Oh How I Love to Worship the LORD!

I’ve been studying the gospel of John. John 6:44 says that no one can come to Jesus unless the Father “draws” him. Since I personally do not believe that God has prechosen from before time began, who He would draw and who He would not draw, but rather that He draws each and every living soul to Himself and His Son, I needed to devote some time to these passages, and since I don’t like to take Scripture out of context, I actually started at John 1:1 “In the beginning…”. Then I got distracted by the Samaritan woman in chapter 4 and the question of worship. Oh, How I love to Worship the LORD! Jesus told the woman at the well that the day would come, and has now come, when the true worshipers will worship in spirit and truth. Now what exactly does that mean? Oh, I am sure there are people out there who can “explain” it to me. The same way they can explain to me that in Genesis 6:7, God wasn’t really sorry that He had made man, as if He were surprised that every choice they made was for evil, or in Exodus 32:14, the LORD didn’t really relent because of Moses’s intercession…they can explain what that really means. Back to the Samaritan woman…spirit and truth. Funny that worship seems to be a question of personal preference, a personal thing, when it is supposed to be a God thing. Who is worship for anyway? For our entertainment, or to be a sweet offering to our God? Spirit and Truth?

Someone, somewhere claimed to know what “style” of worship God preferred. They were criticizing a particular form (was it Taizae or Rock?) and said that it was not “Biblical Worship”. I asked, just what is Biblical Worship? The kind our LORD prefers, the kind He demands? Spirit and Truth. Lets see? How many different types of worship have I participated in since becoming a Christian? I won’t go into my pre-worship of false gods here. There was the very formal worship in the United Methodist Church, pipe organ, choir robes, and hymns. I confess, Pastor Art and I were instigators in the “Bring Guitars into the Sanctuary” debate. We actually led the youth in a powerful rendition of Don Fransico’s “He’s Alive” one Easter Sunday. (but the kids did wear Choir robes). There were the weekly chapel services at the Evangelical, Charismatic, Nondenominational Christian School I taught at for 6 years, complete with dancing and tongues. Can’t forget the “March for Jesus” events, worshiping through the city streets of Rochester, NY. I worshiped the LORD at a Billy Graham Crusade, a Petra Concert, a Funeral Service for a two year old at a Catholic church. I’ve worshiped with Pentecostals, Mennonites, Homeless people, children, the elderly, even Baptists. I’ve worshiped in tents, auditoriums, tiny little chapels on the Navajo reservation, huge multimillion dollar mega churches, summer camps and living rooms. To worship the LORD in Spirit and Truth. Maybe “Spirit” means where your heart is. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Worship is for God, not to make us feel good, not to make us feel comfortable. Our heart must be focused on God, Creator of the Universe, the Great I AM! We must know and love Him who we worship. That could be the truth part. Are we worshiping the God of Exodus 20:1-6? I’ve never been “slain in the Spirit” and I’ve never seen gold dust fluttering down from Heaven. I have had an occasional vision during worship but nothing to build a theology around. On many occasions, in many different settings, I have had an overwhelming sense of the presence of God and on some occasions I have had a check in my spirit that something just wasn’t right. I’ve been to churches where the worship felt so good, but the message was so unbiblical that I felt as if I had been violated. Currently I am worshiping with an AOG church that is about 90% Navajo. Sometimes the music is a little loud. We have a lot of drums (not the pow wow type). I’m on the dance team which is part of the worship team but we don’t dance at every service as a team. Our songs are mostly original, very scriptural, pretty rocky, very upbeat. We use banners and “glory hoops”. We stand and we clap and sometimes some of us go to the alter and cry. Some very opinionated people might think that this style of worship is more worldly than Biblical. Some people don’t like it. But it’s not a question of whether or not people like it. I think there may be people in the congregation who are not worshiping in Spirit and Truth. I believe there are many people in many different kinds of churches who are not worshiping in Spirit and Truth. But I believe the ultimate judge of whether a particular style of Worship is pleasing to God, is of course God. This is not a question of “to each his own.” This is a matter of “To God be the Glory” and I doubt very much God, who through the beauty of His creation demonstrates His love for diversity, is glorified by only one style of worship.