Worship at the pagan shrines

I read this this morning and was completely blown away.

It's 2 Chronicles 33:15-17:
"Manasseh also removed the foreign gods from the hills and the idol from the LORD's Temple. He tore down all the altars he had built on the hill where the Temple stood and all the altars that were in Jerusalem, and he dumped them outside the city. Then he restored the altar of the LORD and sacrificed peace offereings and thanksgiving offerings on it. He also encouraged the people of Judah to worship the LORD, the God of Israel. However, the people still sacrificed at the pagan shrines, but only to the LORD their God."

Did you catch that? The people turned away from their sin and worshiped God at the pagan shrines. Only, their focus was the God of Israel.

What if when we turned away from doing it our way and decided to do it God's way, we stayed where we were at?

What if people stayed in their same jobs and in their same neighborhoods, and at their same schools and around the same people after they decided to follow Jesus?

What if we used our light like it was meant -- to illuminate the darkness?

What if putting our light "under the bushel" is the same as using our flashlight in the daylight?

What if we went to the same places and talked to the same people and saw the same movies and listened to the same music and engaged in the same activities as everyone else in this world but just did it with a God focus instead?

What if our focus on God is all he wants from us?

What if the point to life is to focus on God?

Acts 17:24-27:

"He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn't live in man-made temples, and human hands can't serve his needs--for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need there is. From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand which should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.His purpose in all of this was that the nations should seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him--though he is not far from any one of us."

Isn't that beautiful? It's as if God intervenes throughout our day and says, "Perhaps she will seek me. Perhaps she will seek me when she finds out that her mother died. Perhaps she will feel her way toward me. Perhaps she will feel her way toward me when she looks into the face of her newborn baby. Perhaps she will find me. Perhaps she will find me when she realizes that I am in that hug she just received. I'm not far away, but she just hasn't seen me yet."

What if we believed this?

What if God's purpose. . . in all of creation, in all of history, in all of our current situations and every single minute to follow. . . was that perhaps we would feel our way toward him and find him?

Worship is focus.

What if we realized that worship is not singing.

What if we realized that worship is not doing.

What if we realized that worship can be done every single day. Every single minute?

What if we realized that we could worship at pagan shrines?

What if we realized that we could worship at the movies, or at a "secular" concert, or with our friends that do not know God, or at a bar. . . with a beer, or at the mall, or on myspace, or ______ (fill in the blank)

What if we realized that the whole earth is full of God's glory, not just where we want to contain him?

What if God's glory is at the pagan shrine? And we just need to change our focus to find him?

What if God only cares that our focus and our hearts are turned towards him?

What if we lived as if nothing else mattered?

HE IS EVERYWHERE.

HE CAN BE FOUND ANYWHERE.