Worship

Worship-what does it mean? According to Dictionary.com, there are multiple definitions, but something that popped out at me is that worship can be used as either a noun or a verb.

The noun definition:
reverent honor and homage paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred.

The verb definition:
to render religious reverence and homage to.

Too often, I feel that we get stuck in our walk with God and turn worship into a noun, a thing, instead of a verb, an action. Worship is important, but HOW we worship is something that is entirely up to the individual. Now, there are boundaries we should probably stay within-worshiping God while working on the weekends is a bit of a stretch and is unBiblical (4th Commandment). However, God is relational at his core and that is something that I see missed so often. A lot of places that I have visited understand church to be a set of actions, in a particular order, that requires nothing more of us than to do what we're told, listen to a single person talk for 30-40 minutes, then we get to go home. And this happens week after week after week after week and so on.

It doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to see that after a while, this becomes routine and loses its meaning and becomes stagnant and static, unchanging because "this is how it's always been done." But what if it's not the way it was MEANT to be done, eh?

There are many who criticize the more pentacostal or contemporary or "upbeat" worship styles, saying that it's not focused on God, but instead on the performers or "feeling good." Well, I'm reminded of Matthew 7:1-5, "Stop judging others, and you will not be judged. For others will treat you as you treat them. Whatever measure you use in judging others, it will be used to measure how you are judged. And why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying, 'Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,' when you can't see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye (emphasis added)." And besides, are these people saying that when we worship God we're NOT supposed to feel good? That's not a religion I want to subscribe to!

Who are we to say whether a particular style of worship is "worthy," or effective? I would imagine that God loves all forms of praise and honor and worship when the hearts are sincere. And who is to say that a particular style is better than another? They both honor and worship God, don't they? We shouldn't look at a contemporary or traditional worship style and view it as the ultimate form of worship and that all other worship styles are waypoints on the journey towards one style. That's just wrong.

I think I found the answer to why there are superiority complexes about worship styles. Now, I need to clarify something. I feel that the contemporary style is the more effective and meaningful of the two, so I am biased towards it. However, it's not without reasons: the simple truth is that I've seen more people grow closer to God in some incredible and amazing ways while attending a contemporary church than I have in all the years combined of going to a traditional church. Take that how you will, but it's definitely taught me something.

In Scripture, there is a progression of relationship with God. We start as sheep, following the Shepherd, right? Ok, well, sheep are not often thought of as brilliant or even moderately smart creatures, so I would think this would be when we are newly in Christ, just starting out, blindly following through faith because we have no other experience to go off of.

Next is the Potter and the clay. Ok, this has beautiful symmetry in that we allow ourselves to be shaped into the form that God needs us to be in. However, not a lot of interaction here. We move on from there to servants and the Master. Hey, at least we're in the house now, right? We're still under his command, but he's trusting us to do what he tells us to do, instead of relying on us to submit to his will and go with whatever; it's our choice. We'll pause here, because a lot of people in the traditional style seem to get stuck here. Oh, yes, they'll claim to move on to the other stages, but it's in this place of servant that we get the idea of reverence and humility (that's going to be another blog post) that a lot of people don't move past.

And THIS is what affects their attitude towards God. "Don't run in the sanctuary; it's the house of God and it's not proper." Matt. 19:13 ,"Some children were brought to Jesus to he could lay his hands on them and pray for them. The disciples told them not to bother him. But Jesus said, 'Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.' And he put his hands on their heads and blessed them before he left."

"We must look our best when we go to church." When did Jesus EVER dress up before going into the synagogue? And don't give me any comments about people only had one outfit in those days-I would think that God would want us to be comfortable rather than feeling confined in a suit just because we're trying to keep up appearances. Besides, isn't God around us when we're in our bathrobes during the week???

Ok, moving on. The next step is that we are sons and daughters of God. Sweet! We're in the family now, which means we have rights to the estate! More importantly, we have real and meaningful interaction with our Heavenly Father. But there's one more level of intimacy that a lot of Christians struggle with...you know what I'm talking about-lovers. Song of Songs is a VERY intimate collection of dialogues between a young man and young woman who are lovers. Goodness-how did THAT get into the Bible? This is a level of intimacy that is open and available to us, but it requires the kind of transparency that was always meant to exist between God and man, between a man and wife. Interesting concept, isn't it? Kind of unnerving for us men to think of God as our lover, but we must also remember that God is genderless and our male and female combined is what makes up the image of God, which means that marriage is the closest thing we have to being able to see what God truly is.

So you see now that while God wants to be praised and worshiped, he also desires to have intimacy with us because he's relational at heart. Why did he create the angels? Why did he create humans? Because he's relational; remember, God has always been in perfect community and relationship with himself-the Trinity. But he also desired to share that, knowing that sin would enter reality through Lucifer, knowing that we would betray his heart, he still did it. And so I think it would be better for us to stop looking at all the things we can find wrong with each other, and start looking for those similarities that bring us together as the family of God. Division is a tool of the enemy, remember, and if you let it in, who knows where it might lead and what damage it might do? So swallow your pride and your religiosity, and just love people for who they are and where they are at.

Anyway, that's enough for this week-what are YOUR thoughts on worship?

Judgement of Others

This is a big one for me (I have a lot of "big ones!"). Throughout my life, I've noticed that there are people in the church (not just a particular denomination, but the church at large) that tend to have a superiority complex when it comes to people who believe in a different way, or believe other things entirely. Now, I understand that this tends to come from the idea that what a person believes will usually stem from what they deem to be "the truth." However, with a book as controversial as the Bible, who is to say what the truth is? Ok, one can of worms open.

For instance, in Romans, Paul talks about the final judgment when God will judge each individual.

"But no, you won't listen. So you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself because of your stubbornness in refusing to turn from your sin. For there is going to come a day when God, the just judge of all the world, will judge all people according to what they have done. He will give eternal life to those who persist in doing what is good, seeking after the glory and honor and immortality that God offers. But he will pour out his anger and wrath on those who live for themselves, who refuse to obey the truth and practice evil deeds." Romans 2:5-8 NLT

This seems to seal the deal that our eternal life is based on works; however, not even two chapters later, Paul states this:

"Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on our good deeds. It is based on our faith. So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law." Romans 3:27-28 NLT

So, with this seeming contradiction, what are we to think? Are we saved by works or by grace through faith? I am not going to answer that because that's not the point of this discussion.

The point is that when we have such confusion about what is right, that should open our eyes to see that it's not our place to judge other people-that's God's job and his job alone. There is a time for judging others, which is the whole "remove the speck in your own eye" discussion, but I think that God will judge us based on a number of variables, not least of which is our individual experience of and walk with God. Would it be fair for God to not accept someone who worshiped on Sunday because they were never taught the 7th day Sabbath? Who knows?

I think it would be much more beneficial for us to stop trying to save other people, which isn't our job anyway, and to just love them for they are as brothers and sisters in Christ. Encourage them, and let them encourage you, in walking with God. But we need to stop looking down on others because they are different than we are; they are still a child of God and we should treat them as such. Period.

Thoughts?

Truth: Is it real???

Sorry for the late post-been having car issues this week and had to get those sorted out.

Ok, this is a fairly big one, so let's dive right in.

There are many groups, organizations, denominations, and people who believe they alone hold the corner on "the truth," as in, what the Bible "really" teaches about a particular subject. The problem with this mentality is that with the Bible being a book for all people (and contradicting itself, it would seem, at least in my study), how can people really know they have the truth? There's an element of faith that steps in here, but when you look at the world today, you see how an extreme adherence to the viewpoint that one holds the truth in their heart can justify atrocious acts.

There's a great line in "Kingdom of Heaven" where a knight who is also a priest comments "I put no stock in religion. By the word 'religion,' I've seen the lunacy of men of every denomination be called 'the will of God.' I've seen too much religion in the eyes of too many murderers. Holiness is in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves; and goodness. What God desires is here and here (pointing to the head and the heart) and what you decide to do every day, you will be a good man...or not."

If you look at the atrocities that have been committed in the name of religion, it's easy to see a pattern of evil that flies in under the pretenses of doing what's right. Terrorism as we have come to know it is extremism in the Islamic faith. The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the persecution of the Christians, the iron fist of the Vatican, even the crucifixion of Christ himself-these are all examples of evils that came in under the guise of religion and truth.

So, why do we go around thinking that we're better or superior to someone else because their ideology is different than ours? What if WE are the ones who are wrong? I'm not saying that Christianity is wrong, but why do we find it such a threat to accept other people's viewpoints? So what if they disagree? We know that a life lived in the grace, love and mercy of the Trinity will have much more joy than that of a life outside that community, but that doesn't mean we have to ram it down people's throats.

Instead, why not let others SEE that fellowship and community lived out in your life? The sooner we let go of this idea that we can project the image of a perfect life and admit to the world that we have faults and are broken people, that's the moment when we become real and relatable..and people will want to know our story.

What do you think?