| Poster | Thread |
| | Re: Worship | | Worship comes from "worthship". What is God worth to you?
I can tell you that the first time I worshipped God was when I was first flooded inside with His presence. The only form of "worship" I was aware of was ritualistic religious worship.
What happened to me when God showed up was the result of His presence filling me to overflowing. The overflow was worship. I wept, I raised my heart and my hands toward heaven. I ran outside and all stars in the heavens seemed to be worshipping God, and me right along with them. It was glorious. It was undescribable. It cannot be taught. It can only be the result of a close and inimate encounter with our God.
As our dear brother has already posted below, God is looking for worshippers, who worship in Spirit and in truth. His Word is truth. So reading, valuing, and proclaiming His Word is worship. "In spirit" happens when we draw near in our hearts to His prsence within us, and include and value His presence in everything we do and say, day by day moment by moment, just as Jesus did. We run to be alone with Him.
When I met my wife, I wanted to be alone with her. When there were others around, I couldn't wait for them to leave so I could spend time with her alone. What about God. Is He held in such high esteem in your life...or mine, that we can't wait to be alone with Him? I pray that He is.
Praise and worship go far beyond what occurs in organized church. Yes it is glorious when we come together and God inhabits our praises. But it is even more glorious when we realize that He has inhabited our life. It produces groanings that cannot be put into words.
What people write and say about worship are attempts to descibe the glory of God in our hearts. Just as our God exceeds our ability to quantify His glory, when it floods our soul it is just beyond our ability to convey so that our reader or listener might understand.
Let me give you a short example, then I'll close. You can learn all there is to know about parachutes. You can teach all there is to know about them. You can design them, teach others how to use them. You can even accompany skydivers as they jump out of the plane and watch them decend and see the chute open. It could be one that you have constructed yourself. But friend, until you strap one on your back and jump out of that plane, you don't really "know" parachutes.
It's the same with God. To know worship is not to hear or read, but to experience the living God for yourself. For that, you have to go to the cross with Christ, and die. We cannot enter into His life, unless we lose our own. Just like the parachutist cannot enter into free fall unless he leaves the plane behind. Once he jumps, there is no going back. It's the same with the cross. It is the only door to the throne. The blood of Jesus sprinkled on our life is all that will ever allow us audience with the Father. Oh how glorious this audience is. When this happens, you wont' need someone to describe it too you, you know it beyond description, and it is more glorious that words can convey.
In awe of His wonder and glory,
Lahry |
|  2005/7/19 9:00 | | roadsign
Member
Joined: 2005/5/2
Posts: 3777
| | Re: | | Quote:
God is looking for worshippers, who worship in Spirit and in truth.
The word worship has changed in meaning through a lot of sloppy use.
God doesnt need what we would define as worship religious activity, singing, etc but he requires our worship.
When we worship something that means we trust it more than God, we love it, we fear it, we spend a lot of time thinking about, it and we giving our allegiance to it, we use it to prop up our sense of worth and belonging. We might be worshiping our money, our possessions, our friends, our house, our car, our food, our TV, our nation, our leaders, our children, our church, our worship times, our intelligence, our Bible knowledge,
. Etc.
God commands that HE be the ONLY object of our worship. Worshipping all other objects is idolatry. And we dont need to put up a shrine before we label it as false worship. The shrine resides in our heart.
So really, our praises and singing do not necessarily reflect our true worship. Instead our daily choices do. God wants our total allegiance!!! So, lets ask him what idols may be lurking in our hearts. Let's examine to what extent we may be failing to worship in Spirit - ie listening to his words of truth, conviction and direction.
Thanks for bringing up this important subject.
Diane
_________________
Diane
|
| | 2005/7/19 9:43 | Profile | ellie
Member
Joined: 2005/5/25
Posts: 189
UK
| | Re: HE does not need a thing from us | | I believe that God brought you here because he wanted you to know good things of him and he knew he would give me some words to write to you.
He is challenging you he does want you. There are many ways in which he could use you and as you look to him he will teach you.
He has done this for my Brother, who had a miraculous encounter with God.
He was not walking with him although had known church and scripture in his young life.
He came back from his travels around the world.I got him to church And he fell under Gods power the moment we started singing. He continued to stand up, resisting the power on him. That was his happening.
He and myself had been prayed for by my Mother and others for lots of years. and the prayers were answered. He is in tune with God that is his walk with him. He turned over his whole life and I saw him recently and I know he is going to be used very much. He is now 38 and is going to marry a girl 34 Who has done, God work and mission, here and in africa, France and another place where she did some translating and lived the way of life there.
God moves on lives given to him to be led by him.
I will pray for you.
Take up the challenge, let him speak to you.Amen
ellie. |
| | 2005/7/22 21:51 | Profile | Moriah
Member
Joined: 2005/7/27
Posts: 12
| | Your Logig is dizzying | | But you are right. If God needed anything He wouldn't be God. If He did need something like praise or worship and didn't get it, what would happen to Him? Accept that the rock would cry out. 8-)
_________________
Mick T. Boltzer
|
| | 2005/7/27 14:18 | Profile | RobertW
Member
Joined: 2004/2/12
Posts: 4636
St. Joseph, Missouri
| | Re: Your Logig is dizzying | | Quote:
But you are right. If God needed anything He wouldn't be God.
There are times when God has bound Himself prophetically to 'need' things. Not that God needed anything, but according to His divine purpose He subjected Himself to need certain things. Here is one example:
And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, Saying unto them, Go into the village overagainst you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me. And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, [u]The Lord hath need of them[/u]; and straightway he will send them. All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, they King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass. And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them, And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon.
God has also so ordered that man should hear the Gospel via human agency. In this sense God hath decreed that he "hath need" of man. Many occasions where this is true. Sure God could have chosen other means of accomplishing His purposes, but at times He has bound himself to do things a certain way and therefor "hath need" of those means with which He bound Himself.
As for praising and worshipping God I suppose God could praise Himself. Arguably He did so several times in Genesis 1 when He looked at His creation and called it 'good' and 'very good'. I suppose He would be the only one worthy to do it if you thought long on it. Yet He has created man for His own pleasure. It is God's will that he be pleased. So worship is an act of obedience whether God 'needs' it or not. I have a little axiom I picked up years ago:
1) If you do not fear him you will not reverence Him
2) If you do not reverence Him you cannot worship Him
3) If you do not worship Him then His presence cannot be upon your life
God wants worshippers first and workers second. Work without worship is worthless. We need to draw near and worship. We need to be right so that we can look the Lord as it were in the eye with a clear conscience.
God Bless,
-Robert
_________________
Robert Wurtz II
|
| | 2005/7/27 15:03 | Profile | Moriah
Member
Joined: 2005/7/27
Posts: 12
| | Re: | | Quote:
And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, [u]The Lord hath need of them[/u] ; and straightway he will send them.
You are referring to Jesus in His Earthly body when He needed alot of things but I was talking about now.
Quote:
God has also so ordered that man should hear the Gospel via human agency. In this sense God hath decreed that he "hath need" of man. Many occasions where this is true. Sure God could have chosen other means of accomplishing His purposes, but at times He has bound himself to do things a certain way and therefor "hath need" of those means with which He bound Himself.
agreed.
Quote:
Yet He has created man for His own pleasure. It is God's will that he be pleased. So worship is an act of obedience whether God 'needs' it or not.
God is pleased when we benifit from Him and that is Logic's main point of his statement
Quote:
I have a little axiom I picked up years ago:
1) If you do not fear him you will not reverence Him
2) If you do not reverence Him you cannot worship Him
3) If you do not worship Him then His presence cannot be upon your life
as I said, I think Logic's main point is that God wants us to praise and worship Him for our own benifit. He only comands things for our good. That was his main piont and not to be eareverant. 8-) :-P ;-) :-) :-D
_________________
Mick T. Boltzer
|
| | 2005/7/27 15:55 | Profile | letsgetbusy
Member
Joined: 2004/9/28
Posts: 957
Cleveland, Georgia
| | Re: God doesn't need worship or praise | | Since we are looking at God's "needs" in a scientific light:
God doesn't need the reedemed, but if He does not receive his redeemed, then He has not received the reward for His sufferings. And if the redeemed do not worship Him and give Him praise, then the redeemed are not giving Him the reward of his sufferings, and the cross was in vain.
Fully explained by Paris Reidhead's, "Ten Shekels and a Shirt," below:
https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?lid=282
_________________
Hal Bachman
|
| | 2005/7/28 23:51 | Profile |
| | Re: the luxury of abundance in God | | Y'know, God is far bigger and more able than we can conceive. His love is vaster. His Light is brighter. His knowledge is deeper. His wisdom is higher. His compassion is richer. His grace is more winsome. His voice is more compelling.
You may wish to deprive yourself of sinking into this ocean of abundance and joy, of freedom from care and sheer exhiliration in the Spirit, of adoration in its safest setting and abandonment to the ministry of His tenderness.
It's your choice, (not mine). Worshipping God is [i]wonderful[/i], and that's an understatement of the highest order. |
| | 2005/7/29 7:35 | | RobertW
Member
Joined: 2004/2/12
Posts: 4636
St. Joseph, Missouri
| | Re: | | Hi Moriah,
Quote:
You are referring to Jesus in His Earthly body when He needed alot of things but I was talking about now.
Somehow in the midst of these posts I have failed to gather the point. I think it important to understand that in relationships there are those that 'feel' [u]needed[/u] and those who feel [u]wanted[/u]. When it comes to God 'needing' me that would be one thing, but knowing that God 'wants' me is a whole different thing all together. Does God desire fellowship with man? Does God 'need' fellowship from man? God desires and 'seeketh' such to worship Him.
It is important how we look at this whole issue of worship. The enemy hates the worship of God and has spent his days trying to userp that worship. He brazenly solicited worship from our Lord. He desired to ascend into the sides of the Lord and be like the Most High God. So when we say God does not 'need' worship we must use great caution not to give the impression that God does not 'want' or even 'demand' our worship. The whole thought is warped if you look at it 'logically'.
Imagine if I say God does not 'need' me to to bow down before Him in reverence. That would be as 'off' as saying that a judge does not 'need' all to 'rise' when he walks from his chambers. Or it is like saying our parents do not 'need' us to honour them. Or imagine if I said that the police don't need me to pull over when the lights are on in my rear view mirror. The whole question is rife with confusion.
[i]And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men [u]that have transgressed against me[/u]: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.[/i] (Isaiah 66:24)
Compare to:
[i]But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.[/i] (Luke 19:27)
This is the [u]penalty[/u] for refusing to bow the knee in this life. As you can see it can hardly be said that the Lord 'needed' thier worship; it goes without saying that the the most high being is to be utterly revered and worshipped.
The only one who does not believe this is Satan and his children.
_________________
Robert Wurtz II
|
| | 2005/7/29 10:16 | Profile | Logic
Member
Joined: 2005/7/17
Posts: 1791
| | Re: | | My whole point to this topic is that God only comands things for our own benifit. I gave worship as an example of how we benifit. But I still stand on the fact that GOD does not NEED our praise or our worship, We need to do it.
God is worthy and we sin if we refuse to.
I would doubt anyones salvation if they don't worship and praise God in spirit and in [u][b]Truth[/b][/u]. |
| | 2005/7/31 0:19 | Profile |
|
