Living Water After Class-Committed To His Worship

The point of this week's lesson was God Deserves Our Worship And Praise. The author touches on how we cheer on our favorite sports teams. I'm not much for football but over the last few years, I've enjoyed watching baseball. I enjoy the game more when the score is close and you can feel the pressure and stress of the players and the fans. I find myself not wanting to watch but at the same time not being able to turn away and at times staying up way past my bedtime to see the end result. It's the anticipation of not knowing what's going to happen next that drives me crazy! I get this same feeling when I'm reading and or listening to my mystery & suspense novels. I can get so involved in the story and characters that I find myself getting anxious and stressed over what's going to happen next. When I'm getting close to the end of the book or audiobook, I've been known to jump ahead to the end to see what happens. Then once I know, I'll go back to where I left off and finish the book. I know. I know it's horrible to do that. I'm breaking one of the "how to read a book" rules! 

One of the questions I felt the Lord asking me was why don't I read the Bible the same way as I read my other books? I remember when I first became familiar with the Bible, I would stay away from the book of Revelations. I wouldn't read it because I was afraid of the ending. I had only heard bits and pieces of what happens at the end times and since I didn't understand it, I was afraid of it so I felt the best thing to do was to just ignore it. To this day, I still haven't read Revelations. Knowing what I know now, you would think I would've jumped ahead and read the ending like I do with my other books. So the question that has yet to be answered by me is why haven't I?

In the "Live It" section of this lesson, it states to do an honest evaluation and determine if any things in your life are objects of worship. Ask God to reveal your heart and lead you to make Him first in your worship. I didn't make it very far into this lesson for God to call me out on my issues in this area. As I mentioned earlier, I love to read and listen to audiobooks. I get so excited when I start a new book and can't wait to finish it so I can start a new one. It's the same feeling God deserves from me when it comes to spending time with him and reading His Word. When I read my books, it's a time to escape and be transformed into another world and I find myself getting involved in the characters as if I'm there seeing the story unfold before my eyes. I get emotionally involved with the characters and feel their pain, frustrations, happiness, and get angry with them too. I need to approach the Word of God in the same way to where I get so involved with it that I can't put it down. That I hang on every word and just soak it into my heart and spirit. The Bible provides insight, wisdom, guidance, power, encouragement, and love. There's plenty of drama, humor, life, death, and every emotion you can think of and a long cast of characters that you will love, hate, be inspired by, ones that will frustrate and anger you, ones you will find yourself rooting for and ones you wish would be eliminated. What more could you ask for? 

My hope is that this forum will open up the dialogue further in order to hear other perspectives on these subjects. Feel free to share your thoughts and any questions you may have on this week's lesson and how it impacted you in the comments below.