Skip to main content

Spiritual Worship

“Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4:23-24

In the Bible, the primary Hebrew and Greek words for worship mean humility. Humility means to lower yourself and submit yourself to the will of another. So, when you worship, you are coming under submission of the Holy Spirit, and allowing Him to act, and speak in and through you. Worship is submitting ourselves to the will of God.

Quite a few years ago, I was asked to lead worship at an outside event. We had just finished a worship CD, and were excited to be able to play these new songs we had just written and recorded. It rocked! When we arrived at the event, we soon realized that we were about 40 or 50 years younger than most of the people attending. Big oops! We knew the people would hate us. After a few minutes of trying to figure out how we could get out of playing the songs we had prepared, we finally offered a prayer of desperation out to God.

Desperate is exactly where God wanted us. We did what we had prepared. God had an entirely different idea for the evening. The people there were very loving. After a while, a person stood up and said he felt like the Lord wanted us to pray for people. People started lining up. We didn’t even have time to give it a thought. Again, desperate for God’s presence, we prayed. God did amazing things and many were healed. Wow! A huge lesson was learned that night. Worship is always about God and His plans. God gets big when we get small.

Prayer Focus: Lord, may we worship You in spirit and in truth as You desire.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Storyteller

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.” Acts 1:8-9 These are the last words Jesus speaks to his Apostles just before ascending into heaven. Not what they were expecting. They were wondering when Jesus was going to set up His Kingdom on earth. As He was ascending into heaven He reveals we are the ones to accomplish the task. Jesus’ departure is not desertion; it is a commission to be the storytellers of truth to the rest of the world. Frequently, we look at this scripture in relationship to our life. We perceive Jerusalem as our own community, Judea as our city, Samaria as our country and the ends of the earth as the world. Christ informed the apostles they will have the power of the Holy Spirit to reach these people. Notice the word “and...” Jesus didn’t say

Baffled

“The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’” Genesis 11:6-7 I will confess I’ve been baffled by this passage. It appears that as men rejected God’s command to spread out and replenish the earth after the flood and began to build a tower for their own glory, that God gets scared of them. He seems to say that it will be impossible to stop what men want to do. As I’ve studied it more, I don’t believe God was scared at all. I believe He had loving concern that men would quickly return right back to the depth of sin that precipitated God’s judgement through the flood. When men and women work in a common cause, it is powerful. If that is true with human effort, how much more can we do if we seek and wait on the power that comes from God’s Spirit? We tend to rely so much on ourselves, and God gets

No Matter Who’s Speaking

“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!” Galatians 1:8 We seem to be a culture that is swayed by personality. Through the years, I have had the privilege of meeting some very prominent people. There is a picture in my office of Pam and me standing beside Billy Graham. We felt very blessed. Even though Dr. Graham is in ill health now, it is amazing to think of how the Lord has used him. Like others, I have talked to a few famous golfers and got their autographs, and even met a few politicians. Even though each of these are people, human beings not significantly different than us, we feel different in their presence as if they are something more. And when they speak, we tend to listen. I have watched people who get caught up listening to people that inspire them, move their emotions, or get them excited, and they seem drawn into their wake. It is easy to do. But if they listened closely to