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Worship and Experience

Ziphen Central – Seeking Wisdom and Sublimity

Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous!
For praise from the upright is beautiful.
(Psalm 33:1)

Driving around Fort Worth not long ago, I noticed a sign for a certain denominational congregation. Instead of the customary “Worship Times” label on the sign, it read “Experience Times.” This caught my eye because, while I had heard the use of the phrase “worship experience,” I had never before seen the word “worship” entirely excluded.

This got me to thinking—what are things coming to? This group who professed to follow Christ was evidently placing more emphasis on the worshipers’ experience than the fact that this worship was directed towards God. I believe that worship is (or at least should be) a very thrilling and uplifting experience, and if it is not so for you, perhaps you are not putting your heart into it. But while we should find joy in worship, it’s not about the experience we get.

God is great, God is mighty, and that’s why we worship Him! Let’s keep Him in the central focus. Let’s not forget why we worship, and that it is all about Him. People will not be attracted to the church by a special “worship experience,” but by seeing devoted Christians humbly magnifying their Savior through a pure desire to give Him what He deserves.

Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness!
Tremble before Him, all the earth.
(Psalm 96:9)

Bearing the Cross

Ziphen Central – Seeking Wisdom and Sublimity

From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander

“My little woman in brown was there again. I found myself laughing more than once, she has such a comic look.”

“It is wrong, my dear, to laugh at other people’s oddities.”

“I know it is, mamma, and I just laughed inside. I don’t think it was observed. Really, I couldn’t help it. Brown dress and apron, brown bonnet, brown eyes, brown skin—a regular ‘brownie.’”

“Did you manage to hear any of the sermon, Maud, or were you taken up entirely with Miss Baker’s appearance?”

Maud gave her mother a quick, reproachful glance, and seated herself on a low stool beside the coach; for Mrs. Weir had been kept from church by a severe headache.

“Yes, indeed, I can tell you a good deal about it. He preached about crosses. First, of course, he told how, anciently, people were put to death in that way; what a shameful, ignominious death it was. Then he told us of the death of our Savior on the cross, which forever hallowed it. He spoke of the cross Constantine saw, or thought he saw, and how it became to all devout Catholics a symbol of their religion. O, he told us a great many things about crosses; but the strangest thing was of a sect in our own land, a half-mad people, who hold to the Roman Catholic belief, but who are far more fanatical. Read More

Hymn of the Week – In the Service of My King

Ziphen Central – Seeking Wisdom and Sublimity

Words and music by Tillit S. Teddlie
Cyber Hymnal entry

To the harvest fields I will gladly go,
In the service of my King,
With a song of love to the faint and low,
In the service of my King!

In the service of my King,
In the service of my King!
It is glory there, joy beyond compare,
In the service of my King.

Let me ever work with a willing hand,
In the service of my King,
Guided by His Word, heeding each command,
In the service of my King!

Let me win some soul that his life may be
In the service of my King;
Let me sing some song that will make me free,
In the service of my King!

Just a kindly word or a song of prayer,
In the blessèd service of my King,
That the lost may turn and His glory share,
In the blessèd service of my King!

The Weaver

Ziphen Central – Seeking Wisdom and Sublimity

From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander

One morn when the sun peeped over the hills,
Where tinkled the music of flowing rills,
And the dew lay thick on leaf and flower,
And the soft breeze shook an odorous shower
From the trees, and the world was all abloom—
A weaver sat at his busy loom.
He saw the sky so pure and blue,
And the pale spring flowers wet with dew.
He heard, as he wove, the hum of bees;
He caught the scent of blossoming trees,
The babble of water borne on the air,
With song of bird so high and clear;
The brightness of every beautiful thing
He caught as he worked, and wove them in.
The sun grew warmer, the day wore on;
The weaver beguiled the time with song.
He sung of the deeds of heroic men
Who died for freedom in bog or fen,
And his arm grew strong; he smote the beam
With strength unknown to his boyish dream;
And into the web he wove his pride,
His hopes, and his joys, so multiplied
Till under his hand they burned and blazed,
And the weaver looked on all amazed.
He wove in the richest, gaudiest dyes—
Scarlet like the birds of paradise;
Blue, deep blue, like the vaulted sky;
Gold like the sunbeams glinting by;
Green like the leaves of the swaying trees;
But he lost the sound of the gentle breeze.
Better he liked the roaring blast,
Which bowed the forest as on it passed.
He heeded no longer the babble of brooks
Hid in the coolness of shady nooks.
The roar of the waterfall, music made—
He loved the noonday, and not the shade.
The day wore on. The weaver still
Struck the beam with force of arm and will;
But he wearied now of the flaming dyes,
Gold and purple and blue of the skies,
And scarlet like birds of paradise.
Now with the gold of the wheaten sheaf
He mingled the brown of the russet leaf;
And, withered and pallid among the green,
Full many a faded flower was seen;
And many a snarl and many a knot,
And many a rent and unsightly spot.
He heart the whip-poor-will’s plaintive cry,
The raven’s croak, and the lone dove’s sigh;
And strangely, with grief and sadness blent,
Came a joy that the day was almost spent.
The day was done. The loom was still;
The arm no longer obeyed the will.
From the nerveless hands the shuttle dropped;
The tired feet the treadles stopped;
And before the Master’s eyes unrolled,
Lay the long day’s work heaped fold on fold.