Kingdom Expectation

For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St.Stephen’s University, Essentials Green Online Course with Dan Wilt

“Ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened …” All this involves a key thing called ‘expectation.’ If we ask, seek, or knock but have no expectancy of a result surely we are insane. Are we to worship but have no expectancy that God will hear and respond? Are we to pray but not expect God to answer? We have been invited into a conversation with God, not at Him, not one way.

For me a lot of what i believe comes back to the fact that I see God working in the here and now, I read of His works of old, and I can’t help but be convinced that God’s miraculous power isn’t confined to ‘once upon a time in a land far, far away.’ The Kingdom of God is “already, and not yet.” It has come and is coming. We live in a time in which God is moving, His Kingdom is advancing, and all of it points to a day when the Kingdom of God will be the only Kingdom. 

From this view point i look at worship as a lot more than a few songs, some nice tunes, and a bunch of old folks singing together. “God inhabits the praises of His people” (Psalm 22:3), thank offerings prepare the way of His salvation (Psalm 50:22), we can’t read what God said without coming to the conclusion that worship invites the rule of the King. God responds to our praise. Is this the reason we worship? No. We worship because He is worthy of our worship, and because while we were yet sinners He loved us. A by-product of worship is God moves.

 2 Chron 20 is the only passage that needs to be sighted here, as this almost explains the whole deal. A people humble themselves, fall on their faces, cry out to God in worship, and He responds. This is still the case today, sometimes seen, sometimes behind the scenes, as we worship we usher in the Kingdom of God.

I want to sing and lead from this understanding.

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