Day by Day

Transcript

Greetings in Jesus’ name! Welcome to this beautiful new morning! I pray that today we will enjoy coming to the Lord, loving him, worshiping him, praising his name. One thing that we should never get tired of is to worship him. It is natural for us to sometimes get tired of people around us, it is natural for us to want to have our own private space and not just be out there all the time on every single day. But, it is not okay for us to ever get tired of worship. We derive our joy from worshiping our creator. We derive our pleasure from serving him, from delighting in him.

If you read the book of Numbers, chapter 28, you would find ordinances concerning how to worship God on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis and on an annual basis where there are special festivals and gatherings prescribed for the nation of Israel. But, the one verse that caught my attention was verse 3.

Numbers 28: 3 – “And you shall say to them this is the food offering that you shall offer to the Lord – Two male lambs, a year old without blemish day by day as a regular offering.”

This is the first category of offering, the daily offering. It was in fact a food offering unto the Lord. A regular offering that they had to bring to the Lord. Now, God’s expectation was that these guys will bring an offering to the Lord on a daily basis. It says “day by day” they would come and worship, “day by day” they would build an altar, “day by day” they will sacrifice, “day by day” they will lay themselves down.

Now, in the Old Testament, their worship was only external. It was about how they would bring the lambs, how much blemish is avoided in the process, how consecrated they are in their bodies, how the set-apart Levites and the priests are the ones actually involved in participating in the offering of this animal. These external factors were very important; however, when we come into the New Testament, this is still a principle that applies to us; that we come to God on a daily basis to worship him and that our worship is not substandard, but it is of a high level/standard without blemish in our hearts, and it is given to the Lord in a consecrated atmosphere, manner. This is a worship that you can do along with someone else; it could be your spouse, your children, your family members, your church people, or it can be something you can do it all by yourself. But, the most important factor is that this has to be a daily offering, it has to be a “day by day” offering, worship, intimacy that you would pursue.

God is not asking you to come to church once in a week and be satisfied with one glorious worship service that you would enjoy once a week, the beginning of the week. I am not saying that is not important. Like it says in Numbers chapter 28, there were Sabbath day offerings, there were pass over celebrations and the offerings that go along with that and then there were special offerings for each different festival, gatherings that they would have. Now, that is different, that is also important. But what is foundational is a “day-by-day“ worship unto the Lord, a ”day-by-day“ relationship. Now, our challenge is that we go to God everyday only for our needs, only for what we want God to do in our lives. We are only looking to see how we can benefit in our relationship with God. However, worship has the exact opposite purpose. It is not about how I can receive something from the Lord. It is about how I can delight in God, how I can enjoy myself in his presence. I am not saying that worship is a boring thing, I am not saying that worship is not about you, it is only about God, so you don’t have anything to enjoy in worship. No, our joy is complete when we worship God. Our joy reaches its ultimate climax in the presence of the Lord. That is why the psalmist said ”in your presence there is fullness of joy and at his right hand there are pleasures for evermore“.

So, when you worship God, you are not worshiping so that your needs can be met; however, your true spiritual, relational, emotional needs are satisfied especially when you worship God, especially when you lose yourself in the presence of God. This process has to happen on a daily basis. Not just once in a while when you have a special guest worship leader that is visiting your town, not when there is a new album released by a particular favourite band that you got, not just when you have a special encounter when a man of God visits your church or your home. No, my dear friends, this has to be day-by-day discipline of coming into the presence of the Lord and encountering his beauty, his glory and being lost in our love, in our admiration, in our adoration, and in our enjoyment of his goodness.

May the Lord strengthen your heart to worship him on a day-by-day basis.