markhostetler

I am a follower of Jesus Christ, husband to the most beautiful woman in the world, father of three wonderful young men, and Worship Pastor at Eagleville Bible Church.

Is Your Worship Spirited and True? (Part 1)

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In the Old Testament we see that worship was primarily an act of adherence to the prescribed methods and instructions of the law. It was very ritualistic and needed to be carried out with precision or else it was not accepted. The emphasis was not necessarily placed on the inward expression of worship from a changed heart and spirit that was completely submitted to God (although that was God’s intention), but was very much about the external conformity to rituals and traditions. The Jews missed the point! They were focused on the wrong things, and I believe that we can be trapped into the same things today – missing the whole point of worship.

Are You Enjoying Life with Your Spouse?

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When Chasidy and I spend time together, we usually try to enrich ourselves with study and devotion to the Lord, as well as each other. We both understand the need for us to individually be healthy in our faith and connection with God, so we encourage that each and every day (even when we are on vacation!). I love to read to my wife and then discuss what we studied together. I love to hear her pray! What I have found is that when we take that time to connect with the Lord, our connection becomes so much stronger as a result. There is no greater feeling than to be at peace with the Lord and in harmony with your spouse! It is precious and I hope that all people will be able to experience this great treasure in life!

Enslaved to Righteousness

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Choose today to make yourself a slave to Jesus and the righteousness that He has made available to you by His death on the cross. Each of us were once slaves to our flesh and sinful passions, “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to, and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.” (Romans 6:17-18) Slavery, in this sense, is the best thing that will ever happen to us, so let’s choose today to present ourselves as instruments of righteousness that leads to life! God bless you!

Using our Freedom Properly

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“Live as free people” is what the verse says above, and I believe it is profound! We all have the freedom to say anything that we want – at any time (As Americans anyways). That can be very bad, or that can be very good! In the negative sense, the Bible says that we have the power of death in our tongue (Proverbs 18:21). That is very scary and it should make us think twice before we speak! The very words we speak can and will shape our lives, the tone of the conversations, the disposition of the people around us, and so-on. Using the freedom we have to do evil (e.g. gossip, slander, dishonor, etc.) is never going to bring about anything good and profitable, so let’s not do that. On the contrary, in the verse referenced above it says that the power of life is in the tongue as well (Proverbs 18:21). This is where the “slaves to God” comes into play. Choosing to speak good and noble things instead of letting any unwholesome talk come out of our mouths (Ephesians 4:29), we are speaking life and encouragement into people’s lives as opposed to death and anxiety.

Allowed to Ascend?

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The good news is that God has provided the One who is able to clean us up! His name is Jesus Christ, and anyone who calls upon Him is saved and able to access the throne of God! This doesn’t mean that we can still continue in unholiness and expect to receive blessing, but it does mean that we are able to be clean before God when we come to Christ and seek His forgiveness. Once we have the blood of Christ over us, cleansing our filth, then we can rest assured that we are able to ascend the hill of the Lord, not by anything that we do but through the baptism into Christ for the forgiveness of sins! He makes us clean! He changes our motives! Jesus presents us as holy and blameless before the Father (Ephesians 5:25-27)! If we are holy and blameless principally, then let’s live it out practically as worshipers! All for His glory!

Choices in Life

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We have choices to make in life; Who to marry, how many children to have, where to work, where to worship, who to worship, and so-on. The choices we make should determine our devotion, and the devotion we have should determine our choices.
We do not want death and curses to follow us. We want life and blessings. This will happen for us if we choose to obey Him and remain loyal to Him always in the choices that we make!

Have Mercy God! Why Confession is Important.

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We need to understand that unconfessed sin sucks the life out of us (Ps. 32:3-4) and distances us from God. So, if we are trying to get close to God through worship we will inevitably be frustrated with the results if we are refusing to be authentic and truthful with Him about our sins. Start today, confess your sins to God and allow the refreshing water of forgiveness to bless you and restore you. Humility before God is a sweet thing that will always be received and honored by God. Isn’t that what we want? So, let’s do it!

Pleasing God

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I recognize the importance of speaking out affirmation to my wife. I can watch her face light up when I say something about her that I love. I can see the love in her eyes when I seek to please her with words of affirmation. The encouragement from the author is to “let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God.” (through him, Jesus). God loves to hear from our mouths what makes Him special, set apart, what makes us love Him, what excites us about Him, etc. I love this about God! Let’s not forget that He is worthy to receive such affirmation too, right? So let’s please Him by spending much of our time offering up words from our heart that affirm who He is and what He has done for us.

Loyalty

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I believe that each of us has an Egypt and a Promised land. I believe that we are all tempted to create, or assign, god figures into our lives that we end up worshiping because we believe that they will give us comfort, provision, peace, etc. Before we know it, we are gathering all of the gold around us and making a golden calf – just like the children of Israel did after Moses didn’t come down from the mountain where he met with God. When God doesn’t meet our timeline expectation, or doesn’t give us the answer we are looking for, or we don’t know where else to turn, we will be tempted to shift our commitment, or allegiance, to someone or something that seems to be the answer/solution to our problem.