GOD CENTRED WORSHIP

Worship is not performance. Worship is a demonstration of your life in real time. Worship is an expression of your heart.

John 4: 23-24: Your worship must engage your Spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looKing for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before Him in their worship. God is sheer being itself-Spirit. Those who worship Him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true self, in adoration.

So worship can be joy expressed in laughter. It can be sorrow expressed in tears, it can be awe expressed in silence. It can be sin expressed in repentance. It can also be expressed in song, in dance, with flags and with banners. Worship should be done by all age groups together, the entire age spectrum from the little ones to the elderly. Worship can be silent and noisy. We need to practice worship according to the heavenly pattern. We believe that everybody should have the freedom to worship God.

2 Corinthians 3:17 (nlt) for the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Worship is what we are and do, the entire week. Our lifestyle is worship to God. As we live our daily lives, we do things to attract the attention of Father God. We practice His presence all day, every day. It is just so much more impressive and spectacular when we can do it in a cooperate meeting. It is not something that we only do on Sundays. It is not the 3 fast ones and the 2 slow ones that we do in preparation of receiving another sermon or teaching in a church building. Worship is done on or from a platform that is much higher than preaching, teaching or sermonising. Worship is to attract Father God. Worship is to express adoration towards God. Worship is for God. Worship is to pleasure and please God. When we worship on a daily basis it is to make Father God sit up and look over the balcony of heaven and say: “Son, let us go down there and enjoy that adoration, let us go and envelop them in our tangible presence. Let us go and have fellowship with them.

Singing empty songs is what we do on Sundays when we quickly run into the church building to do our dues. After all I must prepare myself for the word.
This is when people express their views like: I do not like that song. It does not do it for me.  That one is to fast. The beat is wrong. The sound was too loud. That is a depressing song. That one is for the youngsters. They really sang off key today. Well the “worship group” certainly did not practice this week. There must be sin on the platform, because there is no anointing. This list is by no means exhaustive.

“Synagogue” worship occurs when people come to church to hear the word, receive ministry and be entertained. The main reason for this meeting is people centred rather than God focused. This is “church” worship. What the people of God do not realise that they are the temple of the Holy Ghost and that He (God) lives in them. Temple worship is about people that come to praise God, to pray, to make an offering of them. Their sole concern is for God Himself. They live for God. They reflect the glory of God. They polish their reflective mirrors everyday. They know that they are the Kingdom of God. They know that the Holy Ghost dwells in them. They are not trying to get into the holy of holies every Sunday and come away disappointed. They are the holy of holies being manifested on a daily basis in a dark and lost world. After all, the veil was rent two thousand years ago. God does not dwell in temples made by human hands anymore. He now lives in the lives of the redeemed. They are that shinning light of the life of Christ. They are the hope for the lost and dying world that so desperately desires the Jesus of the cross. They are that redeeming love of the cross of calvary.

Ezekiel 44:18 (nlt) they must wear linen turbans and linen undergarments. They must not wear anything that would cause them to perspire.

Worship as a lifestyle is not about trying to make “things” happen. There is no sweat in worship as a lifestyle. Worship as a lifestyle is all about pure obedience. He (the Holy Spirit) will lead us, He will show us new ways of worshipping, He will show us new steps, new turns, and He will fetch some new things in heaven and demonstrate them through us. We give the Holy Spirit our entire being and allow Him to do as He pleases.

Romans 12:1-2 (nlt) and so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him. Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

It is then not knew songs, new beats and rhythms that we need. No it is a complete new attitude towards God and His Kingdom that is required. So let us gather, to find new fresh ways of exalting the Father. Allow the Spirit of creation to delete our mindset of yester year and to replace them with worship styles that are pleasing to God the Father and refreshing for us.

Acts 3:19-20 (nkjv) repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before.