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God has set us free to worship Him. He created us for His pleasure and our breakthrough and restoration by His power must necessarily also be to please Him.
God has set us free to worship Him. He created us for His pleasure and our breakthrough and restoration by His power must necessarily also be to please Him. You are welcome to these series of teachings on Worship. These principles, outlined in a series of essays, aim to guide us in our worship of God in Spirit and in Truth. It is important in these times to look for the old landmarks and pillars of truth for focus and not be carried along in fast running trendy streams that lead to precipices.
Proverbs 22:28 Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.
Our ultimate guide is the revealed word of God in Holy Scriptures and instructions therein. I have summarised this teaching on worship in seven (7) broad aspects or principles which can help us in our every day worship. The text is from that famous story of the Woman of Samaria, confused by too many teachers, prejudices, disappointments and seeds of sorrow - left confused and bewildered as she told the Master in John 4:20 Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
The seven aspects or principles are as follows
(1) True Worship.
(2) Trinity in Worship.
(3) Brokenness in Worship,
(4) Vehicles of Worship,
(5) Direction and Leadership of Worship,
(6) Deliverance through Worship,
(7) The Grace of God in Worship.
John 4: 21-24. Believe me the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is not of the Jews.
But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.
Worship, the supreme call of the Christian, is central to our Christian life. Christ met a Samaritan woman under bondage who had had several husbands and now living with someone not her legal husband. Sin and loss of accuracy are natural relatives. It is no surprise she was confused and uncertain on what and where to worship. Yet, Christ for this woman interrupted a very busy agenda to give a vital key. My prayer is that Christ will meet you at this hour and not man. Observe that the disciples who would have gladly helped Christ fetch water and made this revelation impossible were sent on an errand. Be glad you can read this message and touch God with only the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Worship of God, who is a Spirit, can only come from a vessel filled with the Holy Spirit -God's free gift to man. John 4: 10. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knows the gift of God, and who it is that sayeth to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
Worship is an expression built on thirst and taste cultivated by our personal spiritual experiences. Everyone worships something. When full and led by the Holy Spirit we do not thirst for lesser experiences and living waters flow out from within us in expressions of devotion, appreciation and adoration to the only God who is more than enough. We want more of only what we have had and like the psalmist we pant and continually long for more of God. Every other drink tastes flat and others who have not tasted God wonder at our addiction to what they do not find. They can not see the subject of our adoration for they hear only our voices and music.
A vessel not filled and led by the Holy Spirit will still worship. We are created to adore something so our focus shifts to what we appreciate. Self, the arts, the eloquence and brilliance of man, the beauty of creation, order and advancement of civil societies …and shall I add whatever the adversary considers apt to complete his work of seduction. When Christ was tempted, He was offered everything within the physical realm to pay for His worship. However, Christ had seen realms that surpassed the physical and knew of a glory which exceeded outstanding human architecture.
He saw economic and political advancement of human societies at its best as still primitive when compared to the heavenly, and the applause of man as rubbish in comparison to the perfect adulation of an innumerable company of angels …thus making the devil's offer ridiculous.
Today, it is not surprising the thirst for a thrill of happy entertainment for depressed souls, self-glorifying worship in the paradigm of the 'music star" competing with the 'Morning star", and even direct worship of the devil by many who perhaps justifiably thirst for miracles, children, success, prosperity, a perfect society, the good life but forget they must only worship God and God alone who gives these things effortlessly when He is pleased.
A search that does not begin, continue and is ever engaged in knowing God will easily go off a tangent to worship the created instead of the creator.
John 4:13-14. Jesus answered and said unto her; whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
Any worship not from a Holy Spirit filled vessel is simply false and not directed at God but at the deceiver. Deception around worship is a vital weapon of darkness and so Hell releases newer strains of diversion and appeasement to satisfy the refined and cultivated thirsts of the enlightened modern age. Remember the most authentic illustration of worship is what the angels do in heaven where there are no other thirsts but for God.
Next week we shall examine the concept of True Worship, the first of the seven principles in this series.