Worship is not an experience. Worship is an act, and this takes discipline. We are to worship ''in spirit and in truth.'' Never mind about the feelings. We are to worship in spite of them.
Interpretation
Worship is a committed action rooted in discipline rather than mere emotional experience.
Elisabeth Elliot emphasizes that worship is not just about the feelings we experience but is a conscious act that requires discipline and commitment. True worship is performed 'in spirit and in truth,' meaning it is authentic and sincere, transcending fluctuating emotions and focusing on devotion and integrity.
In practice
During a sermon, to reinforce the importance of intention in worship.
We are not asked to SEE," said Amy. "Why need we when we KNOW?" We know--not the answer to the inevitable Why, but the incontestable fact that it is for the best. "It is an irreparable loss, but is it faith at all if it is 'hard to trust' when things are entirely bewildering?
Prayer lays hold of God's plan and becomes the link between His will and its accomplishment on earth. Amazing things happen, and we are given the privilege of being the channels of the Holy Spirit's prayer.
What sort of world might it have been if Eve had refused the servants offer and had said to him instead, “let me not be like God. Let me be what I was made to be - let me be a woman'?
Restlessness and impatience change nothing except our peace and joy. Peace does not dwell in outward things, but in the heart prepared to wait trustfully and quietly on Him who has all things safely in His hands.
If your goal is purity of heart, be prepared to be thought very odd.
Teach me to treat all that comes to me with peace of soul and with firm conviction that Your will governs all.
In the Church of Jesus Christ there can and should be no non-theologians.
Let this be to you the mark of true gospel preaching - where Christ is everything, and the creature is nothing; where it is salvation all of grace, through the work of the Holy Spirit applying to the soul the precious blood of Jesus.
I was raised in an evangelical Methodist church. Evangelical meant that though you had been baptized and made a member of the church on Sunday morning, you still had to be 'saved' on Sunday night. I wanted to be saved, but I did not think you should fake it.
To fail to pray, then, is not to merely break some religious rule- it is a failure to treat God as God.
Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity and racial equality.
If you have no joy in your religion, there's a leak in your Christianity somewhere.
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