Worship is at the core of our very fabric. It is at the heart of our very creation and existence. Worship is inherent in each human being.
Genesis 2:7 reads, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
All people worship something or somebody! The only question that needs to be answered is, “who do you worship?”
People are worshipping beings. God has made us that way. All of humanity worships something or somebody. In the beginning, man worshipped God exclusively and then God formed woman out of man so that man could share his worship with his wife. Man was to worship God first and his wife second. (Genesis 2:21-22)
The problem in the garden began when man worshipped his wife above his God and chose to eat of the forbidden fruit. This in essence was idolatry. Idolatry always separates a person from God. All Christians are to worship Jesus Christ above all else in reality not just mentally. We are not to worship our spouse, children, jobs, hobbies, sports, education, ideologies, philosophies, religions etc., above our Lord and Saviour. (Genesis chapter 3)
The Bible tells us that man is a trichotomy. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 reads, “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” As the Scriptures explain, man is tripartite. Humans are made with a spirit that comes from God. They also have a soul which comprises the will, mind and emotions. Both the spirit and soul live inside a person’s body. When the spirit leaves the body we say the person has died and the will, mind and emotions quit functioning.
When Adam quit worshipping (when he rebelled against) God through disobedience of His word by eating what was forbidden, the human race was separated from constant, instant fellowship with God. In other words, the spirit of man was no longer alive to the Holy Spirit. Adam continued to live with his soul alive inside his body but his spirit was no longer energized by the Holy Spirit. Consequently, man was now mortal and his body in a decaying or dying process. Prior to Adam’s original sin, man was human, in other words not a God, but man was immortal. Man’s spirit was energized by the Holy Spirit and man’s body was not yet infected/ tainted with a genetic defect caused by sin. Mortality came when man quit worshipping His creator. Eternal Life comes only through the Holy Spirit energizing your human spirit to come alive again.
The Scriptures command people to worship God. Matthew 22:37-39 reads, “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Also read Mark 12:30 and Luke 10:27.
It should be intuitively obvious that putting anything in a higher priority in our lives than Jesus Christ is idolatry. I am not talking about mental assent where one in his mind knows that Jesus should be supreme, but I am talking about what the Scriptures make abundantly clear and that is our true love and passion. Do we love Jesus Christ truly? Do we love sharing the gospel with others? Do we love leading a person to the Lord? Do we love serving the Lord by reaching out to the poor, the widow and orphan? (James 1:17) Do we live for the kingdom of God or for ourselves? Where and with whom do we spend our time? Who are we truly in love with? Worship of spouse, children, education, career, houses, lands, possessions, hobbies, sports, sport figures or entertainment personalities, sex, lust etc., more than Jesus Christ is idolatry. This is the biggest problem in the American Church today. We say we worship God first; but most of us are deceiving ourselves for we are more likely to be swayed by the wishes of our spouse, children or personal desires than by God’s wishes.
The first century Church worshipped Jesus in reality. They lived to worship God!
Please reads Acts 2:41-47.
1 Peter 2:9 reads, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light...”
Not only are we made to worship God and are commanded to worship Jesus, but heaven worships Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.
Please read Revelation 4:4-11; 5:1-14; 19:1-15; 22:7-21
God (Jesus Christ) declares and demands that He alone is worthy and is the exclusive focus of our worship (Exodus 34:14).
God created us to worship Jesus Christ. We are emotional, created beings. If we release our emotions back to God positively instead of holding them within negatively (gossip, bitterness, unforgiveness, jealousy, envy, etc.), doctors tell us we can be free from the majority of the diseases that attack the human race.
Yes, we are emotional beings and we are created to release those emotions back to God both in private and corporate worship. We are not to just sit there in church like some sculptured wooden Indian in front of a cigar store and be so religiously somber that we only impress the dead because we are still breathing. We are to follow the examples given us all through the Scriptures including the throne room of heaven itself. We are to sing, shout, dance, raise our hands and voices, play musical instruments, bow, clap, stand, lay prostrate; we are to be so enamored with the love and presence of God that we forget some of the pharisaical church traditions and teachings of men that some people have so laboriously and torturously been taught to follow.
Yes, dear saint, the implications are so desperately true - where there is no worship there is no life! Whether it be in one’s own life, home or church. The human spirit needs to worship Jesus as much as the human body needs to eat food. Where there is only mental assent, one’s spirit becomes comatose. All of us have seen vibrant Christians who were filled with joy become dry and dead. Their life just slips away as they quit focusing their worship on Jesus and instead they focus their worship on themselves and their own selfish interests. They become absorbed into the cares of this life and spend all their time trying to be successful in their businesses etc. Sometimes they worship themselves through self-pity and indulgences. They pamper their pride and ego as they foster anger toward the servant of God who preaches the truth that challenges their priorities or corrects their bad attitudes, etc. Instead of worshipping God, they worship their vanity and, in a pharisaical attitude, criticize and condemn an innocent servant of the Lord for being used of God to confront their immature, thus, unsanctified lives (goat). Please read Romans 8:7-9
Yes, the goat (carnal man) screams, hollers, murmurs, backbites, kicks, gossips, slanders and complains all the way to a mature life or a continual around-the-block life style. When I talk about an “around-the -block life style,” I am talking about a person that just cannot seem to follow the scriptures no matter how many times he has read it, heard it preached, or been discipled, corrected, taught or disciplined. He just keeps on with his childish insubordination and tantrums. He acts like a spoiled brat and has the power to drive away to another church where pettiness is either tolerated or his goat can continue to thrive as he melts into the crowd of a mega-church.
When a person’s spiritual life is dying because he is guilty of self worship (tolerating the goat to live within his carnal nature) he would not recognize a church in revival if he was attending it because his spirit is unable to respond to spiritual stimuli. One would just sit there like a bump on a log and grumble and complain about the loudness of the singing, or how the pastor preaches, or how the worship leader develops the worshippers. This person is nothing more than a grown up punk with an overly inflated ego that did not get its way so, now, “he is called by God to another church”. I have heard this type of felonious call of God used as an excuse as the person is really running from God, but this Jonah will not listen to counsel or advice because “God told me” as if he could really hear from God in this utterly despicable condition. This individual continues to slander God’s anointed, but violating the Scriptures does not bother him because he boasts of the ability to “hear from God”. This sounds like Annanais and Sapphira, who in their utter pride were so deceived about their own sinful nakedness, they disrespected the Apostle by lying to him. I have been lied to by many Jonahs, Annanaises and Sapphiras in my day. Yes, when the spiritual life is dying in a person, one cannot worship God, thus he actually despises God’s laws and attacks His servants. If Jesus, dressed in a three piece suit, was the pastor, some congregants would not recognize Him, for they do not recognize the word preached from the servant of God currently placed in their lives!
The worst thing a Christian can do is become a grumbler. Ingratitude will separate one from God. It will stop one from being able to worship God because, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).
When a person is guilty of offending the spirit of God one cannot worship God any longer, since we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Yes, we can sing and make noise, but that is not worship. Worship comes from a successful communication between the worshipper and God. If the worshipper has offended God the Holy Spirit by attacking the anointed of God or violating the word of God through disobedience (gossip, grumbling etc.), then one cannot effectively communicate with God any longer until repentance (restoration) has been fulfilled.
The reason why our ingratitude separates us from God is not because God’s ego gets offended. No, it is because we cannot focus on thanksgiving to God when we are so self-absorbed. Self-centeredness, whether it is with pride resulting from being a successful businessman (now like a peacock we strut around in our cockiness), or pride resulting from our ego being offended (now we are bitter and resentful), either way this selfishness stops us from worshipping Jesus. Instead, we are naively worshipping ourselves. Please read Colossians 4:2.
Psalms 100:4, “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.” When we give thanks to God as a response from the creature to the creator, it opens the door for one to approach God. Many people try to respond to God from a distance, but they are separated from Him. They must first get out of their idolatry (self-absorption) and now approach Him with their full attention and with Jesus as the focus.
Dear saint, I believe that the thankful heart has access to God where the complaining heart is still trying to find God.
One must move beyond a thought of thanksgiving and follow through with the actions of thanksgiving. Raise your voice, shout to God with a voice of triumph. It is nice that my children have good thoughts about me in their minds, but if they do not express them to me then they only remain nice thoughts. Parents must hear these thoughts expressed to them in order to be blessed.
When we give thanksgiving to God it not only blesses Jesus but it refocuses our attention from the cares and burdens of this life onto Jesus, allowing Him to carry those burdens. Jesus said, “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). When we focus our attention on Jesus Christ through worship then God through the Holy Spirit can show us our own hearts and things start to look differently. Instead of seeing only negatives now we can see the positives. Now we can see the goodness in people and circumstances instead of the weaknesses in the people we should love and give grace to. People and problems always look different from God’s perspective. People cannot worship or thank God successfully unless they keep their minds focused exclusively on God himself and not themselves.
Dear saint, the command to praise God is universal to all creation.
Psalm 40:16, “Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: let such as love thy salvation say continually, The Lord be magnified.”
Psalm 45:11, “…for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him.”
Psalm 47:1, “O Clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph.”
Psalm 86:9, “All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name.”
Psalm 96:1, “O sing unto the Lord a new song: sing unto the Lord, all the earth.”
Psalm 96:2, “Sing unto the Lord, bless his name; shew forth his salvation from day to day.”
Psalm 98:4, “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.”
Psalm 98:5, “Sing unto the Lord with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm.”
Psalm 98:6, “With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the Lord, the King.”
Psalm 98:7, “Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”
Psalm 98:8, “Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together...”
Psalm 99:5, “Exalt ye the Lord our God, and worship at his footstool; for he is holy.”
Psalm 100:1, “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.”
Psalm 100:2, “Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.”
Psalm 100:4, “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.”
Psalm 150:1, “Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.”
Psalm 150:2, “Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness.”
Psalm 150:3, “Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.”
Psalm 150:4, “Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.”
Psalm 150:5, “Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.”
Psalm 150:6, “Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.”
Even the angels are commanded to worship Jesus!
Hebrews 1:6, “And again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.”
How do we become flames of fire? We become flames of fire by worshipping Jesus Christ and truly making him our first object of interest, love, adoration and loyalty.
Hebrews 1:7, “And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.”
Yes dear saint, we as his children are commanded to worship Jesus Christ with all our intensity as David did as the King of Israel.
2 Samuel 6:14 reads, “And David danced before the Lord with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod.”
If David the king could lower his pride and take off his earthly royal robes (titles Dr., Rev., etc.), so we too can worship the Lord with emotional abandonment. All the excuses for being so righteously dignified and twisting the scriptures around to avoid emotional worship are as hypocritical as the life-styles of some of the scribes, Pharisees and members of the Sanhedrin. It comes down to either ignorance of the totality of the Scriptures or downright haughtiness, arrogance and self-righteousness.
Please note what happened to David’s wife because of her pride in 2 Samuel 6:20-23. “Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to day, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself! And David said unto Michal, It was before the Lord, which chose me before thy father, and before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel: therefore will I play before the Lord. And I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be base in mine own sight: and of the maidservants which thou hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honour. Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death.”
Yes, I believe many are weak and sick and many sleep (die) early because they do not know how, or they refuse, to release their emotions back to God in worshipping Jesus Christ with all their soul (emotions).
Love,
Jonathan Hansen
Dear Saints,
My heart is very heavy and troubled!
Here at WMI we are three months behind in paying our radio and television bills. We have started receiving notice by different stations that our program will be dropped if the debts are not paid.
If everyone receiving this article would send in something, I believe we could pay off these debts. Please send in a love offering and help me to continue to “Sound the Alarm”.
Thank you and God richly bless you.
Jonathan Hansen
© 2004 World Ministries International