wise. Often, we can get into thinking that wisdom is what we know. However, that is only half of it. Wisdom is taking what we know, and applying it. Living out the truths that we have been taught. If you don't want to be foolish, the first step you have to take is honoring God, and obeying Him.

I know that this can sound like a lot of Old Testament stuff, but Jesus actually continues this thought in John 14:15, He said, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." Jesus actually takes it a step past obedience to love. We don't just obey Christ because it makes us wise, but we obey Christ because we love Him.

We've talked a lot about why its important to obey Jesus, and to do what He says, but lets look at what that looks like.
Luke 9:23, "and He said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me."
That can sound like a lot of religious talk, but lets look at what Jesus is actually saying.

Jesus says if we want to follow Him, we have to deny ourselves. Another way of wording that would be that we have to put ourselves last. Last in what we want, last in how we feel, last in everything. I don't just mean letting someone else go before you in a line, but it means caring more about how someone else feels than how you feel. Taking care of someone else and what they want, rather than doing what you want.

Jesus also says to take up our cross daily and follow Him.
The cross isn't something that is comfortable to "take up". The modern equivalent would be "take up your lethal injection and follow Me."
Jesus is going one step further in how we are supposed to act. We are to put ourselves, our flesh that is, to death. Our flesh (the part of us that wants to sin) needs to be given no place of authority in our lives, because Jesus Christ has freed us from it. (Galatians 5:1)

I know that looking at this, and what that means for our lives, that's pretty scary. We can't do that on our own. I can't do that on my own!

However, Jesus never expected us to do it on our own. In Acts 1:8, Jesus told the disciples, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

Jesus doesn't expect us to follow and obey Him in our strength, and there in the first chapter of Acts, He promises the Apostles that the Holy Spirit will fill them, and the Holy Spirit will give them the power to overcome.

Paul later writes about this same thing in Romans 8:11, "If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you."

The Holy Spirit has the power to raise the dead, and that Spirit lives inside of YOU.
Think about that for a minute. If that is true (which it is) is there anything to big for us?
Later on in that same chapter, Paul says "...in all things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." -Romans 8:37.

Because of Jesus dying for us, and the Holy Spirit living inside of us, we have done more than defeated our enemy, and we have more than beaten our flesh.

I know that when we think about how we need to obey Christ, and put Him first in our lives, He reminds us in our hearts what changes we need to make, and if that's you, knowing that things aren't right, then I challenge you today, fix that sin in your life, put Christ where He belongs as the Lord and King of your life.
Begin on the path to wisdom!

In Christ,
-Wes Weber
Philippians 4:19