We were on the rhythm of Sharing Scripture in our Wednesday house fellowship. As usually happens, the Lord had already prepared the connections between each of the verses of Scripture we had brought to share, even though we had not consulted with one another about what we were bringing. One of the children had brought a passage to share. As she read to us, we listened carefully and heard the Living Word of God speaking to us.
Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money-changers and the benches of those selling doves. ‘It is written,’ he said to them, ‘“My house will be called a house of prayer,”but you are making it “a den of robbers.”’The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David,’ they were indignant.‘Do you hear what these children are saying?’ they asked him.‘Yes,’ replied Jesus, ‘have you never read, ‘“From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise”?’ Matthew 21
A number of things struck us but one in particular stood out. The connection between the house of prayer and house of praise. As Jesus exerts his authority, he declares the temple as a house of prayer and then people are healed, and children and infants shout the praises of God (a house of praise). As our conversation continued we found the Lord reminding us that we ourselves are now the temple of the Holy Spirit, through Jesus. Surely then we should be focused on living in Jesus’ way of life, devoted to prayer, empowered for the healing of others and declaring the praises of God in all of our lives to all generations.
The following week was to be the rhythm of spiritual disciplines and inspired by the revelation of the Word in our scripture sharing, we decided to focus on the discipline of praise. How sad that we get so disconnected from the Lord that we have to make praise a ‘discipline’. But we pray that as we do, it will become a whole-life habit that come naturally to us all of the time!
We used the focus on the discipline of praise to actually worship and praise, and we talked about what we were doing as we did it. The Lord was present and continued to make himself known in and after the fellowship.
Someone messaged later to say: “I was thinking of how our bodies exude praise and adoration and got to thinking about how the sound of our breath is the name of God Yahweh. The sound of breathing in and out is literally an act of praise to God.”
Someone else replied: “God has wired us to breathe His Name! That reminds me of Genesis 2:7
Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
And John 20:22 And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’
This is the Lord giving us life, power and presence to walk in the way He has made us for.”
You give life, You are love
LISTEN TO Great Are You Lord by: Jason Ingram, David Leonard, Leslie Jordan, 2014
You bring light to the darkness
You give hope, You restore
Every heart that is broken
And great are You, Lord
It’s Your breath in our lungs
So we pour out our praise
We pour out our praise
It’s Your breath in our lungs
So we pour out our praise to You only
All the earth will shout Your praise
Our hearts will cry, these bones will say
Great are You, Lord
Join with us as we continue to pray that our own lives will be transformed by the breath of God in us so that we are temples of prayer and praise through whom the Spirit can breathe healing, hope and life into the world.
