Friday, September 30 | His way: worship leads to shalom making
Read Psalm 95
“My ways.” In Psalm 95, verses 8-10 are written as God’s voice, exhorting the people to remember who God is and to live out the reality of being God’s people. He says that the people of Israel in the desert did not know His ways. The result of this was that they didn’t enter God’s rest (v. 11).
These verses affirm what we’re getting at in this study of our mission and purpose: people who know who God is and who they are live aligned with God’s ways. And when we live according to God’s ways, we experience rest - we experience shalom.
The result of our alignment with God through the practice of communal worship is that we will live life according to who God is and who we are. And when we live that way, we will bring shalom with us everywhere we go. To put it simply: The outcome of worship is a life spent on the Mission of God. That’s what we mean when we say “live fully in worship” around Harbor.
Shalom-making is the direct result of spending time with God. As we know God more and more, when we taste His goodness more and more, shalom naturally pours out of our lives. We naturally bring peace with us into every interaction. We naturally recoil at injustice. We naturally talk about who God is and make Him known.
This is why worship is SO IMPORTANT to our life as a community. It is how we align ourselves around who God is as a community, which then fuels our desire to live in service to God’s mission.
Set an alarm on your phone today for a couple of times when you will stop what you’re doing and remember who God is and worship wherever you are. (This doesn’t have to mean singing a song loudly - it can mean silently praising God for who God is). Note your emotional temperature after you take that pause for worship. Do you feel more ready to bring shalom into your situation?