Worship in All of Life (Daily Encouragement)
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you!
Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!”
For my brothers and companions’ sake I will say, “Peace be within you!”
For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good. – Psalm 122:6-9
Throughout Scripture we see a call for God’s people to set apart a day to gather and worship God together. As we have seen, it gives space to celebrate God, center our lives on him, be with God’s family, give thanks to God and receive God’s word (among a myriad of other things). This one day also shapes the rest of our days – the other six. When we worship, we are reminded each week of the peace (shalom) and security (prosperity) we have in Christ (v/6-9). We then live in light of this peace and security AND bring peace and security throughout the rest of the week.
Peace (Shalom) – It gathers all aspects of wholeness that result from God’s will being completed in us. Every time Jesus healed, forgave or called someone, we have a demonstration of shalom.
Prosperity (Security) – The root meaning is leisure—the relaxed stance of one who knows that everything is all right because God is over us, with us and for us in Jesus Christ.
The peace and security we are reminded of when we gather shapes us on 3 levels throughout the other 6 days:
Personally – through Christ we have God’s will being completed in us and a “relaxed” stance no matter our circumstances because we know God is over us, with us and for us in Jesus Christ.
Church Family – we seek the good of our “brothers and companions” – in short, we build up the lives of the body of Christ.
Our Community – while our community and country is NOT Jerusalem, Israel, God’s nation etc., just as Jesus loved the world and just as God’s people sought the good and shalom of Babylon (Jeremiah 29), we seek to bring a level of peace and prosperity to where God has placed us. This makes sense of the call to be light in darkness, to be salt and a city set on a hill (Matthew 6).
So our worship on Sunday is vital and important not just because of what happens there, but because of what happens as we are sent from there to point our communities to the hope we have in Jesus.