A Life Of An Enthusiastic Worship: Secrets of Worshipping God in-and-out-of Season

By Daniel O. Ogweno

This book clarifies the intention of “true” worship and renders the attention it deserves. It reveals that when we capture the spirit of the fellowship, we will understand that it is not the season in which we find ourselves but the reason for which we were created that ought to inspire our worship. The seasons change; the reason is constant.

Welcome to venture into a worshipping adventure in the pages of “A Life of an Enthusiastic Worship.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel O. Ogweno
• Release date: Jan 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458077011

Daniel O. Ogweno

Ogweno holds Bachelor of Education (Moi University, Kenya) and M.Phil. in Mass Communication and Media Studies (University of Bergen, Norway).He is the founder of Christ is Lord Ministries—Worldwide (Cilmin—Worldwide).He has a call in conflict resolution based on the virtues of Christ. He summarises his call as follows: “Mine is to bridge the gap between doctrines/theology and practice both for leaders and individual Christians."Ogweno ministers internationally in conferences, seminars, workshops and church settings. He is available for itineraries.Married to Laura Caroline Ogweno, they are blessed with three kids: Victor, Jim-Jif and Baraka. He and his family reside in Norway where they are active in a local church (Christian Fellowship—Skien).

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A Life Of An Enthusiastic Worship

Secrets of Worshipping God In-and-out of Season

Daniel O. Ogweno

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Published by Daniel O. Ogweno at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 by Daniel O. Ogweno

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

All rights reserved solely by the author. The author guarantees all contents are original and do not infringe upon the legal rights of any other person or work.

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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (R) NIV(R) Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from The Authorized Version (or King James Version) of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked AMP are taken from the Amplified(R) Bible, Copyright 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission (www.Lockman.org).

When a scripture reference is marked with a specific version, e.g. NKJV; KJV or NIV it shows the recommended version in relation to what is being discussed.

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to Torfinn and Unn Karin Myhre. If everyone in this world were like you, we would only desire to go to heaven because of the natural disasters that man has no control over, otherwise this world would be such a wonderful place to live in.

If it wasn’t for the kind reception and acceptance I got from you, this book wouldn’t have been written.

I strongly believe that your keen desire to serve God in line with His pleasure—not taking anything for granted—has made it possible for you not to stand in the way of God when He approaches you in an unfamiliar way.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1—What Does It Mean To Worship God? (An Introduction)

The Starting Point

Living Sacrifices

Dead Sacrifices in the New Covenant

The Constitution of Worshipping God

Chapter 2—Secret Number One: We Were Created To Have A Fellowship With God

Isn’t it Obvious?

God ‘Stayed in the Neighbourhood’

Chapter 3—Secret Number Two: God Is Seeking Worshippers

Permanent or Temporary Employment?

Saved to be a Royal Priesthood of Praisers

Qualifications for a Job

God Inhabits the Praise of His People

Chapter 4—Secret Number Three: Seek God Diligently

God is Seeking Those Who are Seeking Him

Seeking God in His Word

Boring Stuff in the Love Letter?

Searching at an Unlikely Place

The Language of Worship

The Word of God Reveals God if Practised

Sponge Soaked in Water

Feeding Our Soul with ‘Good’ Music

Not in a Hurry to Make Her Request Despite the Urgency

Chapter 5—Secret Number Four: The Joy Of The Lord Is Your Strength

God’s Verdict vs Men’s

Keep the Heart Idol-Free Zone

Saved to Celebrate and Anointed to Bring Joy

The Basis and Reasons for the Joy of the Lord

Relationship between the Joy of the Lord and His Statutes

Jubilation in Tribulations

It is a Question of Attitude and Decision

Chapter 6—Secret Number Five: Don’t Squander The Grace

If You are Truly Saved, Give Away Your Sausage!

The Grace is as ‘Delicate’ as it is Precious

The Principle of Growth Applies

Chapter 7—Secret Number Six: Thank God In All Circumstances

Have the Right Attitude

Make Your Heart a Complaint-Free Zone

There is Always Something to Thank God for

Godly Virtues Reign Supreme

Health is Stronger than Sickness

Love is Stronger than Hate

Life is Stronger than Death

Chapter 8—Secret Number Seven: Make It Simple

Think Big but Despise Not the Little

Simple but Important Ministries

Take Nothing for Granted

…Where Two or Three Come Together in My Name…

Make Yourself Easy to Impress

Chapter 9—Secret Number Eight: Join Up With Others

Horizontal Fellowship is an Act of Worship

No Copyright in Worship

Engage Yourself

Repetition is Allowed

Chapter 10—Secret Number Nine: Don’t Forget What God Has Done For You

Old Testament Still Valid

Pass it on to Your Children

The Paradox of Blessings Leading to Spiritual Indifference

Hasn’t He Already Done Something Noteworthy?

What to Remember and What to Forget

Things to Remember about God’s Goodness are Ubiquitous

Build Memorial Stones

Chapter 11—Secret Number Ten: Revere The Name Of God

God is Not a Buddy and You a Pal

The Idea is Proclamation not Exclamation!

Swearing Unnecessary

God’s Presence and His Glory

Chapter 12—Secret Number Eleven: Start Worshipping Today—Now!

Make or Renew a Decision to be a Worshipper

Let’s Worship Together

Some Scriptures of Praise and Worship

EPILOGUE

About the author

Other books by the same author

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Acknowledgements

For some of us, life has not been a short cut. A long cut means that at times life only offers a string as a bridge to cross between two steep cliffs.

I can only look back and say that it has taken the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, my Saviour to get me across in life along bridges of strings and over the edges of decimations. This is why, for me, a moment of writing an acknowledgement is a time for reflection—many little things; many ‘ineffectual’ people; many ‘insignificant’ conversations and observations, combine to teach me a lesson for life. How can I acknowledge all these without filling pages and pages—ending up taking all the space for the message?

First and foremost, I would like to thank my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I have seen the hand of the Lord in my life and I am forever indebted. No words can express the deep spiritual and emotional fellowship that wells from my inner most.

I am also grateful to my family: my wife Laura Caroline Ogweno, my sons Victor Ogweno Owino, Jim-Jif Okinyi Ogweno. You allowed me to be away for many hours as I needed to finalise this book.

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Kristent Fellesskap—Skien for giving me an office to enable me finish the writing of this book.

Special acknowledgement to; Arve and Inger Helland, Åge and Astrid Pettersen; Tom and Kari Islann and Torfinn and Unn Karin Myhre. The idea of writing this book was born as a result of the warm fellowship and relationship I enjoyed in your midst.

Helge and Sylvi Skifjeld. I don’t have adequate words to express my gratitude for the love and support my family and I have received from you.

Julius Jwan and Sella Kisaka. You have a special place in my heart. I will never shy to say that I want the best for you. Some friends come and go but you came to stay. Thanks for being reliable friends.

Judy and Kjell Dahl. Thank you people for the practical and genuine love. Thanks for what you have been to my family. May the light of God’s virtue shine more and more in your hearts.

Murej and Alice Makochieng, your courage and strength in the Lord has been an encouragement and inspiration.

Mark and Mable Makochieng, I appreciate the friendship and fellowship I have enjoyed with you. Thanks for allowing God to use you to encourage me in what He has called me to do.

Simen Rasmussen, thanks for taking time to read through the manuscript. Your observations added value to this book.

Emily Achieng, I want the best for you. Thanks for being a friend.

Dr. Oburu Paul Odhiambo, thanks for crossing borders to come and see me. You are a true friend.

Margaret Owusu-Amoako, fellowshipping with you during our ‘short’ stint at Fantoft added something to my spiritual life.

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Back to the Table of Contents

Preface

About the Conception

This, to be honest, wasn’t supposed to be a book. In fact, when I started writing it, there was this nagging voice, Must you write everything! I had been writing quite a bit of late. Despite the nagging voice, I could at the same time feel a heart burning and laden with refreshed vigour to put in record the secrets of a life of worship. Insights justifying why it is important that we be worshipping vessels, in and out of season, kept on flooding my spirit.

Worshipping God is the best thing one can do; being in His fellowship, worshipping Him in His presence is so fulfilling—it can’t be traded for anything else. When God bombarded me with the awe of His majesty, I couldn’t help but capture them in writing.

The voice that nagged me at the beginning, questioning why I should want to write everything, was drowned as the conviction was crowned. That worshipping is a very important area for both man and God fuelled me on.

This is how it all started. I already had other manuscripts that I was working on and I was not about to start a new one. Then things started happening in rather unprecedented ways. One of the leaders in our local church approached me one Sunday after the service.

I had relocated to a new town and joined a local church. Being new in the church, he told me that I should feel free and tell them if I had something ‘burning’ in my heart that I felt God wanted me to share with the church.

I never picked it. I could tell that he was sincere but I was so ‘shy’ to just walk to them and say I wanted to preach. In my naivety, I had tried it earlier elsewhere and it never worked—in fact, it backfired so badly. However sincere you may think you are, this kind of thing isn’t always received with open hands every place.

I wasn’t in the least to make the same mistake again—I usually ‘force’ myself to learn from mistakes. Even when I was asked, I still lacked the will to say that I had something in my heart that I would wish to share.

Initially, I thought that if God ‘burned’ something in my heart, He would correspondingly provide a ‘platform’ to share it. When this didn’t work the way I had thought, it was time to learn what God wanted me to do with what He was putting in my heart. For some time, God continued putting things in my heart, ‘without providing a platform’—or so it looked to me.

I sincerely believed that the things He continued impressing in my heart were not only meant for me but also for others, hence a need to share them. It was then that God spoke to me. About this one, there was no doubt. It was so clear—as clear as the day God spoke to my heart and revealed how desperate I needed to reconcile with Him through Christ’s salvation.

What God spoke to me was not out of nowhere, I knew God had called me to write but I kept on thinking that it was for the future and that its time had not come. At least, I would need to build some ‘celebrity profile’ before embarking on such an assignment. God commanded me: Write!

In the process, I learnt that we don’t necessarily need a platform in the nature of a pulpit to preach God’s Word. Neither do we need a crowd of people to preach to for us to feel that we have truly been used of God. Furthermore, we don’t need ‘celebrity profile’ to be used of God. God taught me that even if I minister faithfully to one person or a small group of people, it is still worth every effort. What matters is not the magnitude of our assignment but the attitude to what we have been called to do.

Since then, as I embarked on writing, any time something ‘burned’ in my heart, I would quickly capture it by a pen and a paper. In this way, I realised that God had given me so much that I have been running many titles at the same time. I also realised that one can ‘preach’ to individuals and it is as important as someone to whom God has given a big platform and a big crowd. It is the faithfulness behind the assignment that matters.

After approximately half a dozen times being asked if I had something that God had put in my heart, I finally but reluctantly accepted that I could share ‘something.’ Nevertheless, it almost backfired when I was asked, What is it you want to share?

It was difficult! The fact was that I didn’t know what I was to share at the moment. I would trust God to give me something in the course of the week.

Sometimes, one may actually feel that God has put something specific to speak about at a specific time and place. This, however, is not always the case. Sometimes you may be called upon to speak and you don’t even know what you are going to say.

In some cases, one can be invited to speak on a specific topic. Otherwise, mostly you can be asked to speak on whatever God puts in your heart. The ‘problem’ is that God may not put something in your heart well in advance enough to describe it to someone who wishes to know beforehand what you plan to talk about.

For me, when I am asked to speak, I wouldn’t wish to necessarily speak what I spoke elsewhere or what ‘burned’ in my heart two days ago, for example. What usually happens is that God can ‘liven’ something in your heart today. Two days later, you struggle in vain to capture the ‘life’ and the anointing with which it. This, to me, means that I have to trust God for something ‘new’ each time I am called upon to minister—unless I had been asked to speak on a specific topic. If it is something that God burned in my heart which I had already shared elsewhere or that hadn’t been shared, I would only pick it if God ‘refreshes’ it. Otherwise, messages may, most literally, be time and place specific. That is to say, a message that was burning in your heart yesterday might not necessarily burn today even if the place remains the same. Equally, a message that did well in one place is not necessarily for every other place.

It was true that something had burned in my heart about a month earlier but I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to commit myself to it. When it looked like I had to confirm what I would share, I kind of felt put in a corner. The result was that I mentioned what I thought I might preach on but never felt it ‘burning’ as it did when it was all aflame in my heart the first time.

Though it was explained away but to me (many others probably might have had the same impression), ‘insisting’ that I had to confirm what I would talk about created the impression that I had to be ‘censored’ for the church to be ‘sure.’ It kind of sounded like I would be allowed to speak only after establishing that I wouldn’t ‘preach strange things.’ According to me, if uncertainty was the reason, then the ‘censor’ would only be called for if I am the one who went and asked that I wanted to speak or if I had just ‘appeared from nowhere.’ I felt that the short time I had been there was ‘long enough’ for my testimony to be extracted, in one way or the other. I had been there ‘long enough’ to establish the kind of doctrines underlying my belief.

Finally, after an extended ‘debate’, I was allowed to speak but after the ‘debate’ I felt empty and dry—the excitement was gone. There was, however, still about three days to go.

I completely lacked inspiration to talk about what had ‘burned’ in my heart about a month ago, although I had mentioned it.

After ‘struggling’ in vain to capture the ‘fire’ of what had burned in my heart earlier, I decided to trust God for something else. Sunday was approaching. My Saturday, the day I thought I would identify and prepare a message for the following day, was crowded. I had been invited to attend a meeting that I felt I couldn’t attend and still work on a message in readiness for Sunday. I attended though. I came back home late. There wasn’t enough time to do any preparation.

The fact is, I did most of the ‘preparation’ in the morning of the Sunday. That was when I finally got a breakthrough and felt that I had something from God, ‘burning’ in my heart. It was completely different from what I had hinted to the leadership that I would be talking about. I had told them that the way God works with me is that sometimes I may climb the pulpit with one message but end up preaching another. I had to say this so that should it happen, I may not be ‘grilled.’

An important explanation I was given was that the leadership usually finds out about a topic that relates to what God had been emphasising of late. It happened that God was manifesting Himself in the praise and worship. For about a month, we had been praising and worshipping with little or no extensive preaching. And we liked it. It was so good!

As some of us were overtaken by the glorious worship, it wouldn’t be true to assume that everyone had a ‘good time’ during the worship. Sometimes some people may ‘explode’ in worship while others stand there feeling dry and empty, wondering why some are ‘euphoric.’ It was out of this that God impressed in my heart to talk about secrets of a life full of worship.

As I spoke, I realised that there was so much about the secrets of worship that though I tried to cover as much as I could, it was impossible. The result was that I stretched the meeting—more so because I didn’t have a watch on my wrist, neither was there one on the wall. I am not quite sure how much time we took but when I finally ended it, I didn’t only feel that there were more secrets but also that each secret of worshipping God was more than enough to cover a whole service. That was when a voice whispered, ‘You have a new title—Write!’

About the Book

This book is meant to reveal some of the ‘secrets’ that would make it ‘easy’ to have a ceaseless worship of God. It is what would be called, in the popular language, Worshipping made easy.

Though the book talks about secrets, we may be aware that the secrets of