For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. —Philippians 3:3, KJV

What we long for is living worship. But how does this come about? Worship that is “by the Spirit of God” has three stages.

First, the initiation of the Spirit. Worship that is initiated by the Spirit is always of the Spirit, by the Spirit, and in the Spirit. Of the Spirit refers to those who have been brought to the new birth; by the Spirit describes what these reborn people are able to do—they serve God under the impulse of the Spirit.

This leads me to my second point: the impulse of the Spirit. In true worship the people of the Spirit are enabled by the Spirit to participate in the worship that God feels for Himself. For God loves Himself—and if we don’t like that fact, it is because a God of glory is offensive to our fleshly human nature. God does everything for His own glory and “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:11, KJV). And everything in all creation was designed for the worship of God.

Third, the inheritance of the Spirit is when the Holy Spirit is utterly Himself in us. When someone comes into our house we say, “Do make yourself at home.” If you really want the Spirit to be at home in you—to be Himself in you—you must open your heart directly to Him and say, “Lord, I do love You, and I will do what You say.” Complete obedience to the Spirit at home within us is the key to true worship.

Excerpted from Worshipping God (Hodder & Stoughton, 2004).

So that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. —Romans 15:6

Our aim should be to glorify God and edify the soul of every person present. It’s easy to talk about glorifying God, but what does it mean? To glorify God means to please Him. We must continually ask ourselves this very searching question: when we meet together to worship God, is it our aim to please Him or to please ourselves?

I know that the answer here can be “both,” and in the end that is true. But we will never succeed in pleasing God until we forget about ourselves. With worship, we want to bring joy to God. However, it is not for us to try to decide what will please God. God has already decided what kind of worship He wants. Worship that pleases Him must be “by the Spirit of God.”

“Well,” someone may say, “if I’m going to worship God by His Spirit, then I’m not really doing anything. It’s just God doing it for Himself. But I want to please Him by showing Him what I can do.” But anyone who talks like this does not know God, because God doesn’t want what we can do. He has already decided what He wants, and we must decide whether we are going to worship in His way.

Our aim in worship must be to please God, but the aim of worship is also to edify the soul of every person present. The key word here is every person. God is worshiped not just when we do certain things right, but when we are edified—that is, when our spirits are fed with His Word, so that we reach out to Him in repentance, gratitude, and trust. He is glorified when we worship Him with our understanding, not when we intone, parrot-fashion, words.

Excerpted from Worshipping God (Hodder & Stoughton, 2004).

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. —John 4:24

I believe that every Christian has one fundamental calling and one primary duty—we are called, by the way we live and in all we do, to worship God. This is a full-time activity, not only here on earth, but in heaven, too.

But what exactly is worship? True worship is in the Spirit or by the Spirit of God.

Two Greek words in the New Testament are translated by our word “worship.” One is proskuneo, which is used sixty times and means “to adore” or “to give reverence to.” This refers to the condition of the heart. It is the word used by Jesus in John 4:24.

The other word is latreuontes, which appears as a noun or a verb twenty-six times and may be translated as “service.” This is the word used to refer to public worship and comes in Philippians 3:3 (KJV): ” … who worship [serve] God in the spirit.” Both words are used in the context of Spirit-led and Spirit-controlled worship.

Here, then, is my own definition of worship: it is the response to, and/or preparation for, the preached Word. In worship, the Spirit prepares our minds and hearts to receive God’s Word, and, as we see at Pentecost, it is the Spirit who brings about a change of heart and enables us to continue in the apostles’ doctrine.

But if the first thing is the Spirit, what is the role of the truth? Truth—Christian doctrine as revealed in the Word of God—is the proof and guarantee that one is in the Spirit; it also serves as a yardstick for testing actions that are allegedly in the Spirit but that in fact are not. The truth keeps worship from detours. The Bible was not given to replace the Holy Spirit. The Bible is there to correct abuse and to help us make sure that our worship and our Christian walk are genuinely in the Spirit.

Excerpted from Worshipping God (Hodder & Stoughton, 2004).

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. —Acts 3:1

Disciplined prayer arises from two things: first, a good general knowledge of God’s Word; second, a strong desire to please Him. In other words, I am talking here about praying as an act of sheer obedience whether we feel like it or not. And it is the mature Christian who follows this way.

You may decide to spend more time in prayer, but then you find that everything seems to militate against it. So you think, These things that are stopping me praying are providential. So don’t be surprised if, when you commit yourself to prayer, everything seems to be hindering you. There must be discipline.

One of the forgotten verses in the Book of Acts is the opening verse of chapter 3. The chapter goes on to describe how Peter and John healed the crippled man, but what is interesting is that it happened when they were on their way to the temple to pray. We see that even when the Spirit was present in great power, these early disciples were not afraid to go by a schedule. At this high peak in the history of the church it would seem that the first Christians still observed set times of prayer.

The principle is that if you live by the disciplined impulse, you will get the spontaneous impulse as well, and this is why I urge each Christian to pray for thirty minutes a day and to attend the weekly church prayer meetings. Here were Peter and John on their way to the temple, when the lame beggar held out his hand to them, expecting to receive some money. But Peter just turned to him and said, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk” (v. 6, KJV). And the man was healed.

You never outgrow the need to pray. It is my job, not only as a Christian minister but also as a child of God, never to excuse myself again for what I haven’t done regarding time spent in prayer.

Excerpted from Worshipping God (Hodder & Stoughton, 2004).

“In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. —Ephesians 4:26

There’s no doubt that Esau was angry with God, but that is not the end of the story, as we know from the remarkable events in Genesis 33.

The time came when Jacob had to meet Esau. But Esau, instead of taking revenge against Jacob, showed mercy.

Who would have thought that the very thing Jacob had dreaded was now reversed? What does this tell you? Something happened to Esau. What changed him? It may have been time. As they say, time heals all wounds. And it could be that with time a person mellows, but if that’s the way it happens, it is not a real victory. If you deal with your anger the same day, then that’s spiritual victory.

Something did happen to Esau, and we too must learn how to come to terms with our grudge. When we learn to stand back and ask ourselves why we are as we are, we become objective.

It is so easy for us to be judgmental, but we don’t know what process the mind of another is going through or what has happened to them. The truth is that we all do things that are not right.

God totally forgives because He sent His Son to die for your sins. And the reason Jacob could say, “To see your face is like seeing the face of God” (Gen. 33:10), was because the God whom you can turn to is a God whose justice has been satisfied by the blood of His Son. God can even take that unforgiving spirit, forgive you for your inability to forgive, give you a new heart, and bring you to the place where you can sincerely pray for those who have treated you unfairly. You can come to the place that you want them to be blessed, and eventually it even becomes a selfish prayer because when you pray that way, you get blessed more than anybody. And that’s the truth.

Excerpted from All’s Well That Ends Well (Authentic Media, 2005).

As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you. —Galatians 4:13

I turn now to illness and the possibility of service. That means going to work and also doing something for God. After all, there are some people who are chronically ill and work forty hours a week. Others have problems far more serious; some are bedridden, and others are housebound but can still cope. Obviously Paul, who had an eye problem, kept going since it was because of that reason that he came to the Galatians. God can cause your illness to coalesce with an event, situation, or place wherein you would think, I am actually glad I had that illness, otherwise this wouldn’t have happened!

Two of the greatest ministries—our deaf ministry and our prayer ministry—during our time at Westminster Chapel came into being as a result of Louise’s physical problems. The deaf ministry would not have happened without Louise’s ear problem. Our prayer ministry, through which we saw people healed and countless others blessed and refreshed, would not have happened but for Louise suffering severe depression for several years. It was because of chronic illness that she was open to letting others pray for her.

God may use you in His service because of an illness. He may turn you into one of the great intercessors of history. This, therefore, brings me to the subject of illness and spirituality. We are back to that word intimacy. God wants your company; He loves your company. “Me? I can’t preach. I can’t play a guitar. I can’t compose hymns. He wants me?” Yes. The most insignificant person whom no one has time for, God wants. If this chronic illness is not going to go away, why don’t you just say, “Lord, show me what You want”?

Excerpted from The Thorn in the Flesh (Charisma House, 2004).

“What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today.” —Exodus 14:11-13

Sometimes you may complain about where you are living and your conditions, and God lets you jump out of the frying pan into the fire. You think, I’d love to be back where I was! That’s the way the Israelites were. They complained so much that they made God angry. God went to Moses and said, “I’m fed up with the people. I am going to destroy them and start a new nation with you!” Moses said, “Oh no! Don’t do that!” Moses was free to leave at any time he wanted; he could have left them. For example, he could have gone to live with Jethro, his father-in-law, but he stayed right there. “So he said he would destroy them—had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him to keep his wrath from destroying them” (Ps. 106:23). Moses accepted unhappy living conditions and stayed right there. Can you do that? Can you accept that God has put you where you are for a reason? It’s not what you want to call home, but Moses made it home.

Do you have to live with so-called Christians? Do you have to live with family, but you get on each other’s nerves—perhaps you would like some space? It’s one thing to have family to stay for a day or two, but it’s quite another to have to live with them.

Could it be that God has sent that thorn in the flesh so that we would get our real joy not from the situation around us, but from the joy of the Lord (Neh. 8:10)? God could change our situation here below, and maybe He will. When? My answer: the moment His presence becomes more precious than the external circumstances that we thought were so important.

Excerpted from The Thorn in the Flesh (Charisma House, 2004).

Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” … and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” —Matthew 26:36-38

There is the loneliness of suffering—in sickness, when you are ill and alone, with no one to take care of you. When you are in a deep valley or trial, no one to talk to, what must it be like? Perhaps you have a particular type of suffering or illness, weakness or trial that no one has had but you. You look high and low for some other person who will know exactly what you are going through. You feel so lonely.

That is where Jesus comes in. There is not a single temptation that you can have that He doesn’t understand. He sympathizes; He never lectures. You may go to another person, and he may say, “Oh, are you bothered about that?” And you just feel awful that you even went to him in the first place. You then look for one other person, and sometimes you won’t find that other person or he just doesn’t understand how you feel. But Jesus does. Is this your thorn in the flesh?

There is loneliness when you have to make decisions or a judgment that isn’t going to be appreciated. And so you can be in ministry, doing the Lord’s work, but nobody appreciates what you are doing. No one is going to do it but you, and they take you for granted.

Perhaps you have taken a courageous stand, but no one understands. Listen to Paul: “At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them” (2 Tim. 4:16). There are those missionaries who have left family and friends. They have gone to an alien country, away from familiar surroundings. The loneliness of service. There is the loneliness of doing things in your own church. Nobody knows you do it, but God knows.

Excerpted from The Thorn in the Flesh (Charisma House, 2004).

“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has distributed to each of you” (Rom. 12:3, NIV). 

Do you wish to discover your spiritual gift? Two passages in particular tell you how to do it.

In 1 Corinthians 12:31, Paul says, “Covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way” (KJV). In the Greek, this passage means “the excellent way by which you discover your gifts is by love.”

It sounds almost too simple to be true: You can best discover your gift when you demonstrate agape love. Yet it is true. When we love people and long to serve them, when we totally forgive and keep no record of wrongs, then we spontaneously find ways of expressing that love and the gifts of the Spirit emerge in us. There are no shortcuts to finding the gifts. We must have hearts devoid of bitterness.

The second principle is found in Romans 12:3. Basically, what Paul is saying is “Don’t claim to have what you don’t have.”

Though we are to covet the gifts, we must not seek them for our own glory or impute to ourselves abilities that simply aren’t there. We must live sacrificial lives, seeking at each moment only to love and serve God in holiness, humility and prayer. Then, though we may not be the first violinist or the conductor, we will quite naturally and simply find our own gift and our place in the orchestra, almost without realizing it. Sometimes the position may be quite prominent. But it will be under God’s control and God’s responsibility and almost a matter of indifference to us, since all that matters is God’s glory and not ours.

One further guideline here is that God does not encourage us to be incompetent, and if we feel that we are working incompetently, then it is a pretty strong hint that we are not where God intended us to be.

If you find that these are the marks of your life, ask God what He wants you to change in your life, and then offer yourself to Him again as a living and daily sacrifice.

Excerpted from Worshipping God (Hodder & Stoughton, 2004).

So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company: Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. —Genesis 13:11-12

Abraham had a nephew by the name of Lot. The two of them reached a place where each of them had to make a choice, but it didn’t matter that much to Abraham! Why? He had obeyed. A sense of destiny was upon him, which is what kept him going. He knew that everything was not to be understood in terms of material things. Sadly, do you know what it says about Lot? He made a bad choice.

Sometimes there is something you can do about this matter of living conditions. Your living conditions may be what they are because of a bad choice. As to how you know whether you should be doing something about changing your living conditions instead of just putting up with them, the answer is twofold. First, has God unmistakably put you where you are? If so, you should stay there for the time being. He has a purpose in it for you. Second, if your being where you are is because of a hasty decision—and you have had no peace since—I would suggest God has a better plan for you. Pray that God will move you without you “jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.”

Could it be that God brought you to this place of crisis at this moment? Things can change. You may be living with the consequences of a bad choice, but it is a new day, and I would not write like this if there were no hope. Your life may not have to stay as it is. Something can happen in your heart before God, and you can say, “I am sorry!” and know that God loves you as much as He loved Lot and Abraham.

Excerpted from The Thorn in the Flesh (Charisma House, 2004).