Preparing To Rejoice In Him // May 27, 2018

PREPARE YOUR HEART FOR WORSHIP ON MAY 27, 2018

REFLECTION

“The problem is that the created thing that you’re looking to has no capacity to satisfy your heart. It wasn’t designed to do that. It cannot give you inner peace. It cannot give you the heart rest of contentment. It cannot quiet your cravings. In a word, it cannot be your savior.” Paul David Tripp

“After Western culture lost faith in the existence of God, Western man still needed to feel heroic, to know that his life mattered in the scheme of things… If he no longer had God, how was he to do this? One of the first ways that occurred to him… was the ‘romantic solution.’ … The love partner now becomes the divine ideal within which to fulfill one’s life. All spiritual and moral needs now become focused in one individual… In one word, the love object is God… After all what is it that we want when we elevate the love partner to this position? We want to be rid of our faults, of our feeling of nothingness. We want to be justified, to know our existence has not been in vain. We want redemption – nothing less.”
– Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

WORSHIP IN SONG :: The Longing

These things unseen won’t cripple me
I place my hope in You
This deep desire, this longing hour
I’m falling into You

Love is and always was
The longing placed inside my heart
To know You and be known by You

This place, this time won’t satisfy
My soul was made for You
My eyes behold what’s beautiful
And I belong to You

CONFESSION OF SIN :: Seeing The Beauty of Jesus

Lord Jesus,

Sin entices us and we run to it without hesitation. Sensual pleasures tempt us and we surrender to them. The vanities of the world ensnare us and we entertain them.

Oh, Jesus have mercy. Help us to seek Your divine love and find true contentment in You. We beg You for a heavenly disposition that would seek only to please You in public and private. We ask for hearts that find, in You, the fullness of pleasure and joy. We long for eyes that see the endless beauty of Christ. Because, at that moment, all lust and want of any worldly thing will be removed.

Have mercy, O Christ. Amen.