Glory to the Lamb

"On any day at any hour, we just want to be with Jesus, to sit and talk with the Holy Spirit, and commune with the Father."

THE BEST PART of the book of Revelation is the descriptions of Jesus. Seeing Him as God and King and Lamb can never be praised enough. Erasing out all those weird … sorry, Holy Spirit … descriptions of seals, and vials, and horses, and also all that about tribulation and judgment and war … so basically everything but Jesus and the worship of the people, it’s a really cool book. Important. Important. I meant to say important.

I would never tell you to not read Revelation, nor alter one word spoken in it, but I do have a lot of blank post-it notes covering the portions that make no sense to me. Side note, I need to buy more post-its. What does make sense is the honor and magnificence of Him who is in control of all of it. And the angels. The angels are cool. But they do what John did, who had the vision, what the people do who surround Him in the throne room, all their focus is on giving the glory of redemption to the Savior.

Okay, sit here with me for a moment, and let’s discuss this. Why do we worship? Our human mind says, “Oh, I know! Ego!” Buzz. Wrong answer. We do not worship to polish the throne. One, it’s made of something awesome, probably gold or diamonds or some heavenly material not on earth. It doesn’t need polishing. Second, because God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is the humblest of all. (I talked about this a few weeks ago. IF YOU WERE READING. Hint. Hint.) He knows full well who He is and what He can do (He cannot NOT DO anything. Interesting thought, huh?). But because He has so much love, so much compassion, He prefers us first. That’s an educated way of saying, Papa loves His children.

READ "The Humble Ones" https://sdwauthor.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-humble-ones.html

So ex-ing out ego. Why do we worship? Because He is so great and wonderful. That’s part of it. He is so much more than we are, and He cares for us. Also, because He is holy. This is His purity. He is pure truth, pure knowledge, pure power. He is absolute goodness. I love to worship His holiness, His beauty, and generosity. But here’s something you may not have considered. We worship because He asks us to worship. As my mom says when she’s teaching, I’m walking you into a trap.

Having just eliminated ego from the reasons, He does not ask us to worship to build up His image for Himself. He does ask to build up His image within us. We must keep His power and authority in front of us at all times. We must see Him as kindness and healing. Only when we know Him for who He is, when we know His character and nature, when His eternal life in us is our focus, not simply as time but as quality, can we be the just, the righteous, who live by faith. But seeing Him without experiencing Him is like viewing a painting. It may be excellent art, but we will never meet the person in the image. I can stare at Van Gogh’s self-portrait all day and never know one thing about Van Gogh.

Worship places us in the presence of God, and in His presence, we are changed. We do not come away the same person who entered. And here’s the best part – the more we worship, the more aware of Him we will be, the more we will see in the Spirit, the more we will know wisdom and revelation, the more He will speak, and we will understand Him. Also, a side effect is being changed inwardly, being changed mentally, our desires altering as well. We now hunger and thirst for righteousness. We’d rather read the Word than watch a movie. We’d rather pray than gripe and complain.

On any day at any hour, we just want to be with Jesus, to sit and talk with the Holy Spirit, and commune with the Father. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Worship is done in the temple.

Worship changes us to think like God. Love becomes precedent. (Meaning, important. Like Revelation.) Compassion wells up within us for the angry and confused, as well as the poor. We see those who hate us and desire their salvation and not for them to take an easy trip south. We grieve where God grieves. We rejoice when He rejoices. (And first step to breakthrough is you saying, “Man, that sounds boring as all, so I’m going to seek it and change who I am!”)

Analogy. It’s like you are all into gardening. It’s what you spend your time doing. You buy plants more than pants. But then, you get up one morning and say, “You know what? I’m going to play tennis today.” And your husband looks at you like with that look that says, “My wife is not here today.” But one tennis game turns into two and three, and now it’s all you want to do, and your poor plants are dying … Oh, erase that part.

Analogy. It’s like you are into reading the gospels. You love Matthew especially. But then, one day, you read Revelation. Wait … what?

I’m not so good a singer. I have a hard time remembering the lyrics (fancy word for “words”). I have an eclectic like for certain genres and others do not interest me so much. (I once played a solid hour of polka.) When encouraged to worship, at first, I balked. Despite being a writer, I don’t particularly talk too much, so even when worshipping, you will not hear me. I’m at volume -10. But what I resisted doing became my lifeline to peace and healing that I have needed many times since then, and now, it is the great joy in my day.

Because there in God’s presence, I am so much better than I am on my own. He deserves all the glory for who I am and for who I will become. Only in Him, do I have any vision of the future. Only in Him, do I find hope.

Only because of Him can I read Revelation and see more than a lot of confusing lingo. For He’s there in the first, beautiful verse. “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.”

REVELATION 7:9-12 MSG
“I looked again. I saw a huge crowd, too huge to count. Everyone was there—all nations and tribes, all races and languages. And they were standing, dressed in white robes and waving palm branches, standing before the Throne and the Lamb and heartily singing: Salvation to our God on his Throne! Salvation to the Lamb!

All who were standing around the Throne—Angels, Elders, Animals—fell on their faces before the Throne and worshiped God, singing: Oh, Yes! The blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving, The honor and power and strength, To our God forever and ever and ever! Oh, Yes!”

Image by Bianca Van Dijk from Pixabay


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com