Thoughts on Great Night of Worship

Last night I had the amazing opportunity to attend a Hillsong United concert with my wife and it was such a wonderful time of worship, fellowship and prayer! Even though the tickets said concert, it was anything but a  concert! For four hours we stood with 10,000 plus people and sang praises to our God, worshipped with people we didn’t know, people with different backgrounds, different denominations, different cultures, etc. This was anything but a concert, because the main focus wasn’t on the band but on Jesus Christ! As the night went on I had the thought that why would anyone ever want to go to a “secular” concert because nothing at those concerts are pleasing to God nor do they bring glory, praise and honor to our God.
As the evening went on I found myself looking around the coliseum and watching these thousands of people life their hands and voices in praise to God and it was such a beautiful picture! The songs were focused solely on God and Jesus Christ which made the night that much more powerful and astounding! It was a much needed time of worship that my wife and I needed and enjoyed. Plus, it’s always a fun and wonderful experience when you get to worship with your wife in a setting like that!

In closing I want to leave with a passage from 1 Chronicles, “Sing to the LORD, all the earth! Tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples! For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and he is to be held in awe above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the LORD made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and joy are in his place. Ascribe to the LORD , O clans of the peoples, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength! Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering and come before him! Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness…”

Rob Bell’s Upcoming Book on Heaven & Hell Stirs Blog, Twitter Backlash on Universalism | Liveblog | Christianity Today

Rob Bell’s Upcoming Book on Heaven & Hell Stirs Blog, Twitter Backlash on Universalism Liveblog Christianity Today

Quite interesting, the book that is! I bought this book because I wanted to see first hand how unbiblical Love Wins really is! And I can say that I am not suprised one bit of what Rob Bell teaches in this book! The thing that gets me though is how saddened I am for those under his watch, the ones who come faithfully week in and week out to hear him supposedly preach and teach the truth of Gods word, and this is what they are getting. I have only read the first two chapters, but tha’s ALL you really need to read to know that the message he is sharing and what God’s word actually says in completely opposite! He takes scripture and turns them into what he “believes” about God, Jesus, sin, death and the power of the cross.

For example, he calls Genesis a poem! He also says in one paragraph, “the more you become a person of peace and justice and worship and generosity, the more actively you participate now in ordering and working to bring about God’s kind of world, the more ready you will be to assume an even greater role in the age to come.”

Also he talks about the story of Lazarus and the rich man and he concludes by saying what is meant is that the rich man was wanting Lazarus to serve him! He wasn’t really asking for a glass of water to cool his tongue, but he wanted him to serve him a glass of water because he was the servant and he sees himself as better than Lazarus! REALLY? That’s what you get when you read the story Jesus was talking about in Luke 16? I can honestly say that I have read that numerous times and I have never once taken that from the story!

I will continue to post my remarks about this book later, but for some reason I wanted to read this book! I do find it interesting that Jesus spoke more on hell than he did heaven!