The Big Diehl

Two years ago I talked about playing hide and seek with God. I want to add a little more emphasis on our need to take initiative and go find him. Proverbs 25:2 says,

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.

I love this verse; I can’t think of a better sentence to describe our relationship with God. The contrast is totally killer. God likes to hide from us, he actually HIDES. He doesn’t hide so hard we can’t find him, but he hides enough that we have to search for him.

Gosh, I’m such an idiot sometimes. If I need guidance or direction from the Holy Spirit I will ask him for help, and then immediately crowd my life so full of distraction (usually more work) that I wouldn’t be able to hear God if he was standing in front of me with a bullhorn. I ask God for help, but I don’t listen for His voice and I immediately start worrying about it. It’s like I expect God to physically slap me on the back of the head and say, “ADAM, I WANT YOU TO …”

That’s such a disappointment! It’s God’s glory to hide. But its our glory to search for Him.

My worship team is a really weird group of people if you think about it. Some of them are tall, some of them short. Some of them wear their feelings on their cuff, others of them are content never saying an extra word. Some would like to express their worship by jumping up and down, others would prefer to quietly meditate. Each of them have different musical strengths and weaknesses. Each of them have a significantly contrasting emotional makeup. My first inclination is to see differences as a weakness because we all tend to think others should be like us. Every time I really ponder on how everyone on the worship team is so different from everyone else I can’t help but say out loud, “Yea, I’m pretty sure I serve with the best worship team in the world.” (That’s no joke, I say that nearly every weekend).

I’m glad my worship team has figured it out. I hope we always remember the importance of unity on a worship team. In 2 Chronicles 5:11-14 there is an example of how the Holy Spirit totally knocked the Believer’s socks off when the worship team was in complete unity.

The number one destroyer of worship is a dis-unified worship team. Staying unified takes more work, but if we don’t do it - we’re kind of like the Amazing Precision Marching Band. Check out this video

I was recently cleaning up my desk and I found a blank sheet of paper folded in half with some notes written all over it. Not sure where they came from, I think I took these notes while listening to John Bevere speak. I liked it… so I figured I’d post it here:

A sinner has a sinful nature and can’t help but sin! We (Christians) often get mad at them for sinning, but they’re sinners - its what they do! Sinning is in step with who they are. But for a Christian to live in habitual sin just doesn’t make sense — its out of step. 

Saying the prayer and confessing Christ does not change the NATURE. Christianity requires a nature change. You can’t just join the “born again club” with an initiation statement. 

“Jesus, I relinquish my rights to live for You — whatever You want.”

FOLLOWING JESUS COSTS YOUR FREEDOM. 

We proud Americans don’t like to hear that - we like to focus just on how Jesus gives us FREEDOM from sin. That is great — Jesus DOES give us freedom from sin and that is wonderful! But I’m talking about how we Christians must give up our freedom to do what we want to do for what God wants us to do. We relinquish our right to do what we want. That process is called sanctification.