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Worship is an inward attitude, not a physical attitude but an inward attitude, and it is a state of mind and it is a sustained act. This is subject to degrees of perfection and intensity.
You cannot always worship with the same degree of wonder and love that you do at other times, but it must always be there – an attitude and a state of mind and a sustained act subject to varying degrees of intensity and perfection.
(“The Chief End of Man,” Sermon # 5, Toronto, 1962)
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Almost every Christian wants to be spiritual, but few know what the experience means. A lot of unfounded comfort could be swept away and much true consolation received if we could get straightened out.
It is difficult for us to shake off the notion that a person is as spiritual as he or she feels. Our basic spirituality seldom accords our feelings. There are many carnal persons whose religious emotions are sensitive to every impression and who manage to keep themselves on a fairly high plane of inward enjoyment but who have no marks of godliness upon them. They have a low boiling point and can get heated up over almost anything religious at a moment’s notice. Their tears are close to the surface and their voices carry a world of emotional content. Such have a reputation for being spiritual, and they themselves may easily believe they are. But they are not necessarily so.
Spiritual people are indifferent to their feelings—they live by faith in God with little care about their own emotions. They think God’s thoughts and see things as God sees them. They rejoice in Christ and have no confidence in themselves. They are more concerned with obedience than with happiness. This is less romantic, perhaps, but it will stand the test of fire.
A.W. Tozer
From:
This World: Playground or Battleground?
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I will stand on my guard post and station myself on the rampart; and I will keep watch to see what he will speak to me, and how I will reply when I am reproved.
Then the Lord answered me and said “Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets that the one who reads it may run.” Habakkuk 2:1-2.
Holiness will allow itself to be apprehended and known as it pleases the One who Himself is holy to be known. Majesty and greatness, missing gems in the attire of the Church, will manifest as common revelation to men of pure heart, even to national bodies when days approaches which the Lord has set aside for his glory to shine forth. Righteousness will be served at tables, rich tables in Zion, to each and every man who carries a hunger and a thirst for such. There is something there to see. The gates of Heaven are open to show forth the splendour and beauty of the Holy One.
There is something there to see and to lay hold of, something which is different from ours, something which arouses passion, something which changes a man’s heart and brings in prophetic quality. There is something there, something costly. It is hidden, at the same time revealed in glory. It cannot be captured or grabbed as spoils, yet it is there within reach for the meek and lowly. It cannot be described, no words will ever be enough, but the prophetic mind cannot but try to tell about the things seen, write a text and re-write it and write again There is something there to see, to reach out for, something of incomprehensible value.
There is something there to see, diligence and integrity are natural results of true seeing. Watchfulness and waiting are components accompanying true hearing. God is eternally present and He is not silent, but He will not give things glorious to a frivolous man. The prophetic mind is set for quality and integrity. The prophetic mind will never set for less than heavenly standards – as in Heaven so on earth. Does it look like Heaven? Does it stir passion as Heaven generates passion and ardour? Does it induce fervour according the crystal clear motives of Heaven? Can one find intensity and integrity of the kind which reflects Heavenly standards?
Passion reveals a prophets heart. The fervour of the prophetic mind reveals the prophet’s heaven. The integrity and intensity of a prophet reveals the prophet’s God. Heaven confronts what is earthly and unholy and it is done through a man apprehended and sent. Man is God’s method, a man apprehended, imbued and sent. This man, the prophetic person, is the herald of the New City. This heavenly person is drastically jealous for the Word of God. Veracity is his passion. Fidelity motivates his thinking and activity. His striving for correspondence, as in Heaven so on earth, is the only possible way for him to live and move. He has seen. He has heard. This kind of hearing, this kind of seeing makes him a man of passion as well as a man of confrontation. He becomes a statement, a declaration of otherness among the many who choose not to see.
The prophetic mind is a mind apprehended and shown things pertaining to Heaven, its absoluteness, its fundamental oneness and integrity, its veracity, its holiness, its glory – and therefore this prophetic mind is burning as an altar contains fire.
The prophetic mind is a mind apprehended for the sake of seeing, a seeing which produces a knowledge of the Holy and a knowing of Him who alone provides Life which is holy.
The prophetic personality has been brought to a state of trembling, a profound respect for the Word of God as the only solid and impeccable testimony among men set up as markers unto glory.
The prophetic man has encountered the fundamentally other which carries no stain of the earthly, the worldly. This drives him away from common settings of man, and produces a heavenly offensiveness for him to carry as a confrontational tool to be used by the Holy Spirit to bring conviction.
The prophetic mind and heart has made a transition from that which can and shall be shaken to a realm in which everything is eternally stable and reliable. This mind can be trusted, it reflects Him who for ever sits on the throne to rule justly and with righteousness in Zion.
The prophetic mind undergoes constant formation to be able to carry the fullness of Christ. The prophetic heart is continually dressed and redressed in the beauty of holiness for the sake of the glory of God.
There is something there to see which is fundamentally other, attractive beyond limits of comprehension, worthy passion and fervour which sets any other aspiration to the side – counting it as loss, capturing man’s heart and mind with a burning desire which cannot be quenched.
There is something there to see. . .
There is something there waiting to be said and stated, expressed and declared. . .
Prophetic passion finds its way to lay hold of such things for the sake of the glory of God.
Lars Widerberg
