“Yet You are holy, O You who dwell in the praises of Israel.” Psalm 22:3.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Stop looking so hard at yourself and look at Me. I am your great reward. Keep your eyes on Jesus, as you behold Him you are transformed from glory to glory.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:17-18.
I beautify you in Yeshuah, Salvation, Jesus. When you are baptized into Christ, you clothe yourself in Christ.
Let them praise His name with dancing; let them sing praises to Him with timbrel and lyre. For the LORD takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation (Yeshuah). Psalm 149:3-4.
You will never be happy looking at yourself to see if you measure up for Me. You will see failures, missed opportunities, things you have done that you are now ashamed of, and you will forget to see the good. The devil will help you with this. He is the accuser of the brethren. Even what you did out of ignorance, he will throw in your face with clarity of hindsight. What is the answer? Look past yourself to Me. I GAVE you the Kingdom of Heaven, what more do you want? Is there anything bigger or better than that? I GAVE you Jesus, is there anyone greater you could know? I GAVE you the Holy Spirit that unites you with Me and fills you with My fullness, could you go any higher? I GIVE the Spirit without measure to those who speak My Words, as much as your heart can hold. And above all that, I GAVE you Myself as your very great reward. You cannot earn anything better no matter how famous you get, how many businesses you start, or how many best-selling books you write.
You have it all, every spiritual blessing in Heaven, just by receiving Jesus as Lord.
When you realize who you are in Christ and what I have given you freely in Him by grace you will spend the rest of your life, indeed your FOREVER, in a relationship with Me of profound awe and gratitude. I have done everything you could ask for or imagine in Jesus. And that is My Will for you who are IN Christ Jesus—rejoice always in Me, pray without ceasing in fellowship with Me, and give constant thanks for all I have done and am doing for you to give you EVERYTHING for an abundant life of goodness in Christ Jesus. It is all taken care of already, perfectly. All you have to do is know you have it and actively receive it at My throne of grace where I have seated you already in Spirit in Christ Jesus.
And I seek those who worship Me in Spirit and in truth. Why? Worship is to be the lifestyle you live to never fear, never be anxious, never be depressed, never be defeated, and never be unhappy again. Do you know what true worship is, not feigned worship, but true worship?
WORSHIP IS LOOKING AT WHAT I HAVE DONE FOR YOU RATHER THAN WHAT YOU HAVE DONE FOR ME.
It can result in singing, dancing, playing music unto Me but it can be as quiet as taking place in the inner sanctuary of your heart where My Spirit dwells.
David knew how to worship. Listen to his song and see where he is looking, and it is not at himself or what he has done, he is looking at Me and telling his soul, that was trying to be depressed with the circumstances in his life, the amazing, awesome things I do for him and not to forget any of them but to rely on them in his current situation.
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits; He pardons all your iniquities, He heals all your diseases; He redeems your life from the pit, He crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion; He satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle. Psalm 103:1-5.
And here he sat quietly before Me, looking at My overwhelming goodness to him. He did not take it lightly, or as if by chance, he did not brag it was based on his great abilities or expertise, he saw it as it was, My work on his behalf to make him great which he had not achieved and could not on his own.
Then David the king went in and sat before the LORD, and he said, “Who am I, O Lord (Adonai) LORD (Yahavah), and what is my house, that You have brought me this far? And yet this was insignificant in Your eyes, O Lord LORD, for You have spoken also of the house of Your servant concerning the distant future. And this is the custom of man, O Lord LORD. Again what more can David say to You? For You know Your servant, O Lord LORD! For the sake of Your word, and according to Your own heart, You have done all this greatness to let Your servant know. For this reason You are great, O Lord LORD; for there is none like You, and there is no God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears.” 2 Samuel 7: 18-22.
And looking at Me and all I had done to bless him made him grateful, not only with his lips, but also in his offerings. You see this over and over in his life of offering Me nothing that was not of value to him.
Then David said to Ornan, “Give me the site of this threshing floor, that I may build on it an altar to the LORD; for the full price you shall give it to me, that the plague may be restrained from the people.” Ornan said to David, “Take it for yourself; and let my lord the king do what is good in his sight. See, I will give the oxen for burnt offerings and the threshing sledges for wood and the wheat for the grain offering; I will give it all.” But King David said to Ornan, “No, but I will surely buy it for the full price; for I will not take what is yours for the LORD, or offer a burnt offering which costs me nothing.” So David gave Ornan 600 shekels of gold by weight for the site. Then David built an altar to the LORD there and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. 1 Chronicles 21:22-26.
He had in his heart to build Me a beautiful house (temple) for the ark of the Covenant, a place for My presence where I would put My Name as Moses had directed as the place to offer Me sacrifices for the people and to worship Me. I had built him a palace and so he wanted to build one for Me. But I told him that was not his assignment but it was for his son to build (and My Son built and was the true temple of My glory and has made each one of you who are in Covenant with him the same). It was in his heart to make a place of worship where praise was raised in songs night and day around the clock, which he had already set up in a tent where he housed the ark of the Covenant (David’s tabernacle of praise), but he wanted to be in a magnificent temple worthy of My Name. So wherever he went in battle he took the treasuries of the nations he conquered and put aside riches to build My house in readiness for his son to use. And near the end of his time on earth, he gave an offering from the treasuries of the nations and from the riches from which I had personally given to him that was in the value of billions of dollars today, and he asked his mighty men and the heads of the tribes of Israel to do the same out of the riches I had given them, and the offering exceed any amount that has ever been raised to build any project to the glory of My Name. Treasures beyond measure. And David worshipped with all the people as they gave their offerings to build a house for Me to dwell among them:
So David blessed the LORD in the sight of all the assembly; and David said, “Blessed are You, O LORD God of Israel our father, forever and ever. Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all. Both riches and honor come from You, and You rule over all, and in Your hand is power and might; and it lies in Your hand to make great and to strengthen everyone. Now therefore, our God, we thank You, and praise Your glorious name. But who am I and who are my people that we should be able to offer as generously as this? For all things come from You, and from Your hand we have given You. For we are sojourners before You, and tenants, as all our fathers were; our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope. O LORD our God, all this abundance that we have provided to build You a house for Your holy name, it is from Your hand, and all is Yours. Since I know, O my God, that You try the heart and delight in uprightness, I, in the integrity of my heart, have willingly offered all these things; so now with joy I have seen Your people, who are present here, make their offerings willingly to You. O LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, our fathers, preserve this forever in the intentions of the heart of Your people, and direct their heart to You; and give to my son Solomon a perfect heart to keep Your commandments, Your testimonies and Your statutes, and to do them all, and to build the temple, for which I have made provision.” 1 Chronicles 29:10-19.
And the next day they all celebrated My goodness, My love, and My forgiveness. They worshipped with joy for all the wonderful things I had done for My people.
On the next day they made sacrifices to the LORD and offered burnt offerings to the LORD 1,000 bulls, 1,000 rams and 1,000 lambs, with their drink offerings and sacrifices in abundance for all Israel. So they ate and drank that day before the LORD with great gladness. 1 Chronicles 29:21-22.
And now you have the sacrifice of Jesus to celebrate perpetually in the Covenant meal of communion. “Do this,” Jesus told you, “in remembrance of Me.” Not in remembrance of what you have done for Him but the great things He has done for you—starting from the creation of the world through Him as My Word and for Him, looking at the redemption promised in the Garden when Adam feel in the shadow of the seed to the Passover Lamb to the sacrifices in the wilderness in the Tabernacle of Moses, to the water from the rock, the Manna from Heaven, the Shabbat, the promised land, the rest, and so much more that is all realized and fulfilled in Him, from shadow to substance, all the way to your entrance to the Kingdom all provided for in advance, and is there for you even now. That is worship.
And what happened once that temple was built by Solomon from the detailed floor plans his father David had written out and funded with the people? The priests carried in the Ark of the Covenant with great festivities and established it in its place behind the veil in the Holy of Holies with great awe and wonder. And then the following took place in worship:
When the priests came forth from the holy place (for all the priests who were present had sanctified themselves, without regard to divisions), and all the Levitical singers, Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their sons and kinsmen, clothed in fine linen, with cymbals, harps and lyres, standing east of the altar, and with them one hundred and twenty priests blowing trumpets in unison when the trumpeters and the singers were to make themselves heard with one voice to praise and to glorify the LORD, and when they lifted up their voice accompanied by trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and when they praised the LORD saying, “He indeed is good for His lovingkindness is everlasting,” then the house, the house of the LORD, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of God. 2 Chronicles 5:11-14.
My glory filled the house. All hearts were turned towards Me. Their eyes were off themselves and only on Me for all I had done to give them a country, a king, and prosperity all by following My Word that I had given to them through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, and David. I had given them everything and they looked only at Me.
Their eyes were on Me. And as long as their eyes stayed there, as did the eyes of Jehoshaphat, a descendant of David, and the people of Judah when about to be attacked by three enemy armies banded together that way outnumbered them, they came out with victory in the impossible. 2 Chronicles 20. And how did they do it? By worship. Their glorious praise in the presence of the enemy in which the circumstances showed certain defeat, took down three strong armies by one very small group of believers without lifting a finger in battle. Their eyes were on Me and not on themselves and they exalted in songs of praise the goodness and power I had shown them in the past from redemption out of Egypt to the present day and would continue to provide to them in accordance with My promises. And I did. They worshipped in Spirit and in truth, that is, in faith in My Word.
What you are beholding you become. The one who beholds the Son is being transformed into the same image from glory to glory,
“For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” John 6:40.
Jesus said that once He was lifted up, He would draw all men to Himself. When the snakes bit the Israelites in the wilderness after their bitter complaining about the Manna, I saved them as they beheld the bronze serpent on the pole that Moses raised up at My direction as the antidote. I made Him who knew no sin to be sin on your behalf so that in beholding Him upon the cross (He made peace through the blood of the Cross and nailed all your debts as cancelled upon it) you are set free and healed of all the deadly venom of sin. The healing came in the beholding.
If you look at yourself, seek yourself, you will become like yourself and ruin yourself, that is what the devil did, that is what Adam did, but if you look at Jesus (My Word) and see the love manifested that I have for you that surpasses understanding, that is transforming worship, if you look at Me with love and see the greatness of all I have planned for you and freely given you, that is worship. Looking at Me and going from glory to glory as you behold Me, as you behold Me, is worship. Truth comes to the innermost parts in the beholding in the Spirit.
My apostle Paul was a worshipper. He looked at the surpassing greatness of My power flowing to Him in the resurrection of Jesus. And he prayed for you that your hearts would be enlightened to know the hope of your calling, the richness of your inheritance in Me in the light, and the surpassing power in you by My Holy Spirit, which is resurrection power. He prayed that you would look at Me with a spirit of revelation and knowledge to know all I had freely given you in Christ. In other words, he directed your eyes and heart to Me and all I had done for you and called you to in Christ and not to yourself. But the result of looking at Me is a transformed and perfect you. What you were seeking in yourself but could not attain, you find in Me as you seek Me in worship.
David understood the benefits of worship, he sang, “One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty (delightfulness) of the LORD and to inquire (meditate) in His temple.” Psalm 27:8.
You will never find the answers you are seeking looking at yourself, you will only find them looking at Me. In Jesus are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Call on Me and I will answer you and tell you great and mighty things you could not know. Seek My Face.
And I would like to share something about worship with you that you may not know but tells you much about it. The New Testament was written in Greek and the word for “worship” is proskuneó (προσκυνέω). Proskunéō is formed from the words “prós,”, which means “towards” and kyneo, “to kiss”. So when it states the Magi told Herod they had come to worship My Son, they had come to draw near to kiss so wondrous a One.
Worship the LORD with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Kiss (in Hebrew, nashaq (נָשַׁק)): kiss) the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him! Psalm 2:10-11.
Lovingkindness and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth springs from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. Psalm 85:10-11.
Is that how you think of worship? Are you blowing Me a kiss? Heaven and earth kissing one another in perfect love.
May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine. Your oils have a pleasing fragrance, Your Name is like the goodness of oil. Song of Songs1:2-3.
I love you. Behold. WORSHIP IS LOOKING AT WHAT I HAVE DONE FOR YOU RATHER THAN WHAT YOU HAVE DONE FOR ME. Great peace, double shalom, have those who keep their minds stayed on Me. You become what you behold and I am peace.