Good message

Recently one of my friends taught a message regarding worship. He had a lot of good content, but one of the things that I was really impressed with was his discussion of worship being a way of life and a reflection of our imitation of Jesus. I often times limit my expression of worship to song and music, but I was really impressed through his message about how much more there is to worship. For instance, one of the gifts that the Lord has given me is the gift of healing. What that means practically is that the Lord physically or emotionally begins to or totally heals people. It's fun to pray for people, especially when you can see them healed. It encourages me, but for that person it gives them freedom from whatever else used to weigh them down. It's a neat thing to be able to pray for someone to get healed and to see them get healed and freed. Anyway, on Sunday I realized what an intricate connection there is between praying for healing for someone and worship. It actually IS worship for me to lay my hands on someone and pray for their healing because when they are healed it causes them to turn to the Lord in thanksgiving and worship. My act of using my gifts blesses other people, brings freedom into their life, and results in worship from that person and myself as we marvel at his goodness. What a neat thing! I don't have to be limited to solely singing to worship!! Praise the Lord that he is an artist, and ALL creation will bow down before Him.

I was marveling the other day at what an artist the Lord is, as I was looking through my pictures from Hawai'i. The Lord is such an artist. These pictures are all from the islands, but each one of them reflects God. One has a star in the middle, another has every single pertrusion pointing upward and "bowing" down to the center, and on and one. It is absolutely incredible the things that the Lord has orchestrated, and they all reflect his beauty and his glory. Our God loves us so much, that he would hide small flowers in the wilderness for us to discover their beauty and enjoy the scenary. What an awesome God!