Musings at Altitude

Sunday’s are always special…always have been…hopefully always will be! 

At church today, our pastor joined the praise team on a guitar, and everyone in the congregation seemed to be looking at each other while saying, “I didn’t know he played the guitar!”  As we sang the songs, I kept looking at our pastor and watching his hands as he played, because it was completely out of character to see him up there.

The music as always was very inspirational, and when he put down his guitar and began to preach, he opened his Bible to Luke 11:37-52.  He talked about how Jesus criticized the religious leaders of that day for looking so clean on the outside and being so dirty on the inside.  He told us how they would position themselves in the important seats in the synagogue so everyone would be looking at them and they’d be looking at everyone else.   He told us how they would live to the letter of the law, but it was the law that they had created while neglecting justice and the love of God.  And he told us how the “experts in the law” of that day had made God’s law so hard to understand and even harder to practice.

He then told us that he bet we all thought he looked pretty cool up there playing the guitar, but he actually didn’t play a single note.  He certainly looked good, and he certainly had all of us in the congregation sitting in awe of what we thought he could do.

And that was his point all along.  He reminded us not to focus on image and status, but to instead be humble and willing to serve.  He reminded us not to mercilessly complicate following God, but to instead make it clear and grounded in God’s Word.  He reminded us not to be hypocritically clean, but to instead be generous and God focused.

I came away from church today with a smile, renewed in a sense, and inspired by the message.  My spiritual reservoir was indeed filled to overflowing, and I came away challenged to take what I heard and what I learned and make it relevant and meaningful in my life.  I sense that’s what God wanted us to do when He commanded:

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.  On it you shall not do any work.  For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.  Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.  [Exodus 20:8-11]

God gave us a day for revival and renewal, knowing that otherwise we’d be so engaged in this world that we wouldn’t take the time to fill our spiritual reservoirs.

And I’m thankful He did.

And even more thankful after pondering on the worship at church and enjoying the beauty of this day!