Image by Whitby Archives via Flickr

This is a good post from Pastor John Piper (taken from DesiringGod.org). The article was written back in 1998 but just like the Bible, the words stand true through out ages and many generations.

Note: This actually applies to Sunday afternoon and evening as well :)

How to prepare for the Sunday morning service

1. Pray that God would give you a good and honest heart.

The heart we need is a work of God. That’s why we pray for it. Ezekiel 36:26, “I will give you a new heart.” Jeremiah 24:7, “I will give them a heart to know Me.” Let’s pray, “O Lord, give me a heart for you. Give me a good and honest heart. Give me a soft and receptive heart. Give me a humble and meek heart. Give me a fruitful heart.”

2. Meditate on the Word of God.

Psalm 34:8, “O taste and see that the LORD is good.” On Saturday night read some delicious portion of your Bible with a view to stirring up hunger for God. This is the appetizer for Sunday morning’s meal.

3. Purify your mind by turning away from worldly entertainment.

James 12:1, “Putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.” It astonishes me how many Christians watch the same banal, empty, silly, trivial, titillating, suggestive, immodest TV shows that most unbelievers watch. This makes us small and weak and worldly and inauthentic in worship. Instead, turn off the television on Saturday night and read something true and great and beautiful and pure and honorable and excellent and worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8). Your heart will unshrivel and be able to feel greatness again.

4. Trust in the truth that you already have.

The hearing of the word of God that fails during trial has no root (Luke 8:13). What is the root we need? It is trust. Jeremiah 17:7-8 says, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD and whose trust is the LORD. For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream.” Trusting in the truth you already have is the best way to prepare yourself to receive more.

5. Rest long enough Saturday night to be alert and hopeful Sunday morning.

1 Corinthians 6:12, “All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything.” I am not laying down any law here. I am saying there are Saturday night ways that ruin Sunday morning worship. Don’t be enslaved by them. Without sufficient sleep, our minds are dull, our emotions are flat, our proneness to depression is higher, and our fuses are short. My counsel decide when you must get up on Sunday in order to have time to eat, get dressed, pray and meditate on the Word, prepare the family, and travel to church; and then compute backward eight hours and be sure that you are in bed 15 minutes before that. Read your Bible in bed and fall asleep with the Word of God in your mind. I especially exhort parents to teach teenagers that Saturday is NOT the night to stay out late with friends. If there is a special late night, make it Friday. It is a terrible thing to teach children that worship is so optional that it doesn’t matter if you are exhausted when you come.

6. Forebear one another Sunday morning without grumbling and criticism.

Psalm 106:25, “They grumbled in their tents; they did not listen to the voice of the LORD.” Sunday morning grumbling and controversy and quarreling can ruin a worship service for a family. When there is something you are angry about or some conflict that you genuinely think needs to be talked about, forebear. Of course if you are clearly the problem and need to apologize, do it as quickly as you can (Matthew 5:23-24). But if you are fuming because of children or spouse delinquency, forebear, that is, be slow to anger and quick to listen (James 1:19). In worship open yourself to God’s exposing the log in your own eye. It may be that all of you will be humbled and chastened so that no conflict is necessary.

7. Be meek and teachable when you come.

James 12:1 “In meekness receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.” Meekness and teachability are not gullibility. You have your Bible and you have your brain. Use them. But if we come with a chip on our shoulder and a suspicion of the preaching week after week, we will not hear the Word of God. Meekness is a humble openness to God’s truth with a longing to be changed by it.

8. Be still as you enter the room and focus your mind’s attention and heart’s affection on God.

Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God.” As we enter the sanctuary, let us “come on the lookout for God and leave on the lookout for people.” Come with a quiet passion to seek God and his power. We will not be an unfriendly church if we are aggressive in our pursuit of God during the prelude and aggressive in our pursuit of visitors during the postlude.

9. Think earnestly about what is sung and prayed and preached.

1 Corinthians 14:20, “Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature”. So Paul says to Timothy, “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything” (2 Timothy 2:7). Anything worth hearing is worth thinking about. If you would take heed how you hear, think about what you hear.

10. Desire the Truth of God’s Word more than you desire riches or food.

1 Peter 2:2 “Like newborn babies, desire the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.” As you sit quietly and pray and meditate on the text and the songs, remind yourself of what Psalm 19:10-11 says about the Words of God “More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.

Pastor John

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper.  His father was very concerned for his son’s future and thought hard about how he could explain to his son why relationships are so important and controlling his temper is a key factor in this.

After much thought his father gave him a bag full of nails and told him,  “Every time you lose your temper,  hammer a nail into the back of the fence.”  His son did not understand but knew that his father was wise so he agreed.

On the first day that the boy received his bag of nails he ended up driving about  37 nails into the fence.  Each day he learned little by little to control his temper.   He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.
Finally the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all.

He was very proud of himself and went to share his good news with his father.  His Father was very proud of him and offered a challenge to his son.  “Why don’t you pull out a nail everyday that you are able to hold your temper?”

As there were many nails in the fence it took the boy sometime to finally remove the nails from the fence.  But eventually that joyous day arrived.  He was so pleased with himself and he wanted to share this with his father.

His father was so proud of his son, but he wanted him to understand that holding his temper was more than just being able to add or remove nails from a fence.  He took his son’s hand and showed him all the holes that were left from the nails.  “As you see my son, this fence will never be the same, the fence is scarred with holes from your temper.  Think of these holes as the words you have spoken in anger, the wounds you have left in people’s lives.  Words really are like weapons they leave a wound, that does not heal easily.  Son, your family and friends will  make you smile and encourage you to succeed,  they will lend an ear,  share words of praise and they always want to open their hearts to us.  Always remember the fence before you speak words of anger.”

I read this story from Lazy Bear Blogs. I hope it touches you as much as it does on me.

Here is a good interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, pastor of the Saddleback Church in California and also author of the Purpose of Drive Life book (I got this in my email inbox).

In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:

People ask me, What is the purpose of life?

And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.  One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body– but not the end of me.  I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act – the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity..  We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn’t going to make sense.  Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you’re just coming out of one, or you’re getting ready to go into another one.

The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.  We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that’s not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.  This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.  I used to think that life was hills and valleys – you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don’t believe that anymore.  Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it’s kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.
And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.

You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems:
If you focus on your problems, you’re going into self-centeredness, which is my problem, my issues, my pain.’But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.  We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her- It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.

You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life!

Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.  It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don’t think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.  So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit.. We made no major purchases.
Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.
Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.
Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.
We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God’s purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don’t get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn’t put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He’s more interested in what I am than what I do. That’s why we’re called human beings, not human doings.

So the time came. Everyone was ready with their car on the Start line. Mark asked for a minute and he was mumbling for a while before the race started. His eyes were closed. A minute later he said, “Yeah, I’m ready!”. So the race began!

Everyone was shouting and every finalist shouted, boasting their own cars. “Go, go go!”, they shouted. The finish line was closed and a car went past it first. Yes, it’s Mark’s. Everyone shouted in joy and so did Mark. Again, he was mumbling, “Thank you”.

On the podium, the competition manager asked Mark “Hey champ, you prayed to God before the race started, asking to win, didn’t you?”. Mark was silent. “No, sir”, he said. “That’s not what I asked. I don’t think it’s fair to ask God to help me in defeating other people. I was asking God for strength so that I wouldn’t cry if I lose”. Everyone was silent hearing the little kid’s remark. After a moment of pause, claps and shouts were in the air.

Mark didn’t ask to win. He didn’t ask God to take care and fulfill his desire to win on the test he went through. He asked God to give him strength in it. Often we asked God for an easy way out and to be successull/to be the winner. How often do we have faith in Him and ask for His strength instead on our tests? How often do we ask God to fulfill our ego? Learn from Mark, the little boy.

‘Are you writing a story about what we’ve done? Is it a story about me?’

His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to her grandson:

‘I am writing about you, actually, but more important than the words is the pencil I’m using. I hope you will be like this pencil when you grow up.’

Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It didn’t seem very special.

‘But it’s just like any other pencil I’ve ever seen!’

‘That depends on how you look at things. It has five qualities which, if you manage to hang on them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world.’

‘First quality: you are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps. We call that hand God, and He always guides us according to His will.’

‘Second quality: now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpner. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he’s much sharper. So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.

‘Third quality: the pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes. This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.’

‘Fourth quality: what really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.’

‘Finally, the pencil’s fifth quality: it always leaves a mark. in just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action’

Source: Like the Flowing River by Paulo Coelho

“Abishai said to David, ‘Today God has given your enemy into your hands. Now let me pin him to the ground with one thrust of my spear; I won’t strike him twice.’ But David said to Abishai, ‘Don’t destroy him! Who can lay a hand on the LORD’s anointed and be guiltless? As surely as the LORD lives,’ he said, ‘the LORD himself will strike him; either his time will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish’” (1 Samuel 26:8-10 NIV).

How would you treat your perceived enemy if you have the opportunity of dealing with him? Would you treat him as he has been treating you? Alternatively, would you let him go scot-free and allow God to deal with him in God’s own way and time?

King Saul was a sworn enemy of David. He spent most of his time looking for a way to kill David. However, twice, David had opportunities of killing Saul, but he did not do so (see 1 Samuel 24, 26). David’s followers could not understand why he would not take the golden opportunities to exterminate his arch enemy and become the king of Israel. David preferred to let God deal with Saul rather than avenging for himself. God did deal with Saul in His own time and His own way, and David eventually became the king of Israel in place of Saul.

Many people would not do such a thing – to let a perceived enemy continue to have his way, especially when they have the opportunity of getting even with such enemy. It is natural to get rid of one’s perceived enemy, but, it is contrary to the New Testament teachings. Consider this: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary: ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:17-21 NIV. See also Matthew 5:44; Luke 27-28; 23:34; Romans 12:14; 1 Corinthians 4:12-13; 1 Peter 3:9). It takes spiritual maturity to follow such teachings and really allow God to deal with one’s perceived enemies in God’s way and God’s time.

Do not have it in mind to get even with your perceived enemy. Let God deal with him. God will do so in His own way and in His own time. He will indeed vindicate you. Like David, you will laugh last and testify to the goodness of God over your life.

In His service,

Bayo Afolaranmi (Pastor).
+234 805 515 9591

http://www.thewordthruthenet.org

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spiritualdigest2003

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A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: ‘I am blind, please help.’There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, ‘Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?’

The man said, ‘I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.’
What he had written was: ‘Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it.’

Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing?

Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

Moral of the Story: Be thankful for what you have. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively.

Invite others towards good with wisdom. Live life with no excuse and love with no regrets. When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile. Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear. Keep the faith and drop the fear.

Great men say, ‘Life has to be an incessant process of repair and reconstruction, of discarding evil and developing goodness…. In the journey of life, if you want to travel without fear, you must have the ticket of a good conscience.’

The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling…
And even more beautiful is, knowing that you are the reason behind it!!!

I’d probably want to change above to : Be thankful and be grateful to God for what He has given you. Do not fear the future as God has promised to take care of you as He has taken care of the birds in the air.

God never breaks His promises! Stay close with God always!