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Intention in Worship
pastor of Chicago's Southside Alliance Church from 1928 to 1959. He never went to a Bible school, seminary or university, but his many writings have consistently and powerfully directed the reader's attention to the amazing God who desires our love, devotion and worship. INTENTION IN WORSHIP God tells us to make a sanctuary of our thoughts in which He can dwell. He treasures our pure and loving thoughts, our meek and charitable and kindly thoughts. These are the thoughts like His own. As God dwells in your thoughts, you will be worshiping, and God will be accepting. He will be smelling the incense of your high intention even when the cares of life are intense and activity is all around you. If God knows that your intention is to worship him with every part of your being, He has promised to cooperate with you. On his side is the love and grace, the promises and the atonement, the constant help and the presence of the Holy Spirit. On our side there is determination, seeking, yielding, believing. Your heart becomes a chamber, a sanctuary, a shrine in which there may be continuous, unbroken fellowship and communion with God. Your worship rises to God moment by moment . . . There really is no argument. We know what God wants us to be. He wants us to be worshipers! — A. W. Tozer (1879-1963), in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO WORSHIP? Compiled and edited by Gerald B. Smith. Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: Christian Publications, 1985, p. 127. ISBN 0-87509-367-1 [Be intentional!] Have a great week, Chip Stam Director, Institute for Christian Worship School of Church Music and Worship Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Louisville, Kentucky carlstam@aol.com www.carlstam.org www.sbts.edu |