God's Love is Better than Ice Cream and Chocolate

Worship is a higher step than praise. Love songs are great and I like singing them. I like to serenade a man on my guitar, but I realize that when Paul and Silas were in prison at the midnight hour they were not singing R&B music, they were not singing hip-hop, they were not singing “Play that Funky Music White Boy,” but they were singing the praises of God when the doors of the prison were open. Acts 16:25, "But at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. "

Worship is being intimate with God. Many people give their life to the Lord and that is where it ends. It ends with a marriage relationship/union. They walk down the aisle at church to give their life to Jesus Christ (to get married to him) and then that is all. (But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. 1 Cor. 6:17).

They are like the new bride or bridegroom who won’t sleep with her husband or his wife. Or they periodically have this dull/boring love life, but it’s not rich and vibrant love relationship with Jesus. Mary washed her tears at Jesus feet and poured out her affection on him. I look at it like an intimate relationship between Christ and the Church which is what marriage is that you are partaking of one another’s nature. Pretty soon a couple starts to look like each other as they are molding more into becoming one. As we worship the Lord, we are taking on God’s essence and becoming a partaker of His divine nature.

Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. 2 Peter 1:4

I will watch people who cheer sports. They are very adamant about watching sports and cheering on their favorite team by shouting and clapping, but then I see them at church on Sunday and they won’t even raise or clap their hands unto God which is in the word of God:

O clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph. Psalm 47:1
Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord. Psalm 134:2
I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing 1 Timothy 2:8
Hear my cry for mercy as I call to you for help, as I lift up my hands toward your Most Holy Place. Psalm 28:2

What is the problem with God’s people? Let’s look in the word. God’s people not being intimate! Sort of like some marriages I know. They lost their fervor for each other.


My people are being destroyed because they don't know me. Since you priests refuse to know me, I refuse to recognize you as my priests. Since you have forgotten the laws of your God, I will forget to bless your children. Hosea 4:6

This is eternal life to know (be intimate) with God.

Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. John 17:3

If we fail to fulfill our ministry as priests unto God---to enter into the holiest of holies with God, we fail to help others by not fulfilling our priestly ministry.

He has made us a Kingdom of priests for God his Father. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen. Rev. 1:6
you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites." Exodus 19:6
you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:5 v.9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

I like going to a Bible study with a worship leader because I want a deeper fellowship with the Lord and finding a home group or fellowship with a good worship leader helps me really know God. Want to enter into the throne room of God? My trip in going to Australia with 18 hours on a plane listening to praise and worship CDs is a good way to “cross over.” I certainly crossed over in my mind on that trip! I have other examples in that Paul was even caught up to the third heaven! Gee can you imagine being caught up to the third heaven? (2 Cor. 12:2). Enoch walked with God and was not because God took him…that is some heavy duty “walking” and talking with God!


David called it the “secret or safety place” of the most high:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. Psalm 91:1
In the shelter of your presence you hide them from the intrigues of men; in your dwelling you keep them safe from accusing tongues. Psalm 31:20
You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah Psalm 32:7
For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock. Psalm 27:5Jesus called what you do in secret:
But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you, Matthew 6:6

The Heavenly Father is seeking worshippers:

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." John 4:23-24
For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—Philip 3:3

I like to think of Mary who was so eager to sit at Jesus feet and hear his words. It’s like a husband or wife that are eager to get to know one another intimately through communication. How eager are we to hear what God has to say to us each day? “Give us this day our daily bread. (Matthew 6:11)” “Blessed are you when you hunger and thirst after righteousness for you shall be filled (Luke 6:21).” Even a better analogy, is a person who just lays there when you are trying passionately to make love to them. Is that how we are with God? You would be surprised at how passionate God is. He stretched out his hands on a cross for you! It was passion that sent Jesus to that cross. It’s the passion of Christ who died for us.

The brain is the highest sex organ and if you get a person’s mind thinking about you, then well….it was “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." It’s hard to imagine it could be any better than I had it. I look at my marriage to my husband like that song, “I Can Only Imagine” when I see Jesus. Well I could imagine quite a lot and when my husband would put the head phones on and listen to love songs when he got home from work, he could sure imagine a lot too. I had my own love songs going on in my mind and one was Sarah McLachlan, “Your love is better than ice cream.” God your love is better than ice cream or chocolate! The highest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. If you can get your mind loving God, you have yourself a powerful allie. The mind is powerful allie.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' Mark 12:30
You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Isaiah 26:3

David loved God with all his strength---he danced with all his might!

And David was dancing before the Lord with all his might, and David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouting and the sound of the trumpet. 2 Samuel 6:14-15

I’m a footloose person, it’s just a shame we don’t have more good praise in the church. When I first became a Christian at 17 years old, I attended some more lively type groups with my tamporine and always thought of Miriam or David as a young Christian coming from the Red Sea (my baptism) from Egyptian bondage in being out in the world.

Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her, with tambourines and dancing. Exodus 15:20

That was before I became an older “sophisticated” Christian at church. When David danced, he was dancing with “all his might” which is part of loving God “with all your strength” Luke 10:27.


I just do all my dancing in my home! What I have found many times is that carnal people (carnal Christians) will despise your zeal for the Lord. I’ve been mocked several times in serving the Lord for my zeal. I know that is the enemy like when Jesus told Peter “get behind me Satan you don’t savor the things of God, but the things of man.”

Then it happened as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David that Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart. 2 Samuel 6:16

Why, then, do you criticize your brother? Or why do you despise your brother? For all of us will stand before the judgment seat of God. Romans 14:10

Michal ended up being barren. (2 Samuel 6:23 And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.)

I don’t see anything wrong with singing and dancing to love songs. My husband always loved to sing me that song, “Brown-Eyed Girl” only he changed the words to “My Blue-Eyed Girl” and he sang to me “Have I Told You Lately that I Love You.” He loved Jim Van Morrison’s songs. He was tone-deaf, so it was not all that lovely to my ears. Sort of reminds me of singing to God. It does not say we have to be particularly on-key, it says, “Make a joyful noise.”

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations. Psalm 100:1-

We can learn from Moses in that when he was on the mountain top with God he was willing to intercede for a whole nation and then he got a little to “up close and personal” with the children of Israel and got angry. The moral of the story is like Jesus got away to the mountain to pray, we need that mountain top experience with God to deal with people in the valley.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Romans 12:1


Psalm 16:11, You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
1 Corinthians 14:15, "I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding";
Ephesians 5:19, "Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord"
Colossians 3:16, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord"
Hebrews 2:12, "In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You"
Hebrews 13:15, "Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name"
James 5:13, "Is any among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing psalms."

Sarah McLachlan: Ice Cream
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5muUFNxqqKw&feature=related