A Word About Worship
Do you ever wonder why we do what we do?
I do, especially as a worship leader I want to make sure I’m doing it right. When I question or argue with myself about my purpose or the motive for my acts of service in the church or my responsibility with my family. I sometimes reflect back to the day when I said yes to the drawing of the Holy Spirit in a salvation experience and what that felt like. I remember being so full of the love of God and satisfied but yet hungry to know Him more. I became involved in everything I could in the church. Being in love with Jesus and the expression of that love through worship and acts of service was as natural and unconscious as breathing. As time moves on, our relationship evolves in different ebbs & flows, similar to a marriage of many years. Our love doesn’t diminish; it gets deeper & better but less demonstrative in ways. Now it seems like we have to make a conscience effort to do the things that used to come so naturally i.e.: prayer, praise, worship, singing, reading the bible, enthusiasm, etc.
Rev 2:4 However, I have this against you: The love you had at first is gone.
Rev 2:5 … Return to me and change the way you think and act, and do what you did at first… It is in His presence that we are changed. I want to change and I want you to change. I want us to live the abundant life God gave us & to accurately represent God. Change is necessary if we are to grow and bear much fruit in the kingdom of God. The ways of the world have a negative influence on us & the Word of God has a positive influence on us.
Rom 12:2 Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (MSG)
The Word of God & His Spirit in us is how we change for the Kingdom of God. By seeing & declaring the goodness of God & being reminded of His Word. Change takes place, His ways now become our ways The choice to change is ours, but the act of changing comes from us & God working together. Once we’ve made the conscience decision to surrender to God in all our ways, He now has our permission to go to work on us.
So lets talk about worship.
Worship is for God, and about who He is, not what he does or what he can do. It’s an expression of our love to Him. We are commanded to have no other Gods before Him, to worship only Him. God created man to worship Him, if we don’t worship Him, we will worship something. If we don’t worship Him he says creation will. Worship is more than music, its our lifestyle. Rom 12:1 Brothers and sisters, in view of all we have just shared about God's compassion, I encourage you to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, dedicated to God and pleasing to him. This kind of worship is appropriate for you. (God’s Word)
Rom 12:1 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life--your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life--and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. (Message)
As a Praise and Worship leader, I am compelled with a passion and a calling, to bring the congregation into the presence of God, to create an atmosphere conducive for the manifest presence of our heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit In our culture we associate worship with music. God created music. It’s a good thing. We use music as a tool. Anointed godly music helps us fix our attention on God. Music is one of the ways we express to God how much we love Him and how we feel. Much of time it takes a musical moment to arrest our thoughts enough to stop what we’re thinking on. The things that are going on in our lives are so loud in our head that we can’t hear or think much else. Saul called David to play on his harp to relieve the torment; music was played as praisers went in front of the army before battle as a weapon of war. The battles of our life will be foiled also if we can slow ourselves down enough to be still in His presence, acknowledge Him for who He is and His goodness, we will feel, hear, & see God. Exposure to His manifested presence is vital. There are great residual effects of worshipping God. As a Christian it is our reasonable service.
Start now! On your own at home or work and at church, be a true worshipper, a participator not a spectator.
