It has now been a few months since we officially decided and announced our plans for adopting.  Amazing how things change over a couple of months.  We began researching to find a good adoption agency that could help us adopt from Kazakhstan, and it seems like every agency we spoke with was really encouraging us toward Ethiopia.  So we began to pray and look at Ethiopia, and as we did, the facts were astounding!

It is one of the oldest countries in the world, being an independent state since ancient times.  As such, it’s the second most populous nation in Africa with nearly 80 million people living there, out of which, there are 5 million orphans, a number which increases annually!  The growing number of homeless and parentless children is a mushrooming crisis that the government warns is tearing apart the social fabric of the country.  The main cause of the rising amount of orphans is the sheer poverty, leading to parents dying of malnourishment, AIDS, tuberculosis, etc.  As such, the government is very open and willing to make it as easy as possible to adopt and is making efforts to reverse this tragedy.

As we began seeing pictures and looking at the faces of these beautiful children, and the poverty and hopelessness they live in, we could just feel the Lord drawing us to this country and changing our hearts.  So we are planning on adopting from Ethiopia, using the International Adoption Guides agency to help us through the process.  They have come highly recommended from some of our friends who have also adopted and we are very excited to be working with them to bring our next child home. We are open to any age or sex, but are prayerfully considering adopting a boy between the ages of 0 and 4 years old.

Some of the good news is that we are no longer aiming to raise $50,000, but rather only $25,000… exactly half of what we would have had to raise to adopt from Kazakhstan.  So we continue on our journey to try to raise that money and have designed a shirt that we hope you will consider purchasing.  It is $20 and every penny will go to funding our adoption.  We will have them printed on high quality unisex shirts in sizes XS – XXL.

Please consider buying a shirt and also passing the word along.  If you feel God calling you to give a larger amount, you can always donate to our paypal account  adoption@stephen-miller.com.  We pray you would consider doing this as well.  $25,000 is a big number, but God is much bigger.

We so long to proclaim the gospel that the Lord, our Father, adopted us, and made us children and heirs, regardless of our race or ethnicity, nation or language.  We want to have a family of different races, cultures, and skin tones and feel called to display the gospel in this way.  Please join with us. Buy a shirt today.

I was reading in Leviticus 10 earlier today and the first words of the chapter just really jumped off the page at me… probably because I’m a worship pastor.

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said, ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’” And Aaron held his peace.
Leviticus 10:1-3

There is something so raw and uncensored about this passage that just rips apart any sense of what we deserve or how we think of fairness. I mean they were trying to worship God right? Shouldn’t that be commended? Wouldn’t you think that God would be sitting up in heaven thinking, “Awww, they’re offering me sacrifices…” Or at least acknowledge their efforts with a golf clap or something…

But that’s not the case! God takes it as an offense that these 2 so-called priests would dare come near Him and try to worship Him in a way that He hasn’t commanded. And He straight up smokes them!

I learn a couple of things from this. First off, God doesn’t NEED our worship. I just watched “Clash of The Titans” last week and it was laughable to think that the premise of the movie was that Zeus, the “god” of the world actually NEEDED the worship of the people he created in order to maintain his immortal status… that’s a pretty small, pathetic and crappy god if you ask me. That’s not our God. God doesn’t need us! He doesn’t need our worship.

Paul deals with this very issue in Athens when he encounters all the crazy polytheism of that culture.

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
Acts 17:24-25

I LOVE IT that I serve such a big, grand, glorious, mysteriously magnificent God. One who isn’t served by me. One that I can’t at all comprehend and get my brain around! He doesn’t need my meager offerings. So with that, I must infer that worshiping God is my privilege, not my right – it’s none of ours! And with that privilege comes responsibility. Since we get to worship God, we must come to Him, not on our own terms, to serve Him as how we would mold Him, but rather, come on His terms and worship Him for who He is, always has been, and always will be!

I think the biggest implication is that we must invest the time in knowing Him. How can we worship Him rightly if we don’t know Him rightly? And how can we know Him rightly? How do we see Him for who He is and engage Him on His terms? How do we know His character, His ways, and what He’s required? It can only be through His word. By pouring over His Word day in and day out.

Jonathan Edwards, the great Puritan pastor of the Great Awakening, says it like this,

“This [Bible] is the fountain whence all knowledge in Divinity must be derived, therefore, let not this treasure lie by you neglected.”

Or as Bob Kauflin, in his book “Worship Matters”, states,

“The better we know God through His Word, the more genuine our worship will be. In fact, the moment we veer from what is true about God, we’re engaging in idolatry. Regardless of what we think or feel, there is no authentic worship of God without a right knowledge of God.”

If we are neglect this incredible gift the Lord has given us to know Him, we will be quite tempted to fall into the trap of Nadab and Abihu… and what was that trap?

Nadab and Abihu were trying to come to a god that they had formed in their image to worship on their own terms. They were engaging in idolatry. Maybe they had good intentions. Maybe we do too when we worship things that do not deserve our worship, or try to worship God in a way that isn’t really worshiping Him at all.
I know this looks different for everyone, and I could create a laundry list of ways that we do this, but I won’t because:

1. This is a blog, and you don’t wanna read forever.
2. We are sinful people and as sure as I miss something, you’ll think, “well he didn’t mention _____ , so it must be okay.
3. I want you to really pursue, draw near to, and KNOW God through His word, prayer, and community.

For you worship leaders reading this – it’s your privilege to lead – and it’s your enormous responsibility to be sure that the way you are leading your people in worship is the way the Lord desires and has articulated in scripture.

Ultimately, God will have His glory and he doesn’t need you. It’s your privilege to worship.

Let us all draw near to Him for who He is, and worship Him rightly.

This is an article on Biblical Worship I wrote that was recently posted in Lucid Magazine. Read more at www.lucidmagazine.com/Biblical-Worship

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Douglas and Marvin awoke today to the frantic shuffling of their mother and aunt dragging their bed across the dirt floor of their 8′X10′ home in the rain forest of El Salvador. As water cascaded across the floor, now mud, they desperately tried to push it out of the house before it washed away the mud walls. This is an every day occurrence for them.

Months ago, their uncle and mother’s boyfriend were building this home on abandoned property so that they could have a place of their own. In the process, the uncle was shot and murdered by members of the MS-13 gang. Soon after the boyfriend split, and Douglas and Marvin were left with an unfinished house and more desperation for someone to come through and fight on their behalf.

I know this because I stood in their home. I watched their mother weep. I watched the family’s reaction to the tragedy that is their reality. And yet, in the midst of all their sorrow and suffering, I watched them smile and laugh and beam with joy because there is a hope for them that they hadn’t known two years ago. The hope of Jesus Christ.

Two years ago, Compassion International adopted this family into a project that God would use to meet their physical, mental, spiritual and emotional needs. We’ve come to their home because we’ve heard that they have no food and we are called to meet the need. We’ve come to be Jesus to them. But I think they were more Jesus to us.

Months ago, I was reading Matthew 25:31-46 and was utterly undone. My entire understanding of the Gospel and Christianity was so backwards. I’m a worship pastor. I travel all over the country to teach people through song and hopefully bring them to a place where they engage in worship with a holy and mighty God who loved them and gave Himself up for them.

But it’s really easy to give your life for a ministry that will give you something in return. To love and teach and serve people who will love you back. To worship through songs. But I’ve come to realize that songs are our smallest expression of worship. What does Jesus say to his people in Amos 5 when they come around singing without having loved justice and mercy and taking care of the helpless people that Jesus loves? “Get away from me with your NOISE! I DON’T WANNA HEAR IT!”

God really started doing something in me about a year and a half ago in showing me that true worship IS a life of justice and mercy. A life spent for the glory of Christ in loving Him. And what is loving Him but obedience? Feeding the hungry and poor. Visiting the prisoner and clothing the naked. What really messed me up is the question, “If this is true worship and I’m a worship leader, what am I even doing here? Is God even pleased with the worship I bring Him?”

I am finding that God is a lot less concerned with our songs and a lot more concerned with our lives; a lot less concerned with what I do on stage and a lot more concerned with what I do off stage. God is concerned with the needs of His broken people across the Earth who He died to purchase. These needs should be met by our hands and our words and our wallets.

I would encourage the church to dig down deep into the dark hidden places of our soul and invite the Lord to shine the spotlight of His holiness on all the places He would do things differently. To really begin to ask Him if He is satisfied with our worship. Are we content to simply sing songs on Sunday when God is saying, “I desire that You would act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with Me!”?

How can we as a church begin to really effect change in the millions of lives across this planet who live in utter poverty and hopelessness? How can we tangibly meet the need so that the Gospel is more than words? How can we love Christ in the least of these?

Answer that question, and begin to live that answer and I believe we will recover biblical worship that pleases the heart of God.