How’s Your “Oder”?
“Worship is transcendent wonder.” (Thomas Carlyle)*
“One minor change to the oder of worship for Sunday.” (A friend talking about an upcoming worship gathering.)
From the sublime to the ridiculous?
Is this a misspell or a Freudian slip?
Neither: but maybe it’s a reminder that worship is not primarily about us, but about God and bringing others to appreciate and love Him. And this kind of worship is not just about what happens at worship gatherings, but it involves all of life.
“Our offering to God is this: We are the sweet smell of Christ among people who are being saved and among people who are being lost.” (Paul in 2 Corinthians 2:15 NRS)
In another place, he said it this way:
Everything you say and everything you do should all be done for Jesus your Lord. And in all you do, give thanks to God the Father through Jesus. (Colossians 3:17 NRS)
So how is your worship “oder”?
Notes:
*From Heartlight.org, Quotemeal
I was walking through the kitchen and the fragrance of the bowl of fresh, ripe peaches drew me over and said, “Have one. I am so sweet and tasty, and so good for you.” And I could not resist. I bit into the juicy fruit, closed my eyes, and indulged in the sweet juice that slid down my throat. As I was finishing, my husband came through and I said this is so good you must have one, and he did! (Now peaches are not like the forbidden fruit, so I am surely not like Eve!)
C. S. Lewis, who weaves deep spiritual understanding into his books for children, writes about sweet smell in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Aslan, the symbolic representation of Christ in Narnia, came back from the dead after offering himself in the stead of the traitor. Susan saw him alive after seeing him dead, determined that he was not a ghost, and noticed that, “The warmth of his breath and a rich sort of smell that seemed to hang about his hair came all over her.”
Wouldn’t it be great to be so close to Christ that his sweet breath and his rich smell would come all over us in a way that would attract the people that we are around, and we could draw them to Christ and he could breathe on them and cover us all in his sweet fragrance?
Is that what you are talking about in worship, Phil? How sweet that would be.
Eph 5:2 - Live a life of love. Love other people the same as Christ loved us. Christ gave himself for us–he was a sweet-smelling offering and sacrifice to God.
Ps 141:2 - Let my prayer be accepted as sweet-smelling incense in your presence. Let the lifting up of my hands in prayer be accepted as an evening sacrifice.
2Co 2:14 - But thanks be to God. God always leads us in victory through Christ. God uses us to spread his knowledge everywhere like a sweet-smelling perfume.
Jerita
24 Jul 08 at 12:58 pm