“A passive auditor” jumps out and convicts me about the horrible practice of evaluating the worship team, worship leaders and the worship service in general instead of being involved in worship. My focus turns to the form and the rituals instead being on God.
Perhaps that critical attitude comes along on the heels of letting worship fall into a “dry routine,” something done from habit rather than being a delightful and vibrant consecration of myself to God. Whatever the source, reasons or excuses, such practice is nothing else but a sin-filled affront to God.
Being a bottom-line person, I need to examine what promotes that fall into habit. How can it happen? If God were a visible Being seated on His throne before me, worship would never be a ritual or dead and dry. I know that seeing Him as He is knocks the socks off me and puts me on my face.
What I just wrote is a contradiction. God is not visible, yet I do see Him. He makes Himself known to me in His Word, through the things He has made, how He hears and answers prayer, through His everyday care, and in the Person and work of Jesus Christ.
I know God because He makes Himself known, but I can ignore that. I can stop reading the Bible, stop looking at the world with an appreciation for its Creator, stop praying, stop relying on Him, and turn my focus off Jesus in vain efforts to be my own Savior and Lord.
When I do those things, God, like a wise parent, allows me to find out the hard way that avoiding and ignoring Him has consequences. For unbelievers, those consequences may not be experienced until Judgment Day, but not so for those who have put their faith in Christ. Psalm 11:3 hints at ignoring the basics, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
When I turn from God, I remove the brick of fellowship and soon experience a sense of loss. The deeper that fellowship has been, the greater the hole it leaves in my life. Instead of being thankful and appreciating all that He has done, those bricks crumble and I start whining and complaining.
Take out the brick of trust and that hole is filled with worrying about life and others, along with a feeling of despair over the mess I see in the world around me. At the same time, I’m trying to do it all, fix the holes with my own bricks, but when that isn’t working, I’m upset and unhappy.
But Christians are supposed to be joyful. So I paste a fake smile on my face (a plastic brick?) and go to church, only to experience more dry routine.
The other side is that “formless ecstasy” bit. I’m not hyper-emotional, but can understand that happening to people who rely on their emotions (instead of what God says) to give them a sense of being right with God and the world. Their phoney bricks include getting pumped by music and ‘good news’ but that never fills the hole the same way as the awe and wonder of God. True worship always rises above and beyond any human ‘perfection’ or excitement we rely on to arouse our faculties.
In four sentences, God challenges me and reminds me that while worship is all about Him, what I am doing at a ‘worship service’ speaks volumes about me and my spiritual condition.
Now for the practical part.
- Study the Bible with intention.
- Continue praying about all things, relying on Him for all things, and being thankful for all things.
- Stay close, and when sin interferes, be quick to deal with it.
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