We are all worshipers, whether we realize it or not, we all worship something or someone. We were designed that way, and we will fill our spirit’s with something or someone until we surrender to the living God.
Worship is all about relationship. It’s about relationship with the Holy God who needs nothing from us yet longs to know us and be known by him. So, first, as a worshiper of the one true God and as a worship leader in my local church body, I want to encourage you with some truths I have learned along the way…
You delight God when you bow your heart before him.
You delight God when you bow your body before him.
You delight God when you sing a new song.
You delight him when you remember all he has done in your life.
You delight him when you choose thanksgiving over fretting.
You delight God when you obey him.
You delight him when you join together in unity with other believers in one voice to sing of his goodness and mercy.
You delight him when you allow yourself to be overcome by the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit and you lay your inhibitions down and care only what your God thinks of you.
You delight God.
You delight him when you look up to him with hands open ready to receive whatever he has for you.
You delight him when you lead out in song of praise to him.
You delight him when you choose his ways over your ways.
You delight him when you seek to understand what he wants from you in worship/life.
You are his delight.
You are.
He sings over you.
As you sing of your delight in him, he is singing of his delight over you.
He dances all around you.
As you engage in a physical expression of praise, he dances with you.
You delight him when your mind and your spirit is wholly engaged in spirit and in truth.
You are his delight.
So, my fellow worshipers, worship is much more than congregational singing, it is a way of life. Worship is not static. Worship involves movement, literally and figuratively. Move your heart closer to him through your daily choice to obey him. As you do, you will be changed, never to be the same again.
2 Corinthians 1:9-10: ‘Indeed in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us.’
If we ever question anything about our past or our circumstances, we merely need to read this passage. It is the universal answer to the question of ‘why?’. At one time I spent an inordinant amount of time asking pestering the Lord with my questions of ‘why?’. I was rather demanding. Then I grew petulant when all I heard was silence.
Most of my ‘why?’ questions have been about other people. For some strange reason (sin) we hurt each other. Some people hurt more easily and some people are quicker to throw the spear. I find it agonizing when it is a fellow believer. I find it heart wrenching when I realize I just threw the spear. I find it difficult when my heart runs straight to embracing an offense.
What a fine line we walk! People are given the amazing privilege of reflecting God to the world around us and yet we fail everyday. We are to look for ‘fruit’. We are to live at peace and in unity with each other. We put so much pressure on ourselves and each other.
I know this Christian life was meant to be lived out with people, but it is so hard and so distracting. For instance: People are way more visible than God. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t actually seen God, I see his people. Unfortunately, I don’t see them through the veil of the righteousness of Jesus—I see them through my own sin-scaled eyes that are slowing, painfully being made new. Oh, that I would have the eyes to see as clearly as he does. Unfortunately, I don’t. I really don’t. I think I see fruit. I think I see evidence of God working in someone’s life. But when tragedy comes, when betrayal comes, it is difficult to look at their lives and believe that I saw clearly.
‘But God? I ask, it’s people that prove that your plan works. It’s people committing their lives to you. It’s people growing in you. It’s people committing their time to their local church. It’s about the people, right?’
No. It’s about God and him fulfilling his purpose.
When I am hurt by people I can run to this verse in 2 Corinthians and transfer my hope in people to hope in him.
It’s about setting our hope on God. Setting my hope on God. He has said he will deliver us. Do I believe it? Do I look for it? Do I believe that he raises the dead—not just raised the dead, past tense, but raise the dead, present tense? Do I really believe that he is powerful to take any situation and make it into something that brings him glory?
I have to or I would throw in the towel of following where he leads and where he goes. It’s the only answer that makes sense–it’s the only answer that satisfies the perpetual ‘why?’.
It’s about God—setting my hope on him—the author of my faith and the finisher of my faith.
People disappointing me does not have to finish my faith. It only does if my hope is centered on people.
She raises her fist to the heavens and shouts her anger. She lets her heart ugliness spill out and over, and then falls to her knees keening her pain. She rocks back and forth, curled up within the pain, when she feels Him reach out His hand to comfort her.
He scoops her up, holds her close to His heart and whispers in her ear: ‘I love you, I am here and I will never leave you to go through this alone, will you trust Me?’
Her first instinct is to cringe and hold on tighter to the pain, but then she remembers….
He was broken for her.
For her.
And she uncurls from the pain and holds it up to Him as an offering and in His brokenness she finds her rest.
This is a conundrum of truth. That freedom comes through brokenness.
Christ’s brokenness. Our brokenness.
I have only ever experienced true freedom when I accepted Christ’s brokenness on my behalf and when I was willing to be broken. What? Aren’t we suppose to be victorious and more than conquerors and all that? Yes, of course, absolutely, no question about it, but there remains the truth that I have two patterns of thought waging war within me: the flesh and the spirit. Which will win? The Spirit can only win once I have experienced brokenness in the flesh.
You see, freedom is easily abused, is easily misunderstood, and is often misconstrued. Freedom is not a freedom to do what I want. To do what I please. Freedom is for doing God’s will. His will. Only his will.
So many things stand in his way. They are us. They are our foibles, desires, sins, idols, past, present, and future. All of these things stand in the way of freedom. The kind of freedom that God intends for us to run in.
We are set free to be who God intended for us to be—not some improved version of ourselves, but a new version of ourselves. Jesus did not suffer an insufferable death so that I could be reformed. No. It would be cheapening his grace if I were to merely be reformed. I need to be transformed.
Transformed.
Made new.
Renewed.
That’s the kind of grace that motivated my Savior to die a horrific death in my place. It is the kind of grace I want in my life. It’s the kind of grace that comes through brokenness and yes, that is frightening, but I know that my God takes this heart of mine that I hold out to him and he gently and tenderly touches all the places that need to be removed and in his wisdom and timing he removes the old and replaces it with new. There is never any leaving of the old. It is all new. My only requirement is to submit and to trust.
To be reformed is to retain some semblance of the original and to make improvements on it. To be made new, to be transformed, means being willing to let go of the original, watch it break and see something new made out of it.
