basement worshiping

There are times in our life when we live in the top floor penthouse. Usually these times don't last very long however. There are other times when our lives don't have the extreme highs as living on the top floor, and we live in the middle floors. There are also times when we live pretty near the ground floor, or on the ground floor. There are times we live right on the ground floor in a bad neighborhood.

This happens to everyone, even Christians, and there isn't anything we can do to stay out of the basement.

Each of us have parents that will die, each of us will get sick, and each of us will have people in our lives that do things that put us in the basement. Sometimes it feels that there are professionals wandering the earth that think it is their job to put everybody else in the basement!

Positive are those numbers greater than zero. Negative numbers are those less than zero. Zero is not considered either positive or negative, it is just neutral. When we are at zero, it doesn't feel very neutral however.

Sometimes we have a problem dealing with our feelings if one part of our life is living on the top floor, one part is living on the ground floor, and yet another is living in the deepest level of the basement. It is what we do with all of these feelings that is important! It is what we do with ourselves when we have these feelings that is important.

My health has not been really great this past year, but I've grown spiritually this past year at an amazing pace. One of the more recent things I've done, because Sue did it for me, was joining a health club. I've actually only felt healthy enough to go one time during the past three weeks, but I have done a bit of exercise on the equipment that I have at home. I haven't actually had a day off in nearly a month, because I've been very sick every weekend for the past month.

The health club is an interesting place to go. Some of the guys there have been going for years, and they have the look down. They only wear certain kinds of exercise clothes. They have a thick leather belt, and they spend nearly every free moment working out. This doesn't really fit into my lifestyle.

Many of the women at the health club also have the look down. They wear skin tight spandex clothes, and check out every other woman that walks in. They also spend nearly every spare minute at the gym. This also doesn't really fit into my lifestyle, and spandex chaffs me.

When I do work out and someone sees me, what do they really see? I am actually working much harder lifting an 85 pound barbell than the guy in the corner lifting the 300 pound barbell. It is much harder for me because I'm so out of shape. It is also much harder for me though because I have been sick so much of the year.

If people actually saw the amount of effort I was putting out, I would be the guy in the corner lifting an 800 pound barbell.

This is true in other parts of our lives as well. When people walk around singing, and they're happy, and everything seems to be going well, it's probably pretty easy to feel very joyful.

When your blood pressure has spiked so high that they don't have a chart to show you what it looks like…..

When your classic 1973 Swiss Army Truck blows an engine the second time in less 10 months…..

When you go to the suit store to buy a suit for your daughter's wedding, and there is only one size bigger than you are in the "big and tall" section of the store…

When your knees stop working, your hip goes out, and you need three different kinds of glasses……

In fact, you need the regular glasses to find the really powerful glasses…….

These are some of the things that make you feel like you're living in the basement.

When your job doesn't go well, when your house looks like you moved out and 35 teenage boys moved in, when your shower, refrigerator, dishwasher, and microwave all go wacky at the same time……

⁽¹⁾ Calvin considered this account as providing “a highly useful doctrine, that whatever men offer to God ought to be estimated not by its apparent value, but only by the feeling of the heart, and that the holy affection of him who, according to his small means, offers to God the little that he has, is more worthy of esteem than that of him who offers a hundred times more out of his abundance.”

Mark 12:41 Then he sat down opposite the offering box, and watched the crowd putting coins into it. Many rich people were throwing in large amounts. 12:42 And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, worth less than a penny. 12:43 He called his disciples and said to them, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the offering box than all the others. 12:44 For they all gave out of their wealth. But she, out of her poverty, put in what she had to live on, everything she had.”

There is this poor widow that goes to the temple. Poor widows are the ones that the first Church fund was set up to help, but instead of going to the temple to get money, this widow is going to give the only money she has.

Jesus said that this widow has given more than into the offering box than "all the others".

This widow has a chance to live just a tiny sliver above ground, to slightly raise herself above neutral zero. I did a little research regarding these widow's mites. Most preachers try to make the point that this poor widow put two pennies into the offering box. This isn't true. Each mite is only worth an eighth of a penny, not a penny. So both mites are still only worth a quarter of a penny.

Try buying something today with a penny! Try buying something with a quarter of a penny!

The widow's offering was not of anything that she had, but of her nothingness. Her offering was in continuing to praise and worship God, despite her living in the basement at the moment.

When we are living in the basement with our health, with our emotions, with our incomes, our jobs, our relationship, etc.…

THIS is when we have the greatest opportunity to make the make the best offering!

Yet when his life fell apart, he didn't curse God, he continues to praise Him. Job lived on the 103^rd floor of the basement, in the smallest, dirtiest, darkest corner of the basement, yet he still continued to worship God. This praise might have only amounted to a little squeak, but it was not a curse!

Job's offering was not of anything that he had, but of his nothingness. His offering was in continuing to praise and worship God, despite his living in the basement at the moment.

Some people lose their job and they say "why ME God". Why NOT you? Are you immune to the problems of this life?

Bad stuff happens to everybody, but that is not nearly as important as what you do with that situation!

Acts 6:8 Now Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and miraculous signs among the people. 6:9 But some men from the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), both Cyrenians and Alexandrians, as well as some from Cilicia and the province of Asia, stood up and argued with Stephen. 6:10 Yet they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke. 6:11 Then they secretly instigated some men to say, “We have heard this man speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God.” 6:12 They incited the people, the elders, and the experts in the law; then they approached Stephen, seized him, and brought him before the council. 6:13 They brought forward false witnesses who said, “This man does not stop saying things against this holy place and the law. 6:14 For we have heard him saying that Jesus the Nazarene will destroy this place and change the customs that Moses handed down to us.” 6:15 All who were sitting in the council looked intently at Stephen and saw his face was like the face of an angel.

Stephen states his defense as a history lesson for those accusing him. Instead of defending himself, or trying to get back to the happy days he had enjoyed just prior to being in the deepest part of the basement,

HE MAKES A DEFENSE OF PUSHING EVERY BUTTON THEY HAD, TO GO FURTHER INTO THE BASEMENT!

His (really long) sermon was about how the Pharisees persecuted the people they were supposed to be leading, but that these people (that were living in the basement) continued to praise God, despite their condition.

Acts 7:51 “You stubborn people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, like your ancestors did! 7:52 Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold long ago the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become! 7:53 You received the law by decrees given by angels, but you did not obey it.”165

Acts 7:54 When they heard these things, they became furious166 and ground their teeth167 at him. 7:55 But Stephen,168 full169 of the Holy Spirit, looked intently170 toward heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing171 at the right hand of God. 7:56 “Look!” he said.172 “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” 7:57 But they covered their ears,173 shouting out with a loud voice, and rushed at him with one intent. 7:58 When174 they had driven him out of the city, they began to stone him,175 and the witnesses laid their cloaks176 at the feet of a young man named Saul. 7:59 They177 continued to stone Stephen while he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” 7:60 Then he fell178 to his knees and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!”179 When180 he had said this, he died.181

But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked intently toward heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 7:56 “Look!” he said. “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”

Standing in front of false accusers, just moments before you are to be stoned to death, being humiliated in front of everyone that lives around you, where you grew up,…… is pretty far into the basement!

Stephen's offering was not of anything that he had, but of his nothingness. Stephen's offering was in continuing to praise and worship God, despite his living in the basement at the moment.

Our widow's offering does not have to be of anything that we have, but of our nothingness.

Our offering can be in continuing to praise and worship God, despite our living in the basement at the moment.

Matthew 6:19 “Do not accumulate for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. 6:20

But accumulate for ourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

When we live in the basement for a while, let's use this time to store up some treasure by continuing to praise, worship, and adore God, even when we don't feel like it.

I don't remember who told me this, but they told
me a story about a potter and a little boy.
The boy sat on a hill all day watching the potter at work.
He tried to understand what
each action the potter made was intended to do.
By the end of the day, he had become
frustrated by a particular thing the potter did,
that he didn't understand.
When he couldn't stand it any more he finally walked
down the hill to confront the potter.

He explained that he had been watching him work all
day, and that he understood
how the potter cleaned the clay.
He understood how he worked the clay, and how he
turned the clay on his wheel.
He even understood how the potter cured the clay by
baking it in the fire, but he was really confused
that the potter constantly thumped the pots
he was making with his finger.

The potter looked puzzled by the boy's
question and answered him...
I put each pot on a stick and put it into the oven to bake.
Then I thump each pot to see when it is finished.
The boy tried to understand, but didn't quite.
He finally asked the potter how he knew the pots were completed.

The potter replied that the he knows the pots are finished
because they begin to sing when they're thumped!

Stephen Olford made the statement in a recent study I did – Pray when you feel like it, pray when you don't feel like it, and pray until you feel like praying! There are times that we don't have much to offer God. Sometimes we feel like we have less than a quarter of a penny. Sometimes, we feel that we don't even have this much to offer. If you only have sadness, offer your sadness. If you only have loniness, offer that! What ever you have, offer that to God, no matter what you may feel about it. I know it may sound difficult, but I have had times of absolute joy, when the only thing I had to offer God was my despair!