Eternal Worship - Guest Post - Gemma Roche

Gemma is a pharmacist, Christian & friend whom i've known for quite some time, growing up in the same Church & going to Bottear youth fellowship at the same time. Gemma followed my example of marrying a southerner, Dan who happens to be from the same fellowship as Barbara (my wife). I'm so glad that Gemma agreed to guest blog & i know of no godlier woman to ask than her.
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Firstly it’s an honour that you invited me to post on your blog Gary. So thank you for considering me (I’m not sure why you did).

I have been trying to think of something legendary to post and keep drawing a blank. God has been speaking to me recently which is unbelievably amazingly awesome but to tell my tale here would be quite long, unexciting and I think you might think I’m crazy so I’ll keep that to myself. (If you want to hear, we could meet for coffee and get excited about God).
Just wanted to hear you say ‘amen’ in response to God is speaking to me. I hope he is speaking to you, cos it’s lovely, and real, and I want more and more.

I’m usually quite organised and like to have things well prepared (…but marriage and running a home is changing that, of which I fail constantly and, thank you Daniel for being patient with my shortcomings) but have been procrastinating fantastically for this task...until this morning when my strikingly beautiful cat Pavolova jumped onto my file of work for a training course I’m on, and I thought I better bite the bullet here while I can no longer prepare for work tomorrow. (I’ll be sorry tonight!).

So I am going to share a little nugget I came across recently that struck me. No surprise to those who know me or check Botteargirlys…it is stolen from Jerry Bridges.
You are probably totally aware of the following and thinking to yourself ‘when is Gary home from his holidays again…i'll check back then.’ But bear with me, the guys that follow me will have something interesting to say….and this is actually of eternal importance.

The following are a few notes I had taken from reading ‘Growing your faith’ by Jerry Bridges. The wording is likely to be very similar to what’s in the book so full credit to Jerry.

WHAT WILL WE BE DOING IN ETERNITY??
Evangelising and discipling will not be on the agenda, every Christian activity in this life will be completed except for one. That one exception is worship. Worship is continuous. So part of developing into spiritual maturity we need to learn to worship in this life, in spirit and truth. I love this next sentence which I’m pretty sure is word for word Jerry-style….

We must learn to do imperfectly now what we will be doing perfectly for all eternity.
To only worship in church as part of praise and adoration would be hyposcrisy, worship is to be a way of life; offering our mind, will and emotions to God.

As I started scribbling down those notes I initially was thinking to myself this is an interesting concept but the more I read and started to ponder Jerry’s words, the seriousness began to impress upon me. This is not just something worthy of a quick blog or tweet. It’s really a mindset and attitude to adopt, or strive to adopt for life. When you boil it down and think about it, it’s so simple.. like what are we going to be doing in heaven? Fair enough question but why have I not given it thought sooner.

May God help us as we try to give glory to him in everything we do. Give Him his worth-ship. Any tips I would receive gratefully.

And Gary…enjoy the pool.