Topics:<\/b> Anniversaries; Giving; God; Worship<\/p>\n
References:<\/b> Psalm 95:6; John 4:23\u201324; Hebrews 12:28\u201329<\/p>\n
Early in our marriage, I gave my wife a terrific anniversary gift. At least I thought it was a great gift. Susan, after all, is a farmer\u2019s daughter and keeps close watch on the weather. I envisioned her delight and nostalgia while tracking our backyard precipitation on her new rain gauge.<\/p>\n
Susan was not impressed. \u201cA rain gauge for our anniversary?\u201d she asked incredulously. The gauge is now a family joke, a classic example of a gift enjoyed by the giver but not the receiver.<\/p>\n
One word I hear a lot these days is authentic<\/i>, as in \u201cWe seek authentic<\/i> worship.\u201d Usually this means we\u2019re trying to create an experience that helps worshipers feel something. There\u2019s nothing wrong with that, but if our focus is only on our<\/i> experience, we may be giving God a rain gauge.<\/p>\n
A real gift, real worship, means knowing what\u2019s important to the Receiver.<\/p>\n
\u2014Marshall Shelley, Leadership<\/i> (Spring 1999)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Topics: Anniversaries; Giving; God; Worship References: Psalm 95:6; John 4:23\u201324; Hebrews 12:28\u201329 Early in our marriage, I gave my wife a terrific anniversary gift. At least I thought it was a great gift. Susan, after all, is a farmer\u2019s daughter and keeps close watch on the weather. I envisioned her delight and nostalgia while tracking … Continue reading “GIVING
\n A RAIN GAUGE”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}