Worship Archives - Jodie Berndt

Advent begins on Sunday.

I know. That feels fast. We haven’t even popped the turkey in the oven (and okay, some of us may still be at the grocery store), but I’m sliding into your inbox today, breaking my own once-a-month-ish newsletter rule, because if you’re feeling at all anxious about the holiday season (or, for that matter, if you’re stressed about anything), I’ve got good news—plus a printable (and pretty) resource designed just for you.

Adoration is the anxiety antidote.

Now, I’m not making light of the worries, even panic attacks, that can color our days. These joy-stealers are real. (Ask me how I know.)

But what’s also real—what is scientifically proven—is that when we praise God, our brains release dopamine, the chemical that makes us feel good.

Worship can change. your. brain.

It’s true. And just a few minutes of worship—making an intentional choice to praise God every day—can change your brain. If you’ve got time between peeling potatoes and prepping the stuffing (and you don’t mind reading words like “cingulate cortex”), you can click here for the research download. But if you want my quick take on the topic, it’s simply this:

Worship, in a nutshell, means giving honor and glory to God. And when we look at our lives through the lens of God’s character, everything shifts. Problems that once loomed impossibly scary or large start to shrink. Everything finds its place in light of God’s splendor. His holiness reveals our flaws; his mercy allows us to confess them; his faithfulness emboldens us to come before him with our every need.

As Ann Voskamp puts it in The Greatest Gift (a book that happens to be my FAVORITE Advent devotional), “When the King rules your world, you cease to rule or worry. All worry dethrones God.”

All worry dethrones God.

I agree—and I desperately want God to be on his throne in my life. But sometimes (especially in the middle of the night when “darkness seems to hide his face“), I can feel my chest start to tighten. Maybe it’s the crush-rush of the Christmas to-do list. Maybe it’s the “what-if’s” as I try to trust God with my children. Or maybe it’s just COVID again. I feel like they haven’t given us an expiration date on the symptoms; could the creak in my knees be a long-haul side effect?

I don’t know.

But what I do know is that there is a very real thief whose mission is to steal and kill and destroy—and worship is the way we counter his attacks.

A plan to praise

Emboldened by verses like Psalm 9:10 (“Those who know your name trust in you”), I’m putting Psalm 63:6 into practice:

On my bed I remember you;
I think of you through the watches of the night.

Now, when I wake up at night and my trust starts to falter, I have a plan. Instead of counting sheep, I’m calling God’s name—alphabetically. “God,” I whisper, “you are Awesome. Beautiful. You are my Comforter. Deliverer. Everlasting Father…”

(I’ve got more letters lined up—Faithful, Good, Holy—but honestly? I rarely need them. The simple practice of adoration opens the door to peace and I drift off to sleep, secure in the fact that the One who watches over me is still awake. He will neither slumber nor sleep, the Bible says.)

If you’d like to join me in Advent Adoration this year, you don’t have to stay awake in order to do it. Instead, you can draw near to God—you can come into his presence with praise—with this DIY Advent calendar. We designed it last year exclusively for our email community, and it was so well-received that we’re bringing it back.

Just print, cut, and fold

The Advent printable includes 25 cards, each one highlighting a different one of God’s character traits. They’re super easy to access—just print, cut, and fold!

Display the cards with the numbers facing out as you welcome December, and then flip them over discover a new facet of God’s nature every day. You can hang the cards on a strand of twine, prop them on a mantle, or keep them in a bedside box as a reminder of God’s lavish love.

Again, this resource is a Christmas gift for our email friend group; you won’t find the cards available elsewhere. As a current subscriber, you don’t need any special code to access the Advent printable; simply click here and follow the prompts to download. (If you have friends who’d enjoy this printable or the monthly newsletter, please encourage them to visit jodieberndt.com to subscribe and join us—everyone’s welcome!)

And as you consider each card, talk about God’s character with your children. Ask questions, even if you don’t know all the answers. For instance…

God is our COUNSELOR. Where do you need his wisdom or guidance today?
God is SOVEREIGN. How does it make you feel to know that he is in control?
God is IMMANUEL. What difference does it make to know that he is with us?

God is Immanuel…and so much more. Whatever your need, wherever you are, you can anchor your trust in God’s name. May you sense his nearness, his love, and his grace in increasing measure in the month ahead.

Now go get that turkey in the oven—and I’ll see you back here next month with a Christmas giveaway of my most-favorite resource!

Happy Thanksgiving!

❤️

P.S. Starting December 1st, I’ll be sharing these Advent attributes along with discussion prompts in my Instagram and Facebook stories. So even if you don’t want to download the calendar, you can follow along and use the daily prompts as an easy Advent devotional your whole family can enjoy!

True confession: I’m not the biggest Women’s Retreat gal.

I know people think I’m super social, but deep down I think I must be an introvert. Things like retreats, ladies’ luncheons, and even baby showers always sound so friendly and inviting up front, but part way through all the happiness I usually start to lock up. My smile muscles hurt. My face tends to freeze. And I’m sure, when people see me on the way out, they think to themselves: “There goes some bad botox.”

Honestly, though? I loved the retreat I attended last weekend with Galilee Church. And not just because we literally met in a room on TOP of the ocean:

Or because (and if this happened at every retreat, I’d get season tickets) they had TVs for the U.Va. fans. (And yes, I did pack my pom-poms and some BEAT DUKE stickers to share.)

I loved this retreat because of the people (lots of wide open hearts), the worship (songs like What a Beautiful Name), and especially the teaching. Whitney Capps was our speaker.

That woman is pumped about Scritpure. I can’t begin to tell you all that she said (we had three meaty sessions, and I was scrawling notes the whole time), but I want to take a stab at one thing that stuck with me. Whitney talked about how Jesus wants to be loved.

(And let me interrupt myself right here and say: If you already have a touch of the wobbles today and you can’t take much Deep Thought, maybe come back next week, when I will try to be lighter. But for those who want to dig in, buckle up and let’s go.)

Remember the lawyer in Luke 10, the guy who stands up and wants to know how to inherit eternal life? It’s a good question–and Jesus turns it right back on the guy:

“What is written in the Law?” Jesus asks. “How do you read it?”

The legal eagle doesn’t miss a beat: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind,’” he says (quoting Deuteronomy 6:5), “and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (that one’s from Leviticus 19:18; clearly, that guy knew his stuff).

Jesus tells the fellow he’s right. And then their convo segues into what we know now as the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

But Whitney didn’t go there. Instead, she camped out on one little verse–Luke 10:27–and teased out how, exactly, we are supposed to love God. Like, what does it really mean to love Jesus with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind?

Another good question–and one, honestly, I’d never really thought much about.

Turns out, loving God with all our HEART involves not just passion and desire, but also thoughtful reason. The Greek word for “heart” in this verse is kardia–which is where we get our term “cardio.” To the Luke 10 audience, this word would have implied engaging the will, or making some kind of resolution to love.

Loving God with all of our SOUL (which comes from the word psuche, as in “psyche”) taps into the deepest part of our being. Our soul is the part of us that is not dissolved by death. It has a moral component, one that resonates with eternity, because our soul is designed to be everlasting.

I’m gonna skip the word STRENGTH for just a sec, and move onto MIND, which comes from the Greek word dianoia (and I am probably butchering half this stuff, so if you are a Greek or Hebrew scholar, I am begging you: Please leave a comment). Dianoia connotes “understanding.” It is more than just knowledge; it is a way of thinking about information. It’s a mental processing that, Whitney suggested, is inspired and unlocked by the Holy Spirit.

So let’s recap.

To love Jesus well, we need to engage our heart (our passion, desire, and thoughtful reason). We need to love from our soul (from the very depths of our being, with an eye on eternity). We must love with our mind (not just knowing about God, but knowing God–putting all the pieces together and processing who he is, what he does, and how incredibly much he loves us).

And we need to love the Lord with all of our strength. I left this one until last because it’s a different word in Hebrew than it is in Greek. In the Deuteronomy (the Hebrew) version that the lawyer quoted, strength was also translated might, and it implied loving with “abundant force”–something that the Jodie Expository Dictionary might call True Grit. It’s the kind of love that keeps you hanging in there, against all odds (and against all sense of feeling), because it is rooted in what you know to be true. It’s a love that is brave.

In the Luke 10 passage (the Greek), the word strength comes with a twist. Yes, it implies things like power and might, but the Greek translation also involves ability or aptitude–as in, strength as a God-given gift. Isn’t that cool? We can love God with the strength that comes from somewhere beyond ourselves. We can love with the strength he provides.

Is your head spinning yet? Yeah, mine was too. But when I got home from the retreat I started looking stuff up (there’s a website called blueletterbible.org where people like me–people whose grasp of Hebrew pretty much begins and ends with Bar Mitzvah–can have serious fun in the weeds). And when you boil it all down, what I want to ask you today (and what Whitney asked us) is this:

How do YOU love God?

Some of us may find it easy to love God with our hearts (our passion, our reason, our desire). Some do it from the soul, just sort of “breathing” in Jesus. Some may find it easy, natural even, to mentally put all the pieces together, and process God’s nature with an understanding that compels us to love. And some of us–particularly those who are going through a really hard time, a time where maybe we don’t understand how or why God could let something happen–are loving God out of our might. We love him even when we don’t feel it, or when it doesn’t make sense to our minds. We love Jesus out of sheer grit, out of the strength he provides.

I know (cuz he said so) that God wants us to love him in all of these ways. So let’s think about where it is easy for us, and where maybe it’s hard. And let’s ask God to increase our love. Let ask him to equip us to love him with all that we have, and all that we are.

Ok. I think I’ll leave it right there. Because honestly? I don’t even really know what all of this means. All I know is that I want to love Jesus well. Really well.

Because he loved me first.