Falling Down - Revelation 5

You know when we were little children, toddlers, and we learned to walk we spent a lot of time falling down. We actually got good at falling since we did it so much.  But then we got older, more capable and more confident. We ventured farther and farther from the supports and people that held us up and we,, well we wandered down the road away from fathers house. Until we found ourselves falling again. Sometimes its a good thing to fall. 


Darla and I are reading a couples devotional together. We are alternating reading chapters or devotions each day or most days.  In the devotion that Darla read a few nights ago there was a reference made to "worship" and the word that is translated to worship in the New Testament. It was a pretty thought provoking bit of devotional material.


This little thought is coming together a little too hard actually, which usually means I have not completely processed (also fully possessed) what it is I have read or heard.  However what I have heard and read is so provocative that I need to talk a little about it.


I would imagine that nearly everyone who goes to a Christian church attends a service that has some point or time alloted for a practice called Worship.  Maybe it is a Worship service. Maybe it is a song and Worship service. Maybe it is the Word and Worship. Or maybe you just enter into a time of Worship.  I dont know what you might call it, but I dont think that I always do it right based on what I heard read to me the other nite.


Now dont anyone go and get "Jesus knows my heart, and thats what Grace is for, and how you do it is between you and God, etc, etc"  I would agree with everyone, but sometimes I think that we have to really crank up the voltage and let the light shine so it burns through us. I dont mean get down on yourself but I do mean put down the pillows and take the foam off the pipe that we use to chasten ourselves when we need it.


Does the Word do that to you? To anyone reading this? Does it come through so strongly some times that you find yourself somewhere between changing chapters and just putting the bible away.  I believe, for me, I need the Word of God to be exactly what I need and not what I always want (make sense?) So where is this short ( ha ha) thought going?


Well let me start with what I read. I was reading references about worship and spent a few minutes reading Revelation 5 and in two places in this amazing chapter the picture is painted for us of a great, great crowd around the throne and then in an instant the supplicants are compelled to "fall down" and worship.Twice this image is described for us with the last one in Chapter 5 being verse 14 "And the four beasts said , Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever." The Bible in Basic English (BBE) version says it this way, "And the four beasts said, So be it. And the rulers went down on their faces and gave worship".  The awesomeness of the moment, the experience, the One on the Throne was enough to cause this multitude to fall down face first before the Lamb and to offer Him Worship. I am getting the mental and spiritual impression of an intensity in that place and moment that I have rarely if ever experienced (but I have experienced it). 


What Darla read to me the other night was that the Greek translation for the word Worship has some or all of its root in a Greek word that communicates the idea to kiss, like a dog licking his Masters hand.  The forces at work to create that kind of response are massive. You would first have to obey that compulsion to get low. To get down. To fall down before this One and then to minister to him in utter submission with a kiss to His hand.  I think if you let that image cook for a little while in your mind and imagination you will join me in a sense of awe.


Now when is that kind of response easy? When is that kind of response appropriate? What kind of atmosphere is required to feel that kind of attraction? What activities must first be done to be in that place?  I think we view worship as a recreational activity often times.  I have said it before, "the worship service was awesome" or " the worship was a little flat today". Basically what I am saying is that my personal requirements for worship were not satisfied.  That might sound harsh, but if I am really honest with myself and you the reader, I measure the quality of the service by how I feel.  I have worshipped through not feeling well and felt better as a result, but for the most part (and it may be just me) I judge the worship more than I deliver it. 


When the Lord put the salve on my eyes and bound up my wounds and brought me to his dwelling place, I did not want this time to be like other times. I didnt want my faith journey to be an up and down experience.  I had determined that I would rather be cold than hot and then cold and then hot, and on and on.  Like I said I believe my eyes have been touched (to see inside myself).  The tabernacle or dwelling place of my faith is held up by 4 stakes that I drive and keep driving deeper and deeper into the ground of my heart and mind.
1) I must know who Jesus, the Almighty God, really is
2) I must know who I am in Jesus Christ
3) I must have an appreciation and understanding that the Gospel is the only way to come to Christ
4) I must have an understanding that Faith comes first as a Grace gift and then grows through obedience to the Gospel and continues to grow through intimacy and obedience.


Then I must be true to the calling and purpose that God has for my life. 


I said all that to get to this point.  My worship is not a by product of a good song service. It is the adoring expression of love by a once lost and separated being to the only One who could redeem and pay the debts that I had run up against my soul.  Mary was ridiculed for bringing and breaking an alabaster box of ointment and pouring it on Jesus head and beard.  It could have been sold for the poor. Yes no doubt it could and the poor would have been blessed. But this was an offering to the Master. Like a loving and submissive kiss to the hand.  


God doesnt have to do anything to get the kind of worship he deserves from me.  He has already done everything required to have my complete and undying adoration.  I just get caught up in me, thinking about me, about my feelings, about my needs, about me, me, me!  and then I dont think about Him and remember and say like that throng around the throne said, 
"12Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.
13And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying , Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power,be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.14And the four beasts said , Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever".
Some times it is a good thing just to fall down.