Listen: Your Worship Will Shift Atmospheres And Break Things Open. Dry Bones Will Come To Life, Mountains Will Move, Red Seas Will Part, And Hope Will Arise. Anything You Do That Brings Pleasure To God Is An Act Of Worship.
Can you imagine something being so important and vital to God that He comes looking for it? That He pursue it? He seeks after it Well, that’s the power and attraction of true worshipers. There is something so phenomenal about their worship, that God seeks for, looks for, goes after, and relentlessly pursues them. Reminds me a lot of ‘new love’. We go so out of our way when it’s ‘new love’. The phone calls are never-ending, the flowers flow in constantly, the ‘I love you’s are dear, genuine, passionate, and daily, the time together is precious, and you never want it to come to an end. You rearrange your entire schedule (and life) just to spend a moment with the one you love. You give everything to them because you love them. It’s new, exciting, fun, and life-giving. It brings you joy, happiness, and contentment, and you can’t stop telling everybody about somebody who has stolen your precious heart and refuses to give it back. You want to hold hands all the time, your intimacy knows no limits or boundaries. All because you love them. Often their response matches yours because when someone knows just how special, valued, cherished, treasured, important, and loved they are, they tend to give even more of themselves in return out of gratitude.
I wonder what would happen if we would dare to love God like that? What would it be like for our worship to resemble that kind of ‘new love’ in word, thought, and action? In a nutshell, when you go to hear someone important, you don’t just applaud and leave. You stay after the applause to hear
what they have to say.
You can find in Isaiah 6 perhaps the greatest worship scene in the Bible. The prophet Isaiah says the following in Isaiah 6:1-4 “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw [in a vision] the Lord sitting on a throne, high and exalted, with the train of His royal robe filling the [most holy part of the] temple. Above Him seraphim (heavenly beings) stood; each one had six wings: with two wings he covered his face, he covered his feet, and with two wings he flew. And one called out to another, saying, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is filled with His glory.” And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out.
This is what you would call true worship! It is getting lost in the worth of who He is and being overwhelmed by His very presence. It is the place where no flesh glories in His sight. It is the place where the true worshiper dwells. John 4:23-24, “But a time is coming and is already here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit [from the heart, the inner self] and in truth; for the Father seeks such people to be His worshipers. God is spirit [the Source of life, yet invisible to mankind], and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (AMP)
KEY: “…the Father SEEKS such people to be His worshipers…”What would it be like for our worship to resemble that kind of new love’ in word, thought, and action? Instead of that old stale familiar ‘I still care about you, God’, kinda ‘love’. This sounds a lot like Revelation 2:4-5, “But you walked away from your first love—why? What’s going on with you, anyway? Do you have any idea how far you’ve fallen? A Lucifer fall! “Turn back! Recover your dear early love. No time to waste, for I’m well on my way to removing your light from the golden circle.” (MSG) I don’t know about you, but that encouraged me to love God afresh, with a NEW love! I want to be one of those true worshipers whom God pursues! Could you imagine how relentlessly God would pursue us for rendering such worship on Him? If only we would give God even a tenth of what we give to people…Selah…
Which makes me wonder, if we spend no time with God, no time talking to Him and hearing from Him; if we spend no time in prayer, no time in His Word, no time in His Presence, how will we ever be able to worship Him in spirit and truth? You can’t worship Him when you spend no worthwhile time with Him. How can we worship Him, by His Spirit, when our Spirit takes no time to learn who He is? Which is hard to do in an era of the church that is “Praise” focused…ONLY. Now, is there anything wrong with praise? Not! From cover-to-cover of the Bible, you will hear about the praises rendered to our God and His favorable responses to them.
HOWEVER, I’m afraid that we’ve become so Praise-Centered, that we no longer know how to get to the Core of Worship. There’s a wonderful new emphasis in many places today on praise and worship. And I for one certainly recall it being called “devotion”. You see, it was the time in my former church when the Deacons and Deaconesses led in prayer, praise and worship, and testimony service. It was a time when the people remembered to make the Lord the focus, and finally took time to forget themselves instead and experience just how big God is. People from all over the sanctuary would share what the Lord had done for them and their loved ones, their health, their employment, marriage, etc. It was wonderful, encouraging, empowering, motivating, faith-building, inspiring.
We would sing, and clap and dance, and holler. We would give God our best and noisiest praise! It was sort of our standing ovation for God! Much like the preparation for when A President is about to enter the room and speak. UNFORTUNATELY, though, far too many of us leave after the standing ovation, not realizing that it’s only the beginning. Yes, Praise went forth and Worship went forth, but now God wants to SAY SOMETHING; He wants to speak to us. But how can we hear Him if we leave, or start to tune out after the praise break stops? How can we hear Him over all the clapping, hollering, high-fiving, and ‘tell your neighbor’? How can we hear Him while we’re so busy running, jumping, leaping, dancing, and shouting? Now, is there anything wrong with any of that? No, not in and of itself. And if that was the conclusion, it would be fine. HOWEVER, it’s not, it’s only the beginning.
Because after the ovation dies down, after the applause stops, His voice speaks, and that’s the most important part of it all. And when you realize that it is, you begin to prepare yourself to hear the Lord speak. Isaiah 6:5 says this, “Woe is me! For I am ruined, Because I am a man of [ceremonially] unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” (AMP). Worship is supposed to lead to REPENTANCE.
When you are in the presence of the Lord, you should see Hisholiness and the sin that you have not dealt with. You need to make things right with this awesome God. Worship that doesn’t lead to cleaning up your sin is just dead-end applause, and we should not leave until God has spoken. Worship should remind us that we’ve sinned, it should convict us of our unrighteousness when we realize just how righteous He is. It should uncover our unholiness when we realize just how holy He is. Worship should challenge us to change for the better.
Worship should remind us that although we serve an awesome,loving kind, and generous God, He is also HOLY. “because it is written, “You shall be holy (set apart), for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:16 AMP); “Strive to live in peace with everybody and pursue that consecration and holiness without which no one will [ever] see the Lord.” (Hebrews 12:14 AMPC)
This is how vital holiness is. We are to be holy because He Is Holy and without Holiness, No One Will EVER See Him. So, when we worship God, it is a time of preparation to hear from God. We enter that place of holy worship where we acknowledge that we are unclean and need to be bathed in His
presence. We need to be made right. We need to begin again. Start afresh, start anew. We need to reevaluate ourselves, our attitudes, our speech, our thoughts, our deeds, our motives and intentions, our desires, our longings, our hearts. Because we need to hear Him, we must come close to Him, and have Him cleanse us and position us. Praise is wonderful, it gets us to the door, thanksgiving opens it up, worship allows us to enter in, and holiness allows preparation to hear God speak. Isaiah 6:6-7, “Then flew one of the seraphim [heavenly beings] to me, having a live coal in his hand which he had taken with tongs from off the altar; and with it he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity and guilt are taken away, and your sin is completely atoned for and forgiven.” (AMPC).
Verse 8 says, “THEN I HEARD THE VOICE OF THE LORD SAYING, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!” (AMP). A lot happens after the initial cries of “Holy, Holy, Holy”. Just as a lot happens before Kings, Queens, Presidents speaks. There’s a process before the proclamation. Isaiah didn’t get happy just because of who he was around (the angels, or for us it’s other church folks). He didn’t even get happy because of the ovation and applause (“Holy, Holy, Holy”, or for us it’s our Praise Breaks). But Isaiah declared his sin, I’m unclean and unholy.
And since I’m in your presence and have the opportunity to hear you speak, I’m not stopping here, I’m not staying here, I’m leaving here changed and better. And the very thing he declared wasunclean (‘I’m a man of unclean lips’), the angels touched him and gave a new declaration, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity and guilt are taken away, and your sin is completely atoned for and forgiven.” And what happens after he confesses and gets cleaned up? When we see our sins and receive God’s forgiveness, then we should see the people who don’t have a Savior yet. Our hearts should ache for those who haven’t seen the King. Worship is not just getting a good feeling because you get close to God. When you see the Lord, it will help you see the lost people who haven’t gotten close to Him yet. Worship that is worship will lead to repentance and then to evangelism.
Unfortunately, we get so lost in what we desire the Lord to personally do for us, that we assume when we’ve received what we asked for, then that’s it, I’m good, the day is done, we can go home now. Not so! We don’t get to God, get what we can get from God, then go home. We get in the presence of God, so we can repent, change, and get something to give away to somebody else.
“Here am I, Lord. I will go for You into the lives of the people around me who have yet to see the King as I have.”
You don’t get clean just to brag about your cleanliness. You don’t get clean just to hang around other clean folks. You get clean so you can go to them who are still in the filth of their sin, and you tell them I know a Man that can clean your sin better than Tide can clean your laundry! John 4:39-42, “Many of the Samaritans from that village committed themselves to him BECAUSE OF THE WOMAN’S WITNESS: “He knew all about the things I did. He knows me inside and out!” They asked him to stay on, so Jesus stayed for two days. A LOT MORE PEOPLE ENTRUSTED THEIR LIVES TO HIM WHEN THEY HEARD WHAT HE HAD TO SAY. They said to the woman, “We’re no longer taking this on your say-so. We’ve heard it for ourselves and know it for sure. He’s the Savior of the world!” (MSG) That’s what we’re supposed to do in church. Leave worship with the witness that I know a man that can save you, help you, heal you, deliver you, redeem you, forgive you! And that passionate witness will lead them to listen to Him for themselves. See, the people entrusted their lives to Him when they heard what He had to say. We stick around when the President speaks because we want to hear what he has to say. Well, we need to learn to stick around Jesus to hear what He has to say! Why? Because there are far too many lives at stake without Him! And all they need is our witness after worship to lead them to the one who is still the truth, the way, and the light! Church, there is So Much More to the Reason We Worship!
J.P. Olson
www.journeyintotheword.com
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