It is game time!! So...Bring it!!!

Every Sunday we gather together to sing songs, pray, study God's Word, and respond to what he is calling us to do! Is it possible to come to a corporate worship experience, not be engaged and simply go through the motions? Absolutely! However, what does that say about our private worship? 

Imagine, for a minute, a football stadium with 10,000 adoring fans simply going through the motions.   The team just scores a game winning touchdown and the fans just stand there with their arms across their chest and a smug look on their face. What is that saying to the home team... "Well, we just sorta believed that you were going to win this game!" We all know that is not what would happen if your team scored a game winning touchdown. As a matter of fact, I feel excitement in my bones just thinking about it. The reason most of us get so excited about football is because we have had a season long adventure with this team. We have time invested in the players, the program, and the overall teams goal... to win! So where is that excitement when we remember the winning nature of God? Where is that passion? And where is our investment of time? Some say it is a cultural issue and it is taught that in reverence we should worship God. And in that reverence, we should sustain from clapping, dancing, and excitement. I have news for you friends!! God commands us to clap! dance! and sing a new song! with gratitude and praise!! Don't get me wrong, everyone worships differently. However, shouldn't our corporate worship reflect our lifestyle? And shouldn't we be living a lifestyle of worship? If we are passionate enough to lose our voices from encouraging our team during a football game, but only passionate enough to cross our arms at the throne of God what are we communicating? If the answer is reverence, I must disagree. If in fact it is reverence we are seeking in worship; then ultimately, we would be facedown on the floor in worship of our perfect Father. Because our sinful eyes are too impure to look upon the face of God! It is only through the blood of Jesus that we can be free from our sinful nature and even find council with Him. Jesus is our quarterback and he has already scored the game winning touchdown!! So, how are you celebrating??? How loud are you cheering? 

So I guess the next question is... How can we bring more to the table? Know and understand that our God is a personal God. Our corporate experience is when His presence manifests whenever two or more are gathered in His name. (Matthew 18:20) This is the corporate gathering experience, or what we call "Church".  However, Jesus also requires a more personal one-on-one fellowship with us. “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me.” (Revelation 3:20) Personal worshipers that enjoy worship regularly tend to engage more fully and contribute more wholeheartedly to corporate worship. This is like preparing for the big game! Getting your team's garb on and all jacked up on excitement for the big game! The only difference is that while the football team needs a "twelfth man".... God doesn’t need us to worship Him. God doesn’t need anything…. HE IS GOD! God delights in our worship. We are the ones who need to worship. I pray that we all find worship everyday. 

Wellspring of our Worship

We have all been tasked with making much of Jesus. Lifting Him above ourselves and making it clear to those around us that He alone is on the throne of our hearts. A fear of mine is that as worshipers we will eventually become numb to the gospel. Because we lead worship each week, it has the ability to become scenery, it can begin to blend into the background of our lives, or even worse become part of the sin in our hearts.  That is why before we worship, it is important to ask the Holy Spirit to remove us from routine. To let our experience become fresh each and every time we worship. We need to be freed from our inhibitions and rescued from our own ambitions. We need to taste again, the freshness found in the living water.

If you are a worship leader or someone who serves in a choir/praise team, be careful that the reason for being on stage is not for your own glory. It is easy to make much of yourself being ‘on stage’. If you find that being ‘on stage’ to be your passion this may means your worship has become more about being ‘on stage’, than being in the presence of God. Sometimes the importance of being on stage turns into a ‘cult of personality’ in which the performer becomes the center of attention rather than the facilitator for the congregations worship… this is a worship fetish – it is idolatry. When we become ambitious for the stage, worship becomes about our glory and not God’s glory. We must understand that we are insignificant in worship without Him only He can make our worship significant. We are simply a ‘speck’ of a ‘speck’ — in comparison to God’s glory! We must make sure that we are being used for the building of His Kingdom and not our own. This ambitious nature is what I believe to be a tainting of the water. Pulling water from the wrong spring. This is much like the woman at the well. She too was not drinking from the right well. We must understand that our wellspring is the well of the Living Christ. If we are seeking Him we will never be thirsty. The problem is too often we seek the wrong wells… Our wells can sometimes be dug with selfish ambition that only satisfy us for as long as they are new. Unfortunately, the “new” is often the old twenty seconds later.  When we drink from the wrong well, we will just become thirsty again. We are all guilty of drinking from the wrong well at some point. The problem is when we can’t taste the tainted water. When we continue to drink from the wrong well it becomes an acquired taste or even worse an addiction. Then it begins to interfere with our relationship with God—which in turn becomes… idolatry.