Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love-gift. Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship. If you hoard it for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded (see Exodus 16:20).

God will never allow you to keep a spiritual blessing completely for yourself. It must be given back to Him so that He can make it a blessing to others.Bethel is the symbol of fellowship with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abram “pitched his tent” between the two. The lasting value of our public service for God is measured by the depth of the intimacy of our private times of fellowship and oneness with Him. Rushing in and out of worship is wrong every time— there is always plenty of time to worship God. Days set apart for quiet can be a trap, detracting from the need to have daily quiet time with God. That is why we must “pitch our tents” where we will always have quiet times with Him, however noisy our times with the world may be.

There are not three levels of spiritual life— worship, waiting, and work. Yet some of us seem to jump like spiritual frogs from worship to waiting, and from waiting to work. God’s idea is that the three should go together as one. They were always together in the life of our Lord and in perfect harmony. It is a discipline that must be developed; it will not happen overnight.

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January 6 2016

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Good morning God and thank you for this devotional and the music. Lord, I couldn’t keep from tapping my feet and moving to the sound of the music this morning. And like he does on many occasions, Chambers fueled my fires again this morning, especially when he said … “God will never allow you to keep a spiritual blessing completely for yourself. It must be given back to Him so that He can make it a blessing to others.” At first this sounded very spiritual and correct but the more I prayed and pondered the statement it occurred to me that when we are blessed as we are truly surrendered and connected to You, we have no choice. The blessings simply flow out of us. Is this right Lord? We are not to feel obligated or guilty about having to share our blessings, it will simply flow out of us  through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And God says…”As you worship, recall what Paul wrote to the church in Corinth… 2 Corinthians 9:8 (TLB) God is able to make it up to you by giving you everything you need and more so that there will not only be enough for your own needs but plenty left over to give joyfully to others. When you worship out of your surrender; that is giving up your rights to yourself and your own ideas and the limitations you put on God, and are blessed, you will find it impossible to not bless others. Acknowledge the Lord in all your ways, and do not rely on your own understanding and He will make your paths straight. You do not have to wait for your own blessings to be manifest in order to be a blessing for others. You can trust God to meet all your needs, blessing others while you wait on the Lord. Give and it shall be given unto you, rolled up, pressed down and overflowing. The living waters and blessings of the Holy Spirit cannot be contained as they flow from your surrender and connection,  blessing you and others.”