This is going to be short and sweet, but it will require some extra reading and studying from you, because God holds each one of us responsible for our own salvation (Phillipians 2:12). This is geared towards the church as a whole, not to one person, group or church organization, but I would like our congregation to take it to heart.
Church!!! Take heed to these words...we call our Sunday church service worship service for a reason...it is not just the job of the music team no matter what they are called to bring worship, worship is more than singing, worship is putting our hearts in tune to God, His mercies, His will and His Glory....if this isn't happening, no matter what the music is, no matter what the preacher is preaching there is no true worshipping going on....John Piper expounds upon true worship by writing:
"What is this inner, authentic, godward experience of the heart that we call the essence of worship? Jesus pointed us toward an answer in John 4:23–24 when he said, “The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” Notice that worshiping in spirit is not contrasted with worshiping in the body or with the body. Instead, it is put alongside worshiping in truth.
So what would that mean, that we are to be spirit-worshipers, worshiping from the spirit, and truth, driven by truth? I think the point is that when we worship — right worship, good worship, pleasing worship — depends on a right mental grasp of the way God really is, truth.
If we worship an idol of our own creation, we are not really worshiping God."
Delesslyn A. Kennebrew puts it this way:
Because of our God's unimaginable generosity toward us, God, in all of his glory, chooses to respond to us through our worship. This is the promise—that when we worship God with extravagant love and extreme submission, God will come and commune with us. The promise is not that we will feel great or that our heavy load will be lifted, but that God will come. And when God comes in his own time as a response to our worship, Psalm 96:13 declares, "Let all creation rejoice before the LORD, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness.""
True worship brings to our hearts the truth of God, without truth there is no worship, we find the truth in our Bible. Church listen to me, if our music, if our preaching does not point to the truth of God, then why are we doing this thing we call a worship service? That is the point, the music and the preaching are just guides, true worship comes from the individual hearts. If the music doesn't point to the truth of God all we have is a concert. If our preaching doesn't point to God all we have is a self help seminar. I challenge everyone to ponder my words and John Piper's words, for if we cannot point our service to God's magnificent Glory, well then as Jesus would say, our church service will amount to nothing but filthy rags....
Here is some extra reading for you to do on your own.
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/what-is-worship?#_=_
https://www.christianitytoday.com/biblestudies/bible-answers/spirituallife/what-is-true-worship.html
Love, Respect, Repeat
No comments:
Post a Comment