"Deeper in Worship"

◊WORSHIP WEDNESDAY◊

We are preparing to enter into our 21 day Daniel Fast at sundown on Thursday,
January 10, 2013. And we are calling this corporate fast as we are seeking a deeper more intimate and meaningful relationship with God as well as seeking a revival in The Sanctuary as well as our lives. A major element of seeking revival and seeking a deeper relationship is to seek a powerful personal and corporate deepening of true worship. 

True worship is primarily about whole life surrender and full obedience, not the mere singing of songs and choruses. Worship involves ever-deeper repentance with the love and passion to live in obedience. The Word tells us that a deeper worship experience/relationship is based on Scripture and more yielding to the Holy Spirit.” Worship is deeply personal. If one is seeking a deeper experience with God, then they are seeking the wrong thing. God tells us to seek Him and we will find Him (when we seek with our WHOLE heart). I am guilty, I must honestly say, of seeking a deeper experience with God in the confines of a "worship service" or particular church environment. I have only very recently come to realize that my worship is very personal and not related to the service or church itself. This is so freeing. But all too often the "worship service" or church itself is equated with one's worship of God. Worship is not related to the service or the church itself (church building). I think that all too often people think that worship only takes place between 8:00 & 11:00 on Sunday mornings within the confines of the structure that we unfortunately refer to as the "church."  If you desire to go deeper in worship, know that worship has far more to do with a life lived in obedience to God than anything we can do with our hands or any feeling/emotion that may or may not manifest itself within us. 

To find new depths of worship you must dig deep and deal within YOU those things that hinder true fellowship. This means dealing with unconfessed sin, unforgiveness, and disobedience, a self-Centered or prideful spirit. Which brings us to the an important biblical instruction for worshippers found in the words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman at the well, “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.” (Mark 4:23) This serves as a warning to us that it is possible to have vain and false worship. How careful we must be to pay attention to the sincerity of our words and actions as we gather to offer songs, prayers and words of worship.

It is God’s heart passion that His people worship Him in Spirit and truth. Indeed, our very reason for existence is to continually worship and obey God with great sincerity and passion. In both the Old and New Testaments, God earnestly desires for His people to worship Him with great power, intensity and purity. In fact, He is literally “offended” by worship that is shallow and disconnected from obedience. Throughout history, great spiritual awakenings always result in newly impassioned worship. In other words, it is quite useless to sing choruses like ”You are God alone” when I am serving other God’s in my life (i.e. money, sex, etc). Merely singing certain words or getting a gushy feeling are not the same as personally embracing the professed words in our lifestyle.

Since we cannot “work up or fake” sincere worship, we must pray for a deeper worship of Spirit and truth to grip our hearts. But along with our prayers, we must embrace the disciplines of serious Bible study, fervent prayer, fasting and life surrender that true worship requires. Dear Sanctuarians, let us pray for  God to teach us true worship. But, let us pray with faith and hope. God definitely wants to deepen us in worship! (John 4:23)