created to love Him...

I love this guy!  The first place the word, "worship" is mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 22:5,9 where Abraham is going up the mountain to offer up Isaac.   "He said to his servants, Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will WORSHIP and then we will come back to you...When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood."   You will notice here that there are no mentions of keyboards, guitars drums or singers. Instead, there is an altar and the treasure of someone's heart about to be laid on it.  What do we learn from this? Many things. But as far as worship is concerned, we learn that worship is less about music and singing and more about altars and sacrifice . Reminding ourselves of these things helps us move away from the easy tendency to see worship as something that happens in a half hour slot at the beg

Our new family addition, Evelyn Anna!     I want to share something I felt God said this past Sunday morning during our worship at Redeemer . I know this was a word for my family and I and I hope it will be an encouragement to you, too!  Psalm 24:7  "Lift up your heads, O gates! ... that the King of glory may come in."  As we were singing, "Reign Above it All," I saw a picture of our world, but it was flat, almost like the bottom layer of a cake. It was dark and swirling, chaotic. Billions of people in different shapes and angles crammed together. At times I could see individual expressions of pain, anger, disappointment, fear, division, etc. The layer had movement to it but no one came out of it.  At first I was in the thick of that layer and the influence felt overwhelming. Michael and I, and our girls, are currently in the middle of some circumstances that leave me very often feeling frustrated, fearful and not knowing what to do. I forget too often to look for G