One of the things that has often bothered me as a missionary in Latin American countries is when I see Christians shying away from certain activities or events because of the strong Catholic association. The main one that comes up every year is the lack of emphasis I see in Christian churches on the celebration of the resurrection of Christ.

Semana Santa

In the Catholic tradition the Holy Week, or Semana Santa as we call it here in Mexico, is a very important week. Most people see it as a week of vacation and nothing more. However, the Catholic church seems to unnaturally worship this blessed time. As an outside observer it seems that each day of the week is worshiped more than the events in which the days represent.

Palm Sunday

Tomorrow is Palm Sunday and the streets will be filled with people who won’t be able to enter into their church of choice because the crowds are so large. Everyone will have their palm fronds tied into crosses. Most of the houses in the neighborhood have already started displaying their palm cross.

I don’t pretend to know what it is they will speak about in the service tomorrow. I just know it will be well attended by regular and casual church members.

Resurrection Sunday

The rest of the week will have special celebrations each day culminating on Easter Sunday. I am conflicted with what I will see throughout the week. There will be very sincere people worshiping in their own way. I personally believe they are worshiping the wrong thing, but my point is that they are very dedicated to what they believe.

Going Too Far

While I disagree with my Catholic friends in their extreme worship of events, I am equally saddened by the way I have seen many Christian churches react to the Catholic fanaticism. It seems that in many churches I have been around, even good churches, they want to avoid any type of Catholic association with the remembrance of Jesus’ resurrection that they do nothing special on Easter Sunday. It is like any other service.

Pastors have told me (particularly ones who were saved out of a Catholic background) that they feel the association of the events surrounding the Easter celebration are too closely tied to the Catholic church. They want to make a distinction between their Christian church and the Catholic one their people left. It is like they are allowing the Catholics to control their church’s belief in the Scriptures.

Not Just Easter

Many years ago my wife and I were in an area in Kentucky where a strong group of legalistic Baptists dominated the thinking. Loosely defined, legalism is when a person or church believes that you may be saved by grace, but unless you live a certain way or with a certain set of rules, you probably weren’t really saved in the first place.

What we found in the church we visited was that they were trying to disassociate themselves from the legalistic churches. Therefore the people came to church completely “dressed down.” The pastor wore ratty jeans and flip-flops—and he was one of the best dressed people in the church. He specifically said they were trying to do “whatever they could” to keep people from thinking they were part of the legalistic crowd. Going as far as he did with this thinking he allowed wrong teaching to control his ministry. Going, in my opinion, too far away from error that he passed the truth and went into error the opposite direction.

Where have you or your church allowed others to control your beliefs?

Several months ago I saw the comment about Psalm 100 which said, “He is God. He is good.” That has stuck with me. These two thoughts come from verses 3 and 5. He is both almighty God and inherently good.

Make a Joyful Noise

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Psalm 100

1 Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands.

2 Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.

3 Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

5 For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

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Verse 1 is a shout of loyalty and homage. It is also found in Psalm 66:1. Where is your loyalty? To God? Or to people and things?

Serve and Worship

It is a joy to serve the Lord. We can serve with gladness as verse 2 proclaims. A Christian should be pleased with an opportunity to serve God: not run from service when God gives a task to fulfill.

The second thought in verse 2 is to sing to the Lord. Corporate worship is not a solo performance. It doesn’t matter what you sound like, it matters that you are praising your God with gladness. Does it bother you to see people in church not singing with the congregational songs? While they may truly be worshiping internally, often when I see this it is coupled with body language that says they are not interested in being present in church.

He is God

The thought that keeps pulling me back to this Psalm is found in verse 3. He is God. He is our shepherd. He is there to guide, protect and provide. A shepherd does this for his sheep. Our God is there to care for us as well. We can rest in Him and trust His care.

Noisy Worship

Though we talk much about private worship, public worship is important as well. God can use your worship, praise and thankfulness to bring glory and honor to Him.

He is Good

Why do all this? Because He is good. His goodness is shown in His mercy. He existed in the times of our ancestors and He will exist after we are gone. He is consistent throughout history. What a wonderfully good God we are allowed to serve.

He is God and He is good.

Recently I was in Ethiopia and was privileged to be part of a prayer meeting in which the people were praying specifically for missions. It really was an amazing meeting. There were pastors, missionaries and church members.

I was struck by how the different people in the meeting prayed. Keep in mind that I could not understand the words of the language. What I could understand, though, was the seeming attitude in their prayers that spilled out in the way they spoke.

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And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

—Matthew 6:5-7[/pullquote]

God: Feared Ruler

A couple of people prayed in a way that seemed too familiar. They prayed as if they were carefully slipping into the room of a ruler whom they feared, but maybe not respected. It is a way many of us are taught to pray. We are given formulas for approaching God as if a protocol minister were preparing us to enter into the throne room of an angry king.

We should certainly take our prayers seriously and with gravity, yet we should also see God as someone who loves us. God is not looking for an excuse to beat us over the head with His scepter. He has invited us to approach Him with confidence through the authority of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Televangelist Prayer

One of the ladies who prayed sounded like a televangelist yelling at her audience trying to convince them of their wickedness and need for repentance. The problem is that she was speaking to God. It almost sounded like she was angry at Him and trying to coerce Him into granting her petition. This reminded me of the story Jesus told in Luke 18:9-14 about the proud Pharisee and humble tax collector in which Christ said the humble one would have his sins forgiven.

Approaching God with confidence is appropriate, but there should be some reverence mixed in. When you go to God flippantly, or with the idea that you are the boss telling Him what He should do for you, then you have crossed the line from confidence to arrogance. That is exactly the perceived attitude that came through this lady’s prayer. I say “perceived” attitude because I really don’t know the lady, her heart or even the words she was saying, but I think the way we speak tells much about our attitude and thoughts.

God: Respected Friend

One older pastor prayed as if God was in the room with him. He spoke in a respectful way that seemed to exude an understanding of holiness; yet his prayer was confident as if he were speaking to a friend.

I appreciated his balance of respect and closeness to God. Prayer was obviously not something new to this man. His prayer was like talking to a friend he greatly respected and trusted.

We should pray to God as a king, judge, respected elder and friend. The proper attitude in prayer is somewhere mixed into the middle of all those ideas.

Theocracy

Israel was set up as a Theocracy. This is a type of government whose leader is God. Though God did not come down and sit on a throne, He always led the country by speaking through a designated person. A clear start for this type of leadership is seen in Moses when he was told by God to help free Israel from Egypt. Later the spokesperson was Joshua. Yet God had been leading Israel in this way for centuries.

Judges

After Joshua died the people of Israel preferred not to listen to God’s leadership and they went their own way. God sent various men and women in the book of Judges to lead the nation back to a better relationship with Him. However, one of the common phrases in the book of Judges is “they did that which was right in their own eyes.” They did not want to seek God and His leadership.

Samuel

Samuel, as priest, became the spokesperson for God. When he was old the people rose up and said that they wanted a king to rule over them so that they would be like all the other nations around them (1 Samuel 8:5). They began to look at the world and imitate their leadership style. Israel had grown tired of God.

Samuel went to God to tell what was going on (like God didn’t already know). The old priest was pretty disheartened. But God assured Samuel that it wasn’t Samuel’s leadership they were rejecting, they were rejecting God (1 Samuel 8:6-9). They wanted a finite, fallible man and not an all knowing, perfect and holy God leading them. Man could be bought and controlled. God wasn’t going to change no matter how much they tried to bribe Him.

King

God said  that they could have a king, but He also warned them through Samuel what a king would mean. A king would take many of their children to be slaves and servants as royal guards, military leaders and field workers. Their daughters would also be taken as servants to cook and bake for the king. Their best fields would be seized by the king as his own land. And then, on top of all the king took (not purchased or hired) he would then enact a 10% tax on everything they had (1 Samuel 8:11-18).

Even after this full explanation they said they still wanted a king. For what purpose? “That we also may be like all the nations…” They were tired of God leading them and they wanted to be like the world.

Your King?

We don’t live in a theocracy in any government today. However, as individual Christians we have a God who wants to live and reign in our lives. He requests not just 10%, He wants our whole lives. Yet He doesn’t do it by force. He allows us to choose to serve Him. He gives great blessings and guidance in return for our service. But how many of us are like Israel and choose to reject God as sovereign and want to have the same type of leadership the world has?

One of my favorite stories in the Bible comes at the end of 1 Samuel 15. This is a few years after a king was chosen and “old Samuel” was even more advanced in age. The people had said they didn’t want an old man ruling their nation who was not able to go out to war and fight. Yet in the final verses of chapter 15 Samuel chops up an enemy king with a sword. Though I have never done that, I can’t imagine that it would be an easy task. Samuel sounds like a pretty spry young man to me.

I was in a mission conference last week where one of the missionaries gave us a nice outline on how to pray for missionaries. He took Matthew 9:38 as his passage. His main goal was to get us to think about the needs of missionaries and how we should pray for them.

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Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.

Matthew 9:38[/pullquote]

Pray for Missionaries to be Sent

• Not much explanation to that. The point is that God is calling and wanting to send them, but are they willing to go and are they getting the help they need to get there?

Pray for Missionaries to be Sustained

• Pray for them Physically
• Pray for them Spiritually
  • That they would hold their personal walk with God to be vitally important
  • That they would preach boldly
  • That they would witness effectively
• Pray for them Mentally
  • For language studies
  • For legal matters in the country
• Pray for them Emotionally
  • Particularly in the area of culture shock
• Pray for the Morally
  • Temptation does not stop when you arrive on the field
• Pray for the Socially
  • Their relationship to other missionaries
  • Their relationship to government
  • Their relationship to nationals
• Pray for them Domestically
  • That they would be good parents
  • That they would be good spouses
• Pray for them Financially

Pray for Missionaries to be Successful

• Being what God wants them to be
• Going where God wants them to go
• Doing what God wants them to do
• Accomplishing what God expects them to accomplish

I talked about praying for missionaries in another post. I think the different ways we can pray for missionaries is very helpful.