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One simple paradigm has transformed my worship experience more than any other teaching or revelation times ten.
Apart from that first experience of finally knowing God’s love for me, the understanding of what He has done for me has turned my experience of Him in worship upside down, in a good way.
It used to be that I approached Him through me. I would consider how my week has gone, how good of a Christian I have been, what evidence of good fruit I see in my life. This leads to an up and down experience based on my pattern of success or failure. Maybe on the way to church I was angry with someone, maybe I was carrying concern for a situation, or maybe I felt the condemnation of a poor decision that week. At other times it may have been a typical week but I still carried that sense that I am not doing as much as I should for Him. Worship songs can help to lift us from our own introspection to see God’s view more clearly. Yet, it seemed some Sundays that might take 5 songs! Partly, because I felt that the more I worshiped the more I was drawing near.
The point I missed is that He is always near.
We do not have to climb back up some worship mountain to find Him. When we begin to receive His goodness and His promises by faith, we enter into His glory. The Biblical word for glory refers to the view and opinion of God. In His opinion, He is the vine and we are the branches. In His opinion there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, in His opinion nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
However, we don’t naturally think these thoughts.
To be saved we believe in our heart and confess with our mouth -and this is how we continue to live in Him. I find that singing lyrics of faith will do so much good for your heart. You simply have to ask the Holy Spirit to make you cognizant of what is truly God’s view and opinion.
Here is where I have to admit that at times I make up my own lyrics. It may seem insignificant, but you wouldn’t believe how it will affect your heart to sing “thank you” instead of “I need” or to acknowledge you are loved and cherished child of God versus I am such an undeserving servant. We come to Him with nothing this is true, but after that we can never deny that He has given us everything.
If I am worshiping Jesus- I am celebrating what He has done, I am acknowledging who I am in Him. He has not covered my sins – He has born them and separated them from me as far as the east is from the west. I am not begging Him to hear my humble plea, I am thanking Him deeply for hearing my cry and giving me all that I need for life and godliness.
If you sing out of His view and opinion it may sound arrogant. We are so used to the unworthy poor sinner mantle we can be afraid to discard it. However, does it honor the sacrifice of Jesus to call unclean what He has made clean?
I challenge you to give this a try:
Lean in and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you and dare to come boldly into His presence in your time of need. Imagine you are the favorite child singing for a daddy who is pleased with you simply because He is. He doesn’t need or require your worship. Of course He enjoys and loves the voice of His children but what happens in your heart when you sing of His love for you and opinion of you will amaze you.
When Jesus was crucified the veil in the temple was torn. There is no more separation. What was lost is now found when we enter back into the relationship he planned from the beginning. We now experience Immanuel, God with Us. He came into our world to be with us and He followed the father’s plan to completion that we would never be separated again.
There are other voices in this world, but you will see clearly when you lift your voice to join in with His. He declared it is finished. His death, burial, and resurrection declare you are loved.
My heart overflows with a good theme; I address my verses to the King; My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. Psalm 45:1 NASB
