I would like to invite you to join me for the month of January in preparing our hearts and minds for 2021. 

“I exalt You, my God the King, and praise Your name forever and ever. I will praise You every day;  I will honor Your name forever and ever.” – Psalm 145:1

In his book The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W Tozer wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us…the heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him…”

Worship of Jesus/God is by far the highest and most important thing that we do. By that I do not just mean singing songs or attending services. That is really just a small part of it. As a matter of fact “singing” is not mentioned very often in the New Testament. What I mean by worship is orienting all of life towards glorifying Jesus Christ. His fame should be the motivating factor in our lives (family, work, church, leisure etc). Several years ago I wrote this definition of worship:

Valuing God above all things with all that we are by responding to all that He is in all that we do. It is a bit of a tongue twister.

We value what we love. We love what we hold dear. What we hold dear we deeply know and trust. So the question for us as followers of Jesus is “what are we doing to make sure we are valuing, holding dear, deeply knowing and trusting Jesus?” What I have learned about me is that the more I learn about Jesus the more I realize I don’t know much at all about truly worshiping Him. He is so vast. So Big. So beautiful. So glorious. So mysterious. So much more than me.

I always need to grow in loving and worshipping Jesus.

Several years ago I started a yearly tradition that helps me in my worship. It is called the 31 Day Journey. I learned this at a conference I was attending in 1997 and have done it every year since then. I have adjusted it a little over the years but the purpose remains, worship. 

Here it is: Set aside an entire month to grow in your intimacy and worship of God. Here is what that looks like for me each day.  I usually do this for the month of January in the Book of Psalms.  

1. Pray: Father teach me something new about You or remind me of something that You need me to remember.

2. Read and Listen: Begin reading in Psalm 1 and read slowly, looking and listening for God to say something about Him that you need to hear. You may read 2 verses or 5 chapters. It doesn’t matter. But as soon as something stands out to you about God (ie. that He is strong, faithful, providing etc) stop.

3. Worship: Spend a few moments in prayer worshipping God for that part of Him. Take your time. Tell Him you love Him for that. Tell Him how you have seen that part of Him or how you need to see that part of Him.

4. Write: I know that not everyone journals but I recommend it for the 31 Day Journey. Take a moment to record what you saw in God’s Word. It could be in the form of a prayer or even just a sentence or two describing that part of Him.

5. Remember: Think about this part of God during your day.

It is that simple. Do this every day for 31 days. It is quite probable that you will not get all the way through Psalms and that is ok. It is about God and knowing Him and worshipping Him.

I am inviting all of you to join me in January 2021 on the 31 Day Journey.