I found in my own life recently that I have the tendency to be what I call a “worship snob”. I love the worship service at my church. I have in the past enjoyed music like Hillsongs and things similar. It is loud and powerful, the music is moving – it engages the senses. But I remember the first time I heard the music that is here on SI by Christ Our Life. I spent the whole entire day weeping in the Presence of God as I listened to that music. The power of that music is not in the talent of the musicians or the artful arrangement of the music (although it lacks neither), but in the purity of it. That’s the word that comes to mind when I listen to it – Pure.

When I went to hear Paul Washer speak at a little reformed Baptist church, they sang out of a hymnal and I had never even heard any of the songs, I had no clue how to sing them. So I just read the words telling of His kingly majesty and cried like a baby.

I am learning that just because it’s not what I’m used to doesn’t mean that God isn’t in it. How foolish that seems now. I remember hearing John Bevere say “worship isn’t a slow song.”

Maybe it is a life poured out, a heart lifted up. Sometimes it is a deep longing that has no words. I guess I can’t really define it. I just pray that I am learning to do it – to live it.

Danielle

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Danielle

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Mike Compton

I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot over the past few days. Pondering on the tendency to offer God something less than true worship. I have noticed a parallel (somewhat) to something I have been experiencing in my life.

As a former anorexic (healed by Jesus last year) I have been gaining weight over the last several months and look like a normal person now. Those who saw me when I was deathly thin apparently feel some obligation to make sure I feel good about my appearance, flooding me with compliments. At first, I received it as sincere, but when I kept hearing the same thing over and over and over, just the very repetitiousness of it made me suspicious of its sincerity. My perception is that they think I need to hear those things and so they say them because they feel like they should.

And don’t I sometimes do the same thing with God?? I bring to Him these very lofty spiritual phrases about how wonderful He is, etc, etc. But if I was to be honest, sometimes I am giving Him empty words and not the outpouring of a heart in love. I am doing what I think I should do. I guess He probably doesn’t like it any more than I do.

I have times in worship when I get so real with God, and I just release all that’s in my heart with sincerity, not trying to make it sound pretty and it is the most wonderful thing. But there are other times when I stop short of this and end up offering him something less, so much less.

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Danielle

Hi Danielle.....First of all, praise God that you were healed in the name of Jesus. May your healing bring Him glory and honor. He is still in the miracle working business and I praise Him for it.

Secondly, you make an excellent point in your post. Its potentially tragic that "Pentecostals,' for lack of a better phrase, could be going through the motions of raising hands and even dancing and so on and it has become merely form and function. The Lord does not care about what we say or how we worship on the outside, He is only interested in why we do and say things. Its the attitude of the heart that counts. If it is genuine, you will be changed. If you can stand in a church for twenty years waving your hands and jumping up and down but you never become more like Jesus, then I would have to seriously question the purpose and the motive and the genuiness of your worship. It is impossible to spend time in the throne room and not be changed.

One groan in the Spirit is worth more than a thousand words from Shakespere........Frank

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Danielle

Dear Danille...............He will be found by those who seek Him. I wrote this recenly Danielle

"O my God, my soul is cast down within me." (Psalm 42)

Are you downcast today? Has the troubles of life, the trials of circumstances mounted up and overwhelmed you? Are you wandering in a spiritual wilderness? Perhaps you even feel abandoned by God?

Psalm 42 was written by the "Sons of Korah," a musical family descended from the priest who had led a rebellion against Moses and Aaron(Num 16). The family of Korah had been the premier worship leaders for hundreds of years after this incident. It is comforting to know that even after such a rebellion against the will of God that there was restoration for this family and they were used mightily by God. When this psalm was written, the psalmist was in exile far from the Temple in Jerusalem. The temple of course has been the center of worship and where the shekinah glory of the living God was experienced by the multitudes of worshippers. Now the psalmist was deeply longing for this experience, to worship in the presence of God. Do you deeply long for it today?Has the multitude of your troubles somehow separated you from the presence of the living God?Is the only water you are experiencing right now the tears that fall in the shadows of the night, the darkness of your situation? The psalmist uses an unusually expressive term "As the deep pants for the waterbrooks so my soul longeth after you, oh my God." God bless you today if your "soul thirsts for God, for the living God."

My youngest son is named Daniel, as most of you know he has Down Syndrome. He also had other troubles which required more than one major surgery. One night as I drove home from the hospital, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the magnitude of the situation. It all just came crashing down on me and I wept, uncontrollably. And in the midst of my wracked sobs, the presence of the Lord filled the car and His hand lifted my chin up and He said to me "Frank, why is your soul so downcast, put your trust in me."

There is a term amongst shepherds called "casting." It refers to a sheep on its back. If a sheep falls onto its back, it does not have the ability to get upright again. The blood will begin to drain from the sheep's legs, and the weight of its body will press down upon its lungs and it will begin to suffocate. It will slowly die. Perhaps you feel like your on your back today? You do not have the ability to get up again. The situation and circumstances are outwith your control. You do not feel the presence of God, you feel alone and isolated, the joy is gone and you have lost you "song in the night." Let me tell you what the shepherd does when He comes upon a "downcast ," sheep. First of all He begins to rub their legs to bring some of the blood back,get the circulation going a bit. Then He takes one hand and grabs the two back legs, then the other hand and grabs the two front legs and hoists the sheep up and over His head and around His neck. He then carries the sheep until it has recovered and only then does He put it back down on the ground.

This is a perfect illustration of what the Lord will do for those who cry out to Him. The sheep that are "downcast," on their backs are found not because they are silent, but because they cry out with all the strength left in them so that the shepherd might hear them. If you are downcast today brothers and sisters, cry out to the Lord with all the strength that you have left in you. Remember the days when you "used to go with the multitude:I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise." I pray that today is the day that your joy returns, that you will have your song in the night. Even in the midst of darkness, may your joy be complete in Him. The good shepherd of our souls who would take your chin this day, very gently and say "why so downcast," my child, "put your trust in me," see now I will lift you from this place and put you on my back awhile for when you walk with me for "my yoke is easy and my burden it is light and you will find rest for your souls.".......................Frank

Excerpt from “God Seeking Worshippers” by Horatius Bonar

It is spiritual worship, and spiritual worshippers that he is seeking: "The Father seeketh such to worship him." The outward man is nothing, it is the inner man he is in quest of. The worship must come, not from the walls of the temple, but from the innermost shrine. It must be something pervading the man's whole being, and coming up from the depths of the soul; otherwise, it is but as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Forms,sounds, gestures, dresses, ornaments, are not worship.

Instead of constituting worship, these outward things are often but excuses for refusing the inward service. Man pleases himself with a sensuous and theatrical externalism, because he hates the spiritual and the true. God says, "Give me thine heart." Man says, "No; but I will give you my voice." God says, "Give me thy soul." Man says, "No; but I will give thee my knee and my bended body." But it will not do. "God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."

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Danielle

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Danielle

Wow......excellent quote

Excerpt from: Reality – The Hope of Glory by Art Katz

"The Fatherhood of God is not just a credo of a pious-sounding doctrine. We cannot know it by merely living a well-meaning, moderate, religious Christian life, in which mindless, habitual rituals usurp the place of true worship. If you have never known Him intimately as your Father, you may wonder why profuse streams of tears sometimes roll down the faces of believers as they worship God. There is no facile human method that can bring us to this knowledge, which comes only by the presence of the Holy One of Israel. It is only His presence, His reality, that can break your heart and bring you, in tears, on your face before Him. I relish every such time that God has brought me so low. We desperately need to know Him in this way, walking with Him, having come out from the darkness of this world and become separate."


Please God, let us break free of the comfortable “worship” of you that is empty, vain and useless and that requires nothing of us. Let us not just sing the songs and clap the hands, but let us rend our hearts, pour out our deepest longings for you, with tears, in brokenness and desperation. Let all our pride die in Your Presence and let us take our proper place – face down before You.

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Danielle