By Rabbi Dr. Esther Boucher
WORSHIP
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Let's talk about worship. Hearts are focused on that which they
worship. Psalm 95:1-3, 6," O come, let us sing unto the
Lord...let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and
make a joyful noise unto him with psalms..O come, let us
worship and blow down: let us kneel before the Lord our
maker."
From the time that man was created in the image of the Eternal
God, it has been both his privilege and responsibility to worship
his Creator. In the beginning, worship took the form of simple
evening conversations as Adam walked and talked with God in
the cool of the day. Since that time, God has always searched
for men and women who would worship Him with the
concentrated intensity and consuming passion of the Holy
Spirit and with the divine order of truth communicated through
His Word.
In biblical history, God progressively communicated to
mankind His Word and will, including the system of praise,
worship and service that He found pleasing. This system was
designed to be a vehicle through which God's people could
commune with their Maker. It included prescribed commune
with their Maker. It included prescribed appointments
(modim), symbols, and rituals that would ever summon men
from the routine of the mundane into intimacy with the Divine.
Repeatedly, however, mankind has drifted away from God's
design, that his people commune with him in an intensely
intimate, personal way. History records man's wavering
between truth and apostasy, between intense worship
and apathy toward God. Even the vehicles which God has
designed to bring his people into intimacy with Him have been
perverted into lifeless rituals of doing religious things when
their hearts were far from God. This is particularly true in the
area of worship. Believers are being renewed in the Holy Spirit
to a passion for intimacy that transcends merely knowing about
God. This passion reflects a recovery for Christians of the
Jewish concept of Kavanah, the intense concentration on the
Divine that transcends understanding and thrust one in
the realm of revering God. The past century witnessed the
greatest, most far-reaching renewal of the Holy Spirit in all of
human history. No longer content to follow blindly in the
traditions of blind leaders of the past and consequently finding
themselves in ditches of despair and confusion, believers
are searching the Scriptures for themselves like the noble
Berean Jews. God is revealing His Word in a clarity not
witnessed since the first century as Christians are recovering
the faith of Jesus and learning to be true worshippers by
revering the Father in Spirit and in truth. "Yet a time is coming
and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the
Father in Spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers
the Father seeks." John 4:23
Worship of God is not entertainment for men. Far too often
contemporary worship services have been designed around
what is entertaining to those who are in attendance. While
entertainment and things which please men are important in
their own setting, they must never be confused with worship.
Those meetings which are designed to appeal only to the
excitement of the human spirit by doing things that are
entertaining to men are failures as worship services. The
important thing about worship is to discover the elements that
please God and to employ them to their fullest in our worship.
Worship is not simply what makes individuals or a congregation
feel good, but what makes glad the heart of God.
Incorrect perceptions of what church is or memories of what
church was like in the past have almost kept an entire
generation out of the house of God. We are the generation to
change the poor image of the church. We are to bring
excellence back into the sanctuary. Worshipping parents will
lead their children into the presence of God. Worshiping
neighbors will lead neighbors; worshiping employees will lead
their employers into His presence. Excellent worship is
contagious. Someone, somewhere, will notice if you are
committed to worshiping God or not. Be a radical worshiper
who is sold out for the Kingdom of God and not for your own
agenda or motives. Worship the King and bring excellence
because you love Him. When you come to worship bring your
radical faith and expectation. Jesus loves faith in the sanctuary.
If you expect nothing you will get nothing. Some people fear or
worry that others will judge them when they publicly worship
God. They worry that someone will criticize their radical
display of affection to the Lord and disclose them as superficial
or shallow. Don't let what others think rob you of enjoying
God's supernatural presence. True worship is not stirring
ourselves into an emotional frenzy. Jesus is real and what He
has done in our lives is worthy of all our praise and worship.
Praise is preoccupation with who God is and what He has done.
It is characterized by celebration and exhilaration and is
expressed through singing, shouting, clapping, playing musical
instruments, dancing and prophecy. In the face of challenge
and persecution, God's people are to unite and praise Him.
Praise begins with a mind set upon God, but them those
thoughts must be put into action in order to qualify for praise.
Folks in churches who cross their arms and refuse to
participate or who are reserved before the Lord are probably
reserved spiritually as well. If we hold back in our hearts, we
limit the extent to which God is able to move in our midst. We
must be determined to praise even when we don't feel like it.
Praise must function according to our will and not our
emotions. Praise is about understanding the power of bringing
thanks-giving into your worship. Be tenacious in your praise
and worship, especially when facing a trial. It takes gutsy
people to praise God in the face of opposition. It takes gutsy
people to walk away from the things that once bound them and
move forward. The enemy has no chance of winning against
people who are consumed with praising God. Praise is a
declaration, a victory cry, proclaiming faith to stand firm in the
place God has given you. Praise is a proclamation that the
enemy's intent to plunder you will not rock you. Praise
invades hell and excites heaven! God makes his sanctuary
among the praisers. God has purposed to raise up a praising
church in these last days and nothing will hinder Him. Not
until we praise Him are we able to come into proper
relationship with Him, God is enthroned in our praise, and
there is power in praise. When we stop trying to fight our
battles and simply praise God, He will fight for us, God is free to
release His power and provision on our behalf. God does not
need our praises, we need to praise Him. God has commanded
us to praise because of the change it brings in us. Praise is often
preparatory to worship.
Worship is intimate involving giving and receiving. It is meant
to be an encounter, an exciting meeting place where love is
given and received in an unscripted manner. Worship is
learned, it is the art of expressing oneself to God. Worship is
the deep within us calling out to the deep of God. The Hebrew
word for worship (segad) means to bow oneself down, to fall
flat, to pay homage and do reverence. The Greek translation
(proskuneo), means to prostrate oneself in homage or more
graphically, to "Kiss as a dog would lick its master's hand."
Worship should be a romance with God, it is joining with, and
rejoicing in, all that God is, all that He has done and all
that He is yet to do. It is a way of life and a key to spiritual
transformation. It is an outward sign of an inward condition.
Without emotion there can be no true worship. John
MacArthur states, "Worship is not giddy. It does not rush into
God's presence unprepared and insensitive to His majesty. It is
not shallow, superficial or flippant. Worship is life lived in the
presence of an infinitely righteous and omnipresent God,
utterly aware of His holiness and consequently overwhelmed by
our own unholiness." To worship you have to have a savior
and your savior has to be the central figure in your life. We
have been given free will to choose. Every choice will present
either an obstacle or an opportunity for the Lord. Are we willing
to respond to God. In John 12:1-3 we read the story of Mary of
Bethany. The expression of her love and gratitude to Jesus cost
approximately a year's earnings, but her heart was so
completely sold out to Jesus that the cost of her gift did not
matter. She desired no 1/2 measure with which to express her
devotion but gave her all. Dedicated worshiper's actions are
often questioned and misunderstood. By her unreserved act of
love she was the only one to hold the honor of having anointed
Jesus for his burial. Can we like Mary give our sacrificial best to
Him? Jesus agonized, cried and wept for the presence of God.
Is it right to think we need do any less? We must constantly
hunger after God's presence and guard against becoming
indifferent. Luke 7:36-38 Imagine the depth of this woman's
tears being enough to clean the dusty feet of Jesus. Imagine
the gratitude that moved her to boldly display her devotion and
adoration of the man reclining at the table. She had heard him
teach of the Kingdom of heaven. She had understood the heart
of the Lord. She had seen the miracles He had done. She had
been delivered from her old way of life through His loving
acceptance of her. With tears flowing from a sobbing heart,
she washed the Lord's feet, then in an act of intimacy she let her
tresses of hair down and wiped the soil off. The woman took
out a costly ointment in a stone jar. It may have been her entire
savings. The jar would have had to be broken to get to its
contents and all the contents had to be used. So in bringing the
jar of perfume to Jesus, this woman knew there was no way to
give only part of it; it was all or nothing. She manifested no
hesitancy, her love for Jesus knew no bound.
We are to worship Him in truth. To do so we must ask
ourselves, how big are the debts Jesus cancelled for me? How
much thanks do I owe Him for canceling the consequences of
my past? Am I merely doing what is required? When we
have come to know God intimately through Jesus, and have
entered into a committed covenant with Him, when our spirit
has been completely consumed by the fire of worship then He
will lead us through the veil into the most holy place. True
worshippers let nothing hinder them in their quest to glorify
God, they never quit when it comes to adoring God. Faced with
opposition, danger or even death, they just keep going. There is
a cost to be paid for being a true worshiper. Entire churches
have been split over matters of worship. True worship invokes
the criticism of the spiritually barren. A choice is set before us,
we can choose to please man or decide to please God. The
unfortunate fact is that many churches are inhibited and stifled
because of the negative attitudes of the leadership.
Congregations have become sentimental in worship using
the same familiar songs, thus causing the songs to lose their
effectiveness in stimulating our minds to worship. Others resist
change because "we've never done it this way before." That's all
the reason to do it. Our worship will improve if we stir
ourselves to be innovative, be willing to try new things, be ready
to experiment and explore all that God has for us in worship.
Becoming a worshiper is a privilege and a challenge. The New
Testament states we are all priest and responsible to minister
before and unto the Lord. We must begin to accept our
proper responsibility in the congregation. Each of us must
prepare ourselves for worship. Prayer and meditation can be a
beautiful prelude to service. We need to deal with any known
sin in our lives before we get to service. We have the
responsibility to be self-motivated to make God's praise
glorious, that requires us to invest energy. It is not a
compliment before heaven to be known as slow starters
because we are slow of heart. Our responsibility is to make our
songs a praise from our hearts unto God. We must worship
despite distractions. To be a true worshiper we must worship all
week long, frequent the place of worship, and when in His
presence we ought not come for a handout but should bring an
offering. Rather than coming to see how much we can receive
from God, let us endeavor to give unto God, to minister to Him
and to bless His Name. God seeks obedience more than
sacrifice, who says, "If you love Me, keep my commandments."
Worship, then, is a matter of lifestyle, of absolute submission
to the Word and will of God through the power of the Holy
Spirit. It transcends the all-too-short Sunday "worship service."
Worship is unto the Lord, not men. It is an act of seeking
God's face and enjoying His magnificent presence. It is
the one thing that delights the Father's heart above all else.
Traditional Christian worship patterns are taking on new
meaning as biblical worship is being restored. Diversity and
unity are being manifest. God is doing a new thing! As the end
of all things draws near, God is accelerating the intensity of
passion and desire within the bridge of Christ. We are
recognizing that a radical gospel that is embodied by a radical
consecration. The Spirit is calling us to lay our lives in
abandoned worship before God Almighty.
worship. Psalm 95:1-3, 6," O come, let us sing unto the
Lord...let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and
make a joyful noise unto him with psalms..O come, let us
worship and blow down: let us kneel before the Lord our
maker."
From the time that man was created in the image of the Eternal
God, it has been both his privilege and responsibility to worship
his Creator. In the beginning, worship took the form of simple
evening conversations as Adam walked and talked with God in
the cool of the day. Since that time, God has always searched
for men and women who would worship Him with the
concentrated intensity and consuming passion of the Holy
Spirit and with the divine order of truth communicated through
His Word.
In biblical history, God progressively communicated to
mankind His Word and will, including the system of praise,
worship and service that He found pleasing. This system was
designed to be a vehicle through which God's people could
commune with their Maker. It included prescribed commune
with their Maker. It included prescribed appointments
(modim), symbols, and rituals that would ever summon men
from the routine of the mundane into intimacy with the Divine.
Repeatedly, however, mankind has drifted away from God's
design, that his people commune with him in an intensely
intimate, personal way. History records man's wavering
between truth and apostasy, between intense worship
and apathy toward God. Even the vehicles which God has
designed to bring his people into intimacy with Him have been
perverted into lifeless rituals of doing religious things when
their hearts were far from God. This is particularly true in the
area of worship. Believers are being renewed in the Holy Spirit
to a passion for intimacy that transcends merely knowing about
God. This passion reflects a recovery for Christians of the
Jewish concept of Kavanah, the intense concentration on the
Divine that transcends understanding and thrust one in
the realm of revering God. The past century witnessed the
greatest, most far-reaching renewal of the Holy Spirit in all of
human history. No longer content to follow blindly in the
traditions of blind leaders of the past and consequently finding
themselves in ditches of despair and confusion, believers
are searching the Scriptures for themselves like the noble
Berean Jews. God is revealing His Word in a clarity not
witnessed since the first century as Christians are recovering
the faith of Jesus and learning to be true worshippers by
revering the Father in Spirit and in truth. "Yet a time is coming
and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the
Father in Spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers
the Father seeks." John 4:23
Worship of God is not entertainment for men. Far too often
contemporary worship services have been designed around
what is entertaining to those who are in attendance. While
entertainment and things which please men are important in
their own setting, they must never be confused with worship.
Those meetings which are designed to appeal only to the
excitement of the human spirit by doing things that are
entertaining to men are failures as worship services. The
important thing about worship is to discover the elements that
please God and to employ them to their fullest in our worship.
Worship is not simply what makes individuals or a congregation
feel good, but what makes glad the heart of God.
Incorrect perceptions of what church is or memories of what
church was like in the past have almost kept an entire
generation out of the house of God. We are the generation to
change the poor image of the church. We are to bring
excellence back into the sanctuary. Worshipping parents will
lead their children into the presence of God. Worshiping
neighbors will lead neighbors; worshiping employees will lead
their employers into His presence. Excellent worship is
contagious. Someone, somewhere, will notice if you are
committed to worshiping God or not. Be a radical worshiper
who is sold out for the Kingdom of God and not for your own
agenda or motives. Worship the King and bring excellence
because you love Him. When you come to worship bring your
radical faith and expectation. Jesus loves faith in the sanctuary.
If you expect nothing you will get nothing. Some people fear or
worry that others will judge them when they publicly worship
God. They worry that someone will criticize their radical
display of affection to the Lord and disclose them as superficial
or shallow. Don't let what others think rob you of enjoying
God's supernatural presence. True worship is not stirring
ourselves into an emotional frenzy. Jesus is real and what He
has done in our lives is worthy of all our praise and worship.
Praise is preoccupation with who God is and what He has done.
It is characterized by celebration and exhilaration and is
expressed through singing, shouting, clapping, playing musical
instruments, dancing and prophecy. In the face of challenge
and persecution, God's people are to unite and praise Him.
Praise begins with a mind set upon God, but them those
thoughts must be put into action in order to qualify for praise.
Folks in churches who cross their arms and refuse to
participate or who are reserved before the Lord are probably
reserved spiritually as well. If we hold back in our hearts, we
limit the extent to which God is able to move in our midst. We
must be determined to praise even when we don't feel like it.
Praise must function according to our will and not our
emotions. Praise is about understanding the power of bringing
thanks-giving into your worship. Be tenacious in your praise
and worship, especially when facing a trial. It takes gutsy
people to praise God in the face of opposition. It takes gutsy
people to walk away from the things that once bound them and
move forward. The enemy has no chance of winning against
people who are consumed with praising God. Praise is a
declaration, a victory cry, proclaiming faith to stand firm in the
place God has given you. Praise is a proclamation that the
enemy's intent to plunder you will not rock you. Praise
invades hell and excites heaven! God makes his sanctuary
among the praisers. God has purposed to raise up a praising
church in these last days and nothing will hinder Him. Not
until we praise Him are we able to come into proper
relationship with Him, God is enthroned in our praise, and
there is power in praise. When we stop trying to fight our
battles and simply praise God, He will fight for us, God is free to
release His power and provision on our behalf. God does not
need our praises, we need to praise Him. God has commanded
us to praise because of the change it brings in us. Praise is often
preparatory to worship.
Worship is intimate involving giving and receiving. It is meant
to be an encounter, an exciting meeting place where love is
given and received in an unscripted manner. Worship is
learned, it is the art of expressing oneself to God. Worship is
the deep within us calling out to the deep of God. The Hebrew
word for worship (segad) means to bow oneself down, to fall
flat, to pay homage and do reverence. The Greek translation
(proskuneo), means to prostrate oneself in homage or more
graphically, to "Kiss as a dog would lick its master's hand."
Worship should be a romance with God, it is joining with, and
rejoicing in, all that God is, all that He has done and all
that He is yet to do. It is a way of life and a key to spiritual
transformation. It is an outward sign of an inward condition.
Without emotion there can be no true worship. John
MacArthur states, "Worship is not giddy. It does not rush into
God's presence unprepared and insensitive to His majesty. It is
not shallow, superficial or flippant. Worship is life lived in the
presence of an infinitely righteous and omnipresent God,
utterly aware of His holiness and consequently overwhelmed by
our own unholiness." To worship you have to have a savior
and your savior has to be the central figure in your life. We
have been given free will to choose. Every choice will present
either an obstacle or an opportunity for the Lord. Are we willing
to respond to God. In John 12:1-3 we read the story of Mary of
Bethany. The expression of her love and gratitude to Jesus cost
approximately a year's earnings, but her heart was so
completely sold out to Jesus that the cost of her gift did not
matter. She desired no 1/2 measure with which to express her
devotion but gave her all. Dedicated worshiper's actions are
often questioned and misunderstood. By her unreserved act of
love she was the only one to hold the honor of having anointed
Jesus for his burial. Can we like Mary give our sacrificial best to
Him? Jesus agonized, cried and wept for the presence of God.
Is it right to think we need do any less? We must constantly
hunger after God's presence and guard against becoming
indifferent. Luke 7:36-38 Imagine the depth of this woman's
tears being enough to clean the dusty feet of Jesus. Imagine
the gratitude that moved her to boldly display her devotion and
adoration of the man reclining at the table. She had heard him
teach of the Kingdom of heaven. She had understood the heart
of the Lord. She had seen the miracles He had done. She had
been delivered from her old way of life through His loving
acceptance of her. With tears flowing from a sobbing heart,
she washed the Lord's feet, then in an act of intimacy she let her
tresses of hair down and wiped the soil off. The woman took
out a costly ointment in a stone jar. It may have been her entire
savings. The jar would have had to be broken to get to its
contents and all the contents had to be used. So in bringing the
jar of perfume to Jesus, this woman knew there was no way to
give only part of it; it was all or nothing. She manifested no
hesitancy, her love for Jesus knew no bound.
We are to worship Him in truth. To do so we must ask
ourselves, how big are the debts Jesus cancelled for me? How
much thanks do I owe Him for canceling the consequences of
my past? Am I merely doing what is required? When we
have come to know God intimately through Jesus, and have
entered into a committed covenant with Him, when our spirit
has been completely consumed by the fire of worship then He
will lead us through the veil into the most holy place. True
worshippers let nothing hinder them in their quest to glorify
God, they never quit when it comes to adoring God. Faced with
opposition, danger or even death, they just keep going. There is
a cost to be paid for being a true worshiper. Entire churches
have been split over matters of worship. True worship invokes
the criticism of the spiritually barren. A choice is set before us,
we can choose to please man or decide to please God. The
unfortunate fact is that many churches are inhibited and stifled
because of the negative attitudes of the leadership.
Congregations have become sentimental in worship using
the same familiar songs, thus causing the songs to lose their
effectiveness in stimulating our minds to worship. Others resist
change because "we've never done it this way before." That's all
the reason to do it. Our worship will improve if we stir
ourselves to be innovative, be willing to try new things, be ready
to experiment and explore all that God has for us in worship.
Becoming a worshiper is a privilege and a challenge. The New
Testament states we are all priest and responsible to minister
before and unto the Lord. We must begin to accept our
proper responsibility in the congregation. Each of us must
prepare ourselves for worship. Prayer and meditation can be a
beautiful prelude to service. We need to deal with any known
sin in our lives before we get to service. We have the
responsibility to be self-motivated to make God's praise
glorious, that requires us to invest energy. It is not a
compliment before heaven to be known as slow starters
because we are slow of heart. Our responsibility is to make our
songs a praise from our hearts unto God. We must worship
despite distractions. To be a true worshiper we must worship all
week long, frequent the place of worship, and when in His
presence we ought not come for a handout but should bring an
offering. Rather than coming to see how much we can receive
from God, let us endeavor to give unto God, to minister to Him
and to bless His Name. God seeks obedience more than
sacrifice, who says, "If you love Me, keep my commandments."
Worship, then, is a matter of lifestyle, of absolute submission
to the Word and will of God through the power of the Holy
Spirit. It transcends the all-too-short Sunday "worship service."
Worship is unto the Lord, not men. It is an act of seeking
God's face and enjoying His magnificent presence. It is
the one thing that delights the Father's heart above all else.
Traditional Christian worship patterns are taking on new
meaning as biblical worship is being restored. Diversity and
unity are being manifest. God is doing a new thing! As the end
of all things draws near, God is accelerating the intensity of
passion and desire within the bridge of Christ. We are
recognizing that a radical gospel that is embodied by a radical
consecration. The Spirit is calling us to lay our lives in
abandoned worship before God Almighty.