Whenever I attend our worship services I go with the personal expectation to receive some form of blessing for my Lord. What some might say? You greedy pigboy, how dare you come before the King without gift! What shall I give to God? What work shall I dare hold up to His beneficent gaze? All I have to offer are my sins and what little good has been accomplished in my life is surely because of His gracious Holy Spirit’s (apart from Me, you can do nothing
John 15:5) power.
So it is with this in mind, that I come with my mind set to receive a blessing from my Lord. This is a great truth found in our Evangelical church, the knowledge that we come to receive from our Lord in worship. We have nothing to offer, but our sins and then our unending thanks and praise for His absolution. If this is not enough, He then feeds us with His Word and nourishing each according to their faith. For this we give Him thanks, but no He is not even finished then. Now He comes to us hidden in/with/under bread and wine and feeds us with nothing less than His true Body and Blood. Glory upon glory is being heaped upon us during this entire encounter with our Risen Savior. After, thanking Him for granting us forgiveness and life in the supper He speaks one more time through our pastor and speaks truly performative
language in proclaiming Aarons blessing over our lives.
How can anyone leave who has such an encounter (I know of no better word) with the King of glory and fail to come away spiritually changed? If we are growing, then we are changing and we go from faith to faith and glory to glory (see 2 Cor. 3:18). Some may be alarmed and look to themselves and wonder if they are growing. To those people I say “go outside and place your hand against a living tree. As you touch it can you feel it growing? No, but if it is alive then it is growing whether you feel it doing so.” God’s blessings include forgiving our sins, one may feel relieved of their burden or not, the fact remains they are forgiven by Christ for the sake of the penitent. I do not want to parse the degrees of “blessing” which are as varied as the needs of humanity right now. What I am talking about is the value of having a hunger, and expectancy when coming before our Lord in prayer, study, worship, and vocation. I call such a desire for blessing a “good kind of selfishness” inasmuch as we all should remain perpetually hungry to be with our Lord in prayer, Bible study, worship and godly fellowship.
He who hungers and thirsts for righteousness SHALL BE
filled (Matthew 5:6) — but I must come hungry to His table and I try to do so. If I leave as I came, then there was something wrong with me, I did not eat what was set before me, and yes at times this does happen to my loss. “Stay hungry my friends” and you hunger will always be satisfied to His eternal glory and your eternal benefit.
Discernment Ministries International 