worship

Our God is an amazing God! In this Worship Changes Our Perspective Blog Series, I’ve only touched on a few of His attributes. As we’ve seen, God is sovereign, love, wise, good, just, and faithful. Yet, He’s also infinite, all-powerful, ever-present, all-knowing, holy, truth, merciful, gracious, never changing, and the list of His attributes goes on. As we worship God in these and other ways, our thoughts about God and life change. The result – actions that reflect more of God’s perspective.

So, the big question now is how do we grow in our worship of God so that our life and leadership will increasingly reflect His character?

Our knowledge of God influences the extent to which we can worship Him as He really is and order our life accordingly. How do we grow in our knowledge of God? Even though we do see evidence of God’s character in His creation, we learn about Him primarily from His Word, the Bible. How do we get to know someone better? By spending time with that person. In the same way, as we truly listen to God as He speaks through His Word, not just reading the words on a page but really hearing the voice of God as He reveals Himself and His desires for us, we’ll be able to worship God more completely and this will impact the way we think and live.

As leaders, we often see people’s faithfulness, as they remain loyal in tough times or go the extra mile to achieve superior results. Yet, we also experience people’s forgetfulness, half-hearted efforts, and disloyalty to us personally and to the larger organizational cause.

I’m so thankful that God is faithful. Even after the destruction of Jerusalem, the prophet Jeremiah could write in Lamentations 3:22-23, “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

God is always with us as we go through the highs and lows of life. As the Israelites stood on the edge of the Promised Land for the second time, Moses exhorted the Israelites in Deuteronomy 31:6, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” The Israelites could count on God’s faithful presence and provision. We can, too.

Even when we face temptation, our faithful God has promised a way of escape. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

Of course, sometimes we chose not to follow the way of escape from temptation. Thankfully, we know from 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 2 Timothy 2:13 tells us that even when we are faithless, God remains faithful because He cannot deny Himself. Nothing can separate us from God’s love as we see in Romans 8:38-39: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We also know that God is faithful to fulfill His promises as we see in the last half of Psalm 145:13: “The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does.” Near the end of his life, Joshua could attest that every one of God’s promises had been fulfilled; not one had failed (Joshua 23:14). The Bible is full of God’s promises to us. We can stand on these promises!

And one of those promises points to His faithful work in our lives. Paul could say about the Philippians that He who began a good work in them would finish it (Philippians 1:6). God is doing the same finishing work in all His children.

Do you ever feel like you’ve been unjustly treated? Perhaps, you’ve been a victim of other people’s poor choices or circumstances that you had little or no control over. Life sometimes seems very unfair.

As leaders, we’re particularly prone to experiencing unfair treatment. Someone gets the credit for work you did. A group covertly lobbies for your ouster from a project or even your position. You work really hard on something only to have your team move in a different direction. Personal slights, undermining, end runs where someone goes around you to get what they want, both subtle and overt character assassinations, lack of respect, mutinies, insubordination, and the nasty list of injustices goes on.   

In previous blogs, we saw the importance of worshipping God as sovereign, loving, wise, and good. When we worship God as sovereign in the midst of injustice, we acknowledge that He is still on His throne, working out His ultimate plans despite people’s best attempts to thwart them. When we revere God as a God who loves, we can find our comfort and solace in His loving arms. We can allow His love to transform our hearts and the way we view the perpetrators of the injustice. When we worship God as wise, we can imagine with hope that God’s wise ways transcend the immediate. His wisdom has an eternal outlook. God is also good. He can bring good even out of the bad stuff. Our God is a redeeming God – One who delights in taking what people intend for evil and turning it into something good, as we see in the story of Joseph in Genesis.

Deeply adoring God in these ways helps us to face injustice in a helpful, God-honoring way. Yet, we also know from Scripture that God is just. Isaiah 30:18-19 says, “Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.”