WORSHIP THAT TURNED TO WITNESS
The apostle John was exiled to the Isle of Patmos for preaching the gospel. There, on a Sunday, the revelation of Jesus Christ came to him while he was in worship. The early church fathers reported that John was in a cave on Patmos when the Lord spoke to him. Was John singing worship songs? He had no hymnbook nor choir. Was he sitting under preaching? There was no preacher. Was he reading Scripture? He probably had no access to his scrolls and parchments. How was he worshiping? “In the Spirit,” he said. You could beat him, boil him in oil or exile him from his fellow believers on a rock in the Mediterranean Sea, but you couldn’t keep him from worshiping Jesus.
It was on the Lord’s Day that Jesus called to John in a voice as loud and penetrating as a trumpet. It was on that Day that Jesus pulled back the curtain between heaven and earth and John fell at His feet as though dead. It was on that Day that John’s worship turned into a time to bear witness. For the Lord told him to write down what he would see, “both the things that are now happening and the things that will happen.”
PRAYER: Dear Father, teach us to worship Your Son as John did. We may not know the cost of such a prayer, but as Your children we ask for such fulness in worship. For we want to know Jesus better. It is with trembling that we ask, knowing that John was exiled in a cave when he worshiped. Yet, we still ask and we still desire to worship Jesus even more fully in Spirit and Truth. In Jesus’ name, amen.