Welcome to our first episode of Twelve24, A Ministry of Worship Transforms. My name is
Lori True and I have the privilege of being your host. We want to empower you
to live your best life through biblical inspiration and through connecting with
Jesus in face-to-face worship. All right, well let's break that down. What are we
going to be doing these podcasts and what does it mean? I've been a worship
leader, worship pastor most of my adult life and for that time I was just
intuitively known that worship can impact us in ways that nothing else can
or better said like no one else can because let's face it, worship is not
just something we do, it's a person we're encountering and that person is the very
living God of the universe. So what's the difference between singing songs to God
which we do in worship, right, and meditating on Him in worship? It's an
interesting thing to think about. Well in both our attention and our focus is on
God, it's on the Lord, it's on encountering Him, it's giving Him His honor
and due and our allegiance and our praise but when we worship in a
meditative way it's a little more directed, it's a little more focusing on
a particular aspect or attribute of God and we focus on that, we focus on who He
is and how He thinks of us in context with who He is and it's interesting what
happens but so many of us may have this image of meditation of like someone
sitting in a lotus position and chanting Om and that is derived from usually
Buddhism and then other Eastern religions and perhaps mindfulness also
that they will often teach in the schools and it's based on a premise of
emptying your mind so you can reach some kind of enlightened state. So let me be
really clear that's not the kind of meditation that we're going to be
engaging in, not the kind of meditation that I yeah not what we want to be
doing. The Bible though talks about meditation and instructs us to meditate
on His Word, to meditate on the Lord and we're to do it often day and night and
yet so often it's gotten kind of this bad rap. Well the reason that we don't
want to empty our mind of everything is because then we're completely susceptible
to everything that's in the atmosphere, everything in the spiritual atmosphere
and let's just say there's a lot that's in the atmosphere that we don't want
influencing us. We want to focus on the Lord so that He can influence us. It was
in my doctoral dissertation a few years ago that I learned a little bit more
what meditation has, meditating on a good God has the ability to do in our lives
and I was just fascinated by this. Research has shown that meditating on a
good God, that's really important we'll come back to that, meditating on a good
God for as little as 12 minutes at a time has the ability to form new healthy
neural pathways. It's so fascinating to me because they used to think that we
were stuck with the neural pathways that we had and then at a certain age they
just all began to die off and I'm so glad that's not the case because new
neural pathways can be formed but the kind of God that we meditate on really
makes a difference. So it is important that we meditate on who God really is
and that is a good God. He's a vast God. He's so much greater than we are and
when we try to grasp the greatness of who He is and those attributes of who He
is, His characteristics and then how He feels about us, well we begin to align
our thinking with His and those neural pathways grow and stretch and as I said
those are in healthy ways. We get stuck in ways of thinking that are, let's
face it, not always super healthy. There may be something that triggers us and we
get stuck in anger or we get stuck in worry and we just begin to ruminate on
it and our brain does this circular thing and we can't seem to get out of it
and being able to meditate on a good God, for instance like the fact that He says
do not fear for I am with you and you know He says don't fear in some
translations 365 times. That's one a day. So if you were to meditate on one
of those, if you had a problem with fear and you were to meditate on one of those
and who He is every day, well that's it. You are not going to fear anymore
because His truth will begin to change the way you think and when you naturally
would go down that road of fear and worry then the new neural pathway begins
to come into effect and you start thinking in a different way. Well that's
really cool right? Just the 12 minutes of focusing meditating on a good God
changes our neural thinking but there's something called the Hebbian principle
and it says this neurons that fire together wire together. So you take two
activities that have the ability to grow new neural pathways, in this case
meditation and then another one that we'll be doing and that's music and you
put them together and those neural pathways become stickier. They become
more entrenched like a well-worn pathway. So when we first go down that road, let's
say we meditate one day and we get these new neural pathways, if we don't
continue to do it those neural pathways won't remain but when we combine the
meditating on God with music in worship then it's just a little more entrenched
and we have a greater chance of it sticking. So it's like accelerating
those benefits. That's such a cool thing that God put this in place where He says
to worship Him and He doesn't say worship Him because you're gonna go
these benefits and that's not why we worship Him but how amazing it is that
when we encounter Him, when we focus on who He is, we begin to understand who He
is more, our relationship with Him grows and our thinking begins to change. I love
what 2nd Corinthians 3.18 says and it says, but we all with unveiled face
beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into that
same image from glory to glory just as by the Spirit of the Lord. It's a key
verse for me, it's a key verse for this ministry because by gazing on Him, that's
what we're doing in worship, that's what we're doing in this meditative worship,
we're gazing on Him and as we do so it's like we're seeing a reflection. I love
what the NIV says, we contemplate His glory as we contemplate Him. That glory
it's like we reflect it and we begin to be transformed. That's the word that's
used, in fact it's the same Greek word that is used for the transfiguration.
We're actually transformed into an aspect of who God is which just, I mean
honestly, just blows my mind. I can't really even grasp that with my finite
mind but it's an amazing thing what happens and by contrast Psalm 115 shows
what happens when we worship a dead God. Remember I said it was really
important to worship and meditate on a good God. We'll listen to what happens
when we meditate on or when we worship a dead God. So this is in Psalm
115 and we are starting in verse 6 and the psalmist is talking about
worshipping idols. He says well in verse 5, they have mouths but they can't speak,
they have eyes but they can't see, they have ears but they can't hear, they have
noses but they can't smell, they have hands but they can't feel, they have feet
but they can't walk, they can't make a sound with their throat and those who
make them will become like them. When we meditate on unhealthy things we begin to
become like that. If we were to meditate on a vengeful God we begin to grow
neural pathways but this time they're unhealthy and they begin to go in
alignment with that vengeful way of thinking. Oh we don't want to be doing
that. So we want to meditate on the truth of who God really is. Now as we do that
it's so important that we open ourselves up to who he is, that we open ourselves
up not just to know him because I promise you should go on this journey
with us you're going to learn things about God you never knew. He's going to
reveal things about who he is that just blows your mind because we can't help
but have that happen when we come face to face with him. But it's not just about
knowing him, it's allowing him to know us. He wants to know us which can we grasp
the the privilege that that is? I know once again I can't really grasp that but
I understand that it is beyond my wildest imagination to understand that
the God of the universe, the God who's so bigger than anything that I can imagine
wants to know me. But he cares about what I think, he cares about what I feel. He
wants to delve into all the hidden places and show me, bring them into the
light, those things those hurts that need to be healed, the insecurities that need
to find their footing in who I am in God, those maybe places of bitterness or
unforgiveness or maybe even anger at him, things I've been holding against him
and he needs to show us the truth and he wants us to know that he's a safe place
that we can do that, that we can be real with him. We know that music has a way of
really impacting our emotions. I know that that's one of the reasons that God
says to worship him through music because it does touch our emotions in
ways that nothing else can. So we want to approach our time of worship with the
Lord and meditative focus on him with opening our emotions to him, opening
ourselves up, opening our mind and our spirits and asking him to encounter us
in the place that we are. I would encourage you also that you may want to
have your Bible with you because we will be meditating on Scripture as we focus
on who he is and I'll always give you the verse. You can go to it and we can
meditate together and we'll sing before the Lord and we'll meditate on
that particular verse or a few verses. And then I also encourage you maybe have
a piece of paper or notes on your phone or whatever it is where you can, as
God reveals things to you, you can just quickly jot it down and kind of a data
dump if you will because he may either bring someone to mind in the middle of
our time together and it may be something to deal with right then but it
also may be something to think about for later and you want to set it down so you
don't worry about forgetting it and you can just focus on our special time with
the Lord. And he may also be bringing up things that he wants to talk with you
about and once again then we write it down. We're committing to kind of in
partnership with him to say, Lord we want you to heal this in my life or maybe
it's guidance or direction, something you've been praying for and a flash
comes. Don't ignore that. That's him speaking to you. When we make ourselves
open and we're in that place of worship we're focusing on him I promise you as
you continue this you will hear his voice louder than you ever have before
and he'll speak to you secrets about himself. He'll speak to you secrets
about yourself and things that he wants you to know. You can trust that he's
going to speak to you in that. So being able to write it down and come back to
it and revisit it is a great thing so you can continue to be focused on him.
These are invitations that he gives us and then you have the opportunity to
accept them and grow with him in that. So we are the way the rhythm of what it's
gonna look like. Our goal is to get them out three days a week. You can pray for
me, pray for us as we seek to do that. We would love if we were able to
do this every day but we're hoping to at least do it three days a week to start.
And in each episode we'll start with that time of a little devotion if you
will where really we are going to illustrate some aspects that we'll be
focusing on that day in worship and that that initial time where we'll discuss it
talk about it will be somewhere around five-ish minutes and then we'll move
into the worship meditation which will be at least 12 minutes but we'll see
where the Holy Spirit leads during that time. There's so much
material that we can use in focusing on him. This podcast could go on till
eternity because we will never be able to plumb the depths of who God is fully.
We'll just be able to scratch the surface. Some of the things that we will
be delving into the names of God, who he is, Jehovah Rafa our healer, Jehovah
Nisi our banner, Jehovah Shalom our peace and we'll also be looking at the
characteristics of who he is, his love, his joy, his peace, his kindness and
isn't it crazy that those things are all fruits of the Spirit and he wants to
impart to us. I love that. So there are these different aspects of who he is and
then we'll also be looking at who we are in him, who he says that we are and some
of our inheritance that we have in him as his children because that helps us to
live out how he wants us to live in partnership with him because he sees who
you really are in him and it's so so much bigger than anything that you could
even ask or imagine and he wants to reveal that to you. He wants to transform
you into that person as we become more and more like Jesus. Yes, that's what
we're going after to become more and more like him. So if you like what you've
heard at all then I just encourage you please like, subscribe and if you'd share
this with a friend we would sure appreciate that too as we try to get the
word out. We are starting from scratch here but this is something that God has
put on our hearts. It's something that I have felt compelled to do for a while
now. So I'm just excited to see where the Holy Spirit leads us as we follow him
because let's be real. It is him that we're encountering. There is an
intangible aspect of meditating on him in worship that no research can ever
show because we are encountering the very living God. As we come to him we
want to say, Holy Spirit I invite you. We invite you here with us. We invite you to
do what only you can do. We invite you to move in us. We open ourselves up to
whatever you want to do because we can trust him. We can trust him fully and
when we do that he'll move in ways beyond anything you can ask or imagine.
He'll move in ways that will blow your mind as he begins to transform you. He
begins to transform your thinking. He then begins to transform your
circumstances because you approach them differently. You pray differently about
them. He'll give you strategies on how to go after the things that he sees for
you and that maybe has been on your heart for a long time and you haven't
known what to do. He will begin to transform the people around you as you
pursue him in this. So I'm so excited that you're here with us. Can't wait to
go on this journey with you. We're gonna have a great time and we're going to
encounter the Living God who loves you more than you realize. So be blessed and
yeah, let's do this.
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