We’re baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!!!! Miss me? My deepest apologies for my abandonment of you, my readers. I do not hesitate to say that the lack of blogging is entirely my fault, and I hope you can read back over one of our first studies and forgive me for my lapse in attention. Thanks. Anyway, pressing on.
This week we’re going to be talking about worship. Some of you might be thinking, “Oh! I know all about that. That’s where we sing a few songs in church before I start texting my friends… erm, I mean, before the sermon starts.” (That was hypothetical, guys. DON’T TEXT IN CHURCH!) Well, those couple of songs are an aspect of worship, certainly. But it goes a little deeper than that.
Essentially, worship boils down to giving praise and expressing love. Now this doesn’t have to apply to God. People worship all sorts of things in this world. Some people worship money. Some worship other people, be it someone they really look up to or just someone they care for. You can worship your job, your social standing, even yourself. But that, my dear children, is called idolatry, and is in fact frowned upon in most societies… well actually it isn’t, but it’s certainly a no-no in God’s book. Idolatry is putting something in place of God. That’s another topic though, and I’ll go deeper on that another day.
So let’s say, hypothetically, that you wanted to give praise or express love to someone or something. How would you do it? Maybe you’d totally talk that person up to your friends. Maybe you’d write a song or a poem, or draw a picture. Maybe you’re not the artsy type, so you write a letter. Maybe you just take time out of your day to think about this person, or even *gasp* talk to them. If it’s someone you really look up to or respect, maybe you will check out the stuff they’ve done or the books they’ve written or the videos they have on youtube. Maybe you would want to emulate them, to try to be like them. Maybe you’re just unique and can find a way to express love and praise with a hanger, two pop cans and a toenail. Who knows?
Application time! Look back over that list. Chances are you have done some of that stuff. I know I have (For the record though, no toenails were ever involved). If we use such a wide variety of ways to express love and praise to the people in our lives, why should we limit our praise for the Almighty God of the Universe to a few off-tune songs every Sunday?
Don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely NO PROBLEM with worshiping through music. For some of us that’s a great way to connect with God, and singing in church is an awesome way to commune with your brothers and sisters in adoring God. There is just so much more to it than that! It says in 1 Peter 4:11, “Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.” Did you catch that? Then everything you do will bring glory to God. EVERYTHING. If you’re a musician, great! Do it for the glory of God. Are you an athlete? Cool, do it for the glory of God. Are you an actor, a reader, a dancer, a writer, a gamer, a photographer? Do it for the glory of God. Maybe you make a mean grilled cheese sandwich. You grill that cheddar for the glory of God! Get the picture?
This brings up another point. It says for the glory of GOD… not the glory of *insert name here*. I’m not going to lie, I all too often have trouble with this one, and I need a TON of God’s strength to overcome it. Myself, I’m a performer. I act, I sing, I play, it’s what I do. Well not long ago I was part of a singing group called Teen Team. We went to different churches and sang, then we went on a mission trip to Spain. Confession: I would often get caught up in the performing aspect of it… how we sounded, if we looked good, who was watching, what they thought of me, etc. My focus shifted from God to myself. It took a lot of prayer to shift it back, and by the time I finally got my act together (no pun intended), we had reached our last performance. Now that’s not to say that every time we sang I wasn’t worshiping… just a lot of the time. I look back on that with regret, because I don’t know how God could have used me if my heart had been in the right place.
It’s all too easy to get caught up in making ourselves look good. We work so hard for others to think well of us! What happens then? We lose our focus. Sometimes even the way we worship God in church gets tainted because we fear the thoughts of others. For a while I didn’t want to raise my hands or close my eyes in church because I thought that if I did, people would think I was just doing it so that they would think I was super-spiritual or something and I would look fake. It’s like reverse psychology, only I did it to myself and got all psyched out! I’m willing to bet that something like that has happened to most of us. The Holy Spirit may be guiding us to let loose and say ‘Amen’, but we keep our mouths shut. Maybe, if we’re really honest with ourselves, we might find ourselves shouting hallelujah with the best of them not to praise God, but to look good.
The point is that worship is about where your heart is, not your actions. You could sit in the back pew and do no more than sway with your heart in the right place, and you could make God happier than a worship leader who didn’t. It’s not about what you do… it’s about who you do it for. It’s not about us… it’s about God.
So this week, I have a challenge for you. As you go about your normal routine, think “How would I do this if I were doing it for God?” Then, well, do it! Give it a shot. See what happens. I’m all for success stories, so if you see God doing anything particularly cool in your life through this, leave a comment! Let us know.
So, that’s it for this week my dears. Oh, and if you could… pray for me please? I don’t know why, but I have had an immensely hard time getting this Bible Study up and running lately (obviously). Thanks darlings. Talk to you next week!!
XOXOXOXOXOXO
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment