About ten years ago, I was introduced to Christian worship music through a VCD from a leading church. The VCD captured ideal moments of people lifting hands and men hugging their Bibles. It was beautiful. I loved the CD. The music was perfect, people looked beautiful, and to top it all, they were singing about Jesus. It just couldn’t get better… or so I thought.
The mistake I did was to think that, “This is worship”.
The years that followed helped me understand that there is more to worship than just a well-made, brilliantly mixed, musically sound CD. Worship has little or nothing to do with the exterior appearance of a man. But it has everything to do with the internal condition of the heart.
Worship Demands Obedience
I’m afraid that our generation has reduced worship to just singing. Worship needs to transcend all areas of our life. Michael W. Smith, once said, “Worship is my lifestyle.” And how true is that supposed to be for all of us!
Obedience is probably the highest form of worship. All our songs mean nothing, if our lives don’t sing the same lyrics. It was not the act of singing by itself that opened the prison doors for Paul and Silas. They had said “yes” to God and their obedience to Him had landed them in prison. Their life was a louder song. When they opened their mouth to sing, it was only an overflow.
Three Hebrew boys were thrown into the furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar. Their obedience to God landed them in a furnace. It didn’t matter, if they sang a song or not. Their obedience caused the King of Glory to appear with them in the furnace. Their act of obedience and worship attracted heaven.
When your life is worship, heaven will respond, prison doors will open and furnaces will be useless. You will rise victorious.
Worship Is Not Comfortable
When you examine your Bible, you will soon realise that there is a side to worship that is not at all comfortable. Consider the example of Abraham trying to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, as an act of worship. There’s nothing comforting about that! Yet this is what the Bible calls worship.
True worship demands that we place what is closest and dearest to us on the altar before His throne. How can we offer a love to him that is second-hand? We have to come to a place, where we love God more than anything or anyone else. Be willing to walk away from our greatest desires and ambitions in order to worship Him. As much as this side of worship makes me a little uneasy, friends of God in every generation have walked away from everything to be with Him and make Him smile.
Worship Does Not Look Cute
Think about the woman in Luke 7. Her act of washing Jesus’ feet with her tears made me cry while writing this post.
A room full of disciples, teachers of the law and followers of Jesus, but only one worshipper. Imagine this with me, a woman who has the reputation of a sinner in the whole city walks into a room full of haters and starts to weep without ceasing. She uses her tears to wash His feet, cleans it with her hair and then opens a bottle of expensive perfume and pours it on His feet. WOW!
I think it’s time we stopped trying to be cute or relevant or seeker-friendly and give to God what rightfully belongs to Him. Worship in its rawest form. Let’s be extravagant in our love for Him. Let us weep at His feet and kiss them. For the Father is seeking them who worship. It is my prayer that something will stir in your heart as you read this post and you will be moved to extravagant acts of worship.
Awesome. So blessed by this post.
Thanks Pastor. Cleophas 🙂
Amen. I like this post. was so blessed by this post
Glad you were blessed Sis. Rebecca, 🙂