A Year of Blessing - April 11, 2010

I love the buildings of downtown Tulsa and the churches are my favorite. Some are simple and some ornate...tall and squat...colorful and monochrome...I'll stop before I sound like a Dr. Seuss book.

It's really neat to think of people gathering to worship in each of those buildings...but I didn't used to think that way. I used to think there was a right way to worship and a wrong way to worship God...and the closer I worshipped like the people of Acts the better God liked it. My worship had to be 'acceptable' to my God or it didn't count so I would have my check list ready to make sure I didn't forget to do something. Oh how very, very sad and fearful I was.

But the very number of churches are a clue as to what God is really all about. Each church lifting hearts to God in a tradition handed down through our culture. A culture made up of a melting pot of people from different countries. And a God of all cultures and continents. The people of Acts worshipped very differently than we do because they were a different culture, but rather than fight that fact, I take comfort in it! My God is bigger than any and all cultures combined! And He chooses to work and live in all.

I still have my check list, though. After all I have to make sure to do things 'right'. But there is only one thing on that check list now: the name of Jesus. Being in Him, I have no fear coming before my God in worship nor embracing others who do the same...and it doesn't matter if our 'buildings' are alike or not.

Romans 8:1-3 (New International Version)

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.