Tag: Christianity

Worship? pt – 3

Worship in truth – pt 1

worshipWorship is powerful when we get it right.  God’s presence fills our lives and we come to know Him deeper and deeper.  The problems we face surrender to the sovereignty of who He is and His care and provision for us.  Worship allows us to refocus ourselves from trying to do things our way, and brings us again to the place where we submit and align ourselves again to His hand and plans.  At least when we get it right it does.

“But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way.  For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”   John 4:23-24 NLT

Every time I have read these verses I have asked how do we worship in Spirit and in truth?  Worshiping in truth takes on two facets.  The first is that we must worship God for who He really is.  So many people talk about God in our world.  We have people who talk about a God who is not the God revealed in scripture.  There are so many ideas put forward in our day that have nothing to do with God at all.  God is not a vengeful judge.  And He is not an all accepting loving deity with no expectations either.  He isn’t a faceless far off uninvolved substance drifting in space.

When we worship we need to come to a place where we are willing to yield to God and let Him describe Himself.  We can find who God is in scripture.  Jesus came to earth to show the Father to us.  Jesus said “To see me is to see the Father.” John 14:9 MSG.  We can read how Jesus interacted with people on earth and see how He lived.  We can learn of God in our relationship with Him.  Jesus states in John 17:3 “all who receive Me will experience everlasting life, a new intimate relationship with You (the one True God) and Jesus the Anointed (the One You have sent)” Voice.

If we are willing to yield our expectations and understandings about God and allow Him to speak to us He will bring us into new understanding of who He really is.  All through scripture God revealed Himself to people and caused their understanding of Him to deepen and grow.  Every time God named Himself in scripture it was to describe His nature to people and He is still doing that today.  But we have to be willing to let go of our current understanding.

If we refuse to let go of our understanding of God as a vengeful judge ready to jump on you every time you do something wrong you will never be able to see the loving caring side of God who deeply desires to free you and care for your every need.  If you simply see God as a big bully in the sky, you will never come to understand God as your staunch defender.  So much of what we see about God has little to do with who God truly is.  And we can never worship God for who He is if we are unwilling to let go of our current understanding.

God is actively seeking those who are willing to worship Him in truth.  Who will let Him reveal Himself to them.  It is up to us to be willing to open our hearts to receive what He is so willing to share

 

Worship? – pt.2

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Worship.  It is a word that separates many people.  For most people it defines a style of music that is heard in church.  And the style you prefer causes you to join together with people who agree with you, and separates you from those who disagree.  We have fights over contemporary music vs hymns.  We argue over instruments and how many people should be in the band.  And all the while no one stops to wonder “is this worship?”

We focus on the music, and how it makes us feel and we forget that worship has nothing at all to do with us at all.  God is calling us back to the true nature of worship again, and if we get it right we won’t worry at all about what type of music is playing.  We are called to “worship in spirit and in truth” John 4:24  And worship that God seeks starts not with the music we sing, but with the heart we sing it with.  Worship begins in the heart of the worshipper.  The problem with our focus is that it remains on us.  We look for songs and music that make us feel good and fit our personality.  If we like fast tempos and a hard beat we love contemorary rock.  If we like quiet we prefer thoughtful contemplative music. 

But the fact remains that we are the focus of our worship.  We cover our selfish nature by making the subject about God, but we sing and dance for ourselves.  For most of us worship remains about what we want and has little to do with what God wants.  We “honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me” Matthew 15:8  If all we have is the music we have missed completely the point of worship.

Worship is about giving awe, respect and value to someone.  It starts with an attitude and a heart posture of submission.  We cannot worship someone we feel superior to.  As soon as we figure we know better than God about something we remove ourselves from a place of worship to lordship.  As soon as what God wants for us becomes a suggestion we remove our ability to worship Him; because worship by it’s very nature means we bring ourselves under and submit to someone.  If we don’t return to making Jesus our Lord, and bringing our whole life under His control we will never be able to worship Him at all.  Worship must begin with surrender and exalt God for who He is which means He is God and we are not.

Worship?

worshipFor most of us when we think of worship we think of gathering ourselves together within the confines of a building somewhere to pray and talk about God.  For many, many Christians in North America at least this has come to describe the first part of a service where we sing together.  Having been a worship leader for almost two decades it has for several of those years been my definition as well.

Worship has been a source of great contention and fighting in churches throughout history.  Charles Spurgeon even called the worship team “the war department” because worship has always been a subject which causes people to argue.  How many songs do we sing.  What kind of songs can we sing.  Are there musical instruments allowed?

I have begun to realize over the years that we have completely missed the boat in regards to worship.  Because worship was never meant to be about us.  Music isn’t even needed for worship to happen.  I have left many services over the years, ones that I have led, and others where I have been a participant, and have often heard people say “wasn’t worship powerful?”, and the opposite “worship didn’t do anything today.”.  I have had people say they didn’t like the music I chose.  I have had people refuse to take part except when songs they like to sing were played.  I have been involved in discussions where people demanded that chorus be used instead of hymns.

I think we have walked away from true worship and have begun to worship worship.  We value the songs, the lyrics, or the rhythms that we like and discard everything else.  We take part when we feel like it, depending on how spiritual , or how difficult or easy our week has been.  I have struggled to take part myself when I was feeling low or tired.  But worship was never meant to be about us.

When we allow our preferences and passions to determine our worship we focus on ourselves and what we want.  And worship was meant to be all about Jesus, letting our love and hunger for Him express itself.  Worship is about proclaiming God’s value and glory.  It is about focusing on and valuing God simply for who He is.

Worship is about our lives placed before our creator and exalting the one who made us, and redeemed us.  Wolfgang Simson wrote “worship has much more to do with Spirit-filled obedience (Romans 12:1-2) than with music and singing “worship” songs. Our worship must center on the unquestioning readiness to lay aside life, limb, possessions, family, house, friendships, evangelical respectability—everything—to see the knowledge of the glory of the Lord covering the earth as the waters cover the sea.  Worship is not so much what we do but how we do it; not so much what we say or sing but how we are a living sacrifice.”

We have allowed ourselves to walk away from the passion and power of lives lived in surrender and allowing our lives, hearts and voices to give expression to the greatness and awesome splendor of the King of kings who spoke the entire world into being, and knows every star by name, and still has time to know how many hairs are on our heads.  We serve an incredible and awesome God and we need to return again to the true roots of worship, and become the worshipers God is seeking after.  “Indeed, the time is coming, and it is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. The Father is looking for people like that to worship him.“ John 4:23 GWT