"The Lord says, ‘I completely hate your feasts; I cannot stand your religious meetings. If you offer me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I won’t accept them. You bring your best fellowship offerings of fattened cattle, but I will ignore them. Take the noise of your songs away from me! I won’t listen to the music of your harps. But let justice flow like a river, and let goodness flow like a stream that never stops.’" (NCV)
There are, these days, worship conferences. Some sponsor—usually looking to make money—will ask a number of worship leaders from mega-churches to come together and talk about how to "do" worship. When you attend the conference (or watch the videos posted online later), you see person after person talking about music—how to compose it, how to play it, how to sing it. Rarely does anyone talk about how to live worship and even then, rarely, very rarely, do you hear anyone talking about sin.
You see, discussions of sin should be the focus when we talk about worship. The Lord is much more concerned about the states of our hearts than the ability of the band when it comes to worship.
Near the end of the Lord Jesus’ life here on earth, an interesting thing happened. He and the disciples were traveling. "So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. Then He taught, saying to them, ‘Is it not written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations" ? But you have made it a ‘den of thieves’" (Mark 11:15-17 NKJV).
House of prayer. Not a house of worship. Not a house of sermons. Not a house of programs. A house of prayer.
Prayer is first and foremost communication with God. It is interactive as it requires us to seek His face and then to listen to His voice. We pray and God responds. We pray and God acts. We pray and God changes who we are. "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6-7 NKJV).
Guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Prayer doesn’t change God; prayer changes us! As we are in His presence, we are accosted by our sin and our sinfulness. As we are in His presence, we become mindful of how little we have achieved (nothing!) and how desperately we need Him! As we are in His presence, we learn how much we deserve punishment and how great is His mercy. And only in and through prayer can our hearts and minds be changed so that we live out the justice and goodness that He so desires from us, so we can truly begin to worship Him as He demands.
You see, worship isn’t about music. We can worship through music, but we can also worship through giving a lift to a weary traveler, through talking on the phone to a despairing friend, through buying a meal for a hungry soul, through reaching out to a lonely child.
"When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’" (Matthew 25:31-40 NKJV).
Just as our relationship with the Lord should flow out from us to a hurting world, so, if our hearts are right before Him, should our worship of the Lord. In Amos, the Lord is angry with the outward trappings of worship that have failed to reflect an inward heart change: "I completely hate your feasts; I cannot stand your religious meetings. I won’t accept your offerings. Take the noise of your songs away from me!" Why is the Lord so angry? Because justice and goodness are absent from the hearts of the worshipers. Worship without righteousness isn’t worship and the Lord hates it. Worship is only true worship when we understand our sinfulness, when we understand our need for the Lord Jesus Christ, and when we choose to act out His love in our lives.
"Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest? For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist," says the Lord. "But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word." (Isaiah 66:1-2 NKJV).
"Who trembles at My word." When we start taking God seriously, when we begin to believe that our sinful foolishness will result in His judgment, and when we allow that truth to begin to bring about change in our choices and our behavior, only then will He accept our worship in whatever form we bring it, good music or bad, skillfulness or ineptness, in a group or alone. God desires worship from our hearts and that only comes when we start to live out His commands in our daily lives.
© 2014 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved.
For permission to copy, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com
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