Tag: Life with God

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

When God serves us

1392627-hubble-telescope-images-of-planetsIt is an amazing phenomena that we have in North America that we try to serve a God who serves us.  I find it amazing the amount of people who have expectations that God needs to fill.  It isn’t a new concept either.  There have been people for many decades that treat God like a genie in the sky.  Just say the right prayers, have the right amount of faith, and God is obligated to move and fulfill our expectations.

It sounds a little ridiculous I know, but there are whole doctrines being taught today in churches which in essence teach this very concept.  We see it when people leave churches because God didn’t answer their prayers.   Someone didn’t get healed.  Someone they cared about passed away.  We see it when God begins to move in our lives and we disregard what God wants to do because He didn’t follow our plan.

The biggest concern I have with this idea is when we try to obligate God into doing things our way, and we do it in so many many ways, we shrink God down until He is beneath us.  We remove Him from being supreme, sovereign creator, to being, I hate to say it, a butler required to do what we wish.  One of the greatest tragedies we have in churches today is the fact that God has become so, so very small in our lives.

We do what we want, when we want, and expect that God simply will bless us.  We set our schedules and plans, and create our programs and turn our eyes to heaven and say, “look at what we have accomplished, come and place your seal of approval on it.”  I know we don’t consciously think this way, but our actions demonstrate this very thought.  We don’t just plan our churches this way.  We live our lives this way.  Just look at our budgets and schedules and the time we have for the lost around us and it doesn’t take much searching to see that we are serving a really small God, reduced to following our plan, and using our wisdom.

And then we turn to the world and say, “Come and follow God with me.” and wonder why no one wants what we have.  I believe it is time for us as Christians to re-evaluate our view of God.  Is your God to small.  Have we diminished Him so that He has to follow us?

I believe in a God who spoke the entire universe into being.  A God who planned me and you from before creation happened.  A God who knew He was going to have to enter our world and die in our place before He said let it be.  A God who holds the entire universe in the palm of His hand and sustains it with the power of His word.  I believe in a God who is so deeply in love with us that He freely chose to enter our world and open the door again to knowing Him and His abiding presence to us, and who calls each of us by name to accept His invitation.  I believe that we are called to serve a God who exists outside time, who knows the beginning from the end.

I believe we need to see God again as He is, that we are called to follow Him.  Not just in word, and by going to church when we feel the need.  But to be a people who come to know Him as He is.  To be so captivating by the awesome and terrible presence of God again.  The that so many people who have encountered Him have immediately fallen on their face and worshiped.

We, as Christians, have lost the awesome, powerful, majestic nature of God in our lives and substituted it for something of worthless value.  I believe that God is again moving on the hearts and lives of His people, calling us to again know Him for who He really is.  To again know and walk in the power of His abiding presence.  To follow and walk with the One who simply said “Let it be..” and it was.  It is my prayer for all of us that like David we could “magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together!“ Psalms 34:3 NLT 

It is time for us to stop diminishing God and begin to magnify Him.  To open our eyes and hearts to the majesty of who He is once again.  We serve an amazing, incredible, awesome, powerful God who desires us to know Him.  Will we remain as we are, or will we begin again to magnify God and see Him as He truly is?