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Heart of a Worshipper International Expounded Upon
Worship Study
"Focus in Praise and Worship
and the Daily Christian Life"
I want you to do something for me right now. I want you to put your index finger right up to your nose, and then with both eyes, try to focus on your finger.
It’s hard to get both your eyes to focus on it right? Most people can get one eye to focus for a little while, but you can’t do both eyes, and if you do, It gets really hard, really quick. Right? Why is that? Maybe because your eyes resist crossing, because it is un-natural. They are naturally going to look at things together, and in unison either out in front of you or to the side. When you try to force both eyes to do something un-natural to them, they tend to have a bit of a problem with that. When I try to do this exercise, my eyes actually hurt!
Now put your finger back on your nose, and slowly pull it straight out from your nose, and look at it. What happens?
Your finger gets much easier to see and your eyes get focused right?
I know that most of you reading this have probably considered yourselves Christians for quite some time now. Some of you that God led to this website may not be Christians yet. But if God is pulling you, then you soon will be. And you'll be much better off once you surrender to Him and just believe.
So many people consider themselves Christians. It's pretty easy to say you are a Christian, and pretty hard to back what you say up with what you live. There are a few scriptures that I want us to take a look at in this Worship Study, and I would like to share some things with you.
Look at: Mark 12:28-32
28 And one of the scribes came, and having heard them
reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him,
Which is the first commandment of all?
29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel;
The Lord our God is one Lord:
30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with
all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
There is none other commandment greater than these.
32 And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for
there is one God; and there is none other but he:
Now Look at: Rev 2:1-4:
1 To the angel of the church in Ephesus say: These
things says he who has the seven stars in his right hand, who is walking in the
middle of the seven gold lights:
2 I have knowledge of your doings, and of your hard work and long waiting, and
that you will not put up with evil men, and have put to the test those who say
they are Apostles and are not, and have seen that they are false;
3 And you have the power of waiting, and have undergone trouble because of my
name, without weariness.
4 But I have this against you, that
you are turned away from your first love.
And: Gal 6:9-10:
9 And let us
not get tired of well-doing; for at the right time we will get in the grain, if
we do not give way to weariness.
10 So then, as we have the chance, let us do good to all men, and specially to
those who are of the family of the faith.
The popular band U2 has a very popular song which has a line in the chorus that says "I still haven't found what I'm looking for." The author is searching all over, and has been around the world, but he still hasn't found that thing that he is looking for.
Earlier I had you put your finger to your nose and try to focus on it. Basically, your finger was too close to your nose for you to really see it in detail. For many, it was blurry, and for others they could only see a part of it. All because the finger was just too close to the source of vision.
Did you know that you can be too close to God? Just like you were to close to your finger to really see it…Yeah…you can be too close to God to really see Him clearly. But when I say "too close," I don’t mean it in the traditional sense. I mean it like this…
Have you ever found yourself running around the house looking all over for your keys, and then realize that you had them in your back pocket? Or been frantically searching for your car keys for a few seconds and then see that they are in your hand already? Or looking for your wallet and it’s in the jacket that you’re already wearing? That happens to me more often than I'd like to admit, and half the time my sons or my wife notice and have a good laugh at me.
See when U2 came out with that song I mentioned, some people started thinking that they couldn’t possibly be Christians, because obviously, if Bono still hadn’t found what he’s looking for to fill that hole in his soul, then he must not have faith in God. Do you think that is true?
You know what, I think it isn’t necessarily true, because sometimes people are looking for what they already have. Like with the car key illustration. Sometimes in our lives, we do that with God. Bono professed to be a Christian, but was still looking for something. The truth is, he was probably looking for something deeper in His relationship with God.
And that’s what I wanted to write to you about in this Worship Study. See I want you to know that even though we profess to be Christians, sometimes we still may struggle to find God. And that sounds weird, but it’s true, and it's normal. Sometimes we know God exists, we know about God, and we can play our instruments and sing all about Him. we can even lead people in worship of God, but we are so knowledgeable about Him, that we can't really focus on Him in our worship and in our daily lives as Christians. The depth is not there. The awe is not there. It's head knowledge, and not heart-felt, life-changing, worship.
Try and answer these questions for yourself:
 | What are the pros and cons of growing up in church? |
| If you could change one thing about your relationship with God just by snapping your fingers, what would it be? |
| What’s one nagging doubt about God that you’ve never told anyone? |
Have you even been around someone that just came to faith in Christ (got saved,) and they just can’t shut up about how awesome God is, and how they just came out of “the world” and into God’s family, and how He just met them in the service. They are like the Energizer Bunny, all wound up and going on and on about how great God is, and what He has done for them.
They go on and on about how they felt God's presence soooo strong in the worship service. You were in that same service, and what did you feel? Zippo. Nada. Nothing. To you, the service was even a bit boring, and you were just going through the motions.
And your thinking “Man God, why don’t you hit me with a little of that?”
Have you ever been in a situation like that? See nobody talks about it, but I think every Christian has those feelings from time to time. And with people who have been Christians a long time, or most of their lives like some of you reading this...sometimes you forget about times when you did really feel God. And also you are around so much teaching by being regularly in church for so many years, and watching Christian TV, and listening to Christian music and teachings, that you learn a whole lot about God. That is nice, but that isn’t exactly really where God wants you to be. You have to move from a place of knowing all about God, to a place of knowing God. A place of awe, fear, trust, respect, and honor of Him.
And knowing God, comes from a day-to-day personal relationship with Him. You can study for years about him, and people do in colleges, and still don’t know Him, they just have a lot of head knowledge about Him.
If you consider yourself a believer, think back to the time when you feel that you really became a Christian. Can you remember the exact day and time? Some people can. You know, if we had 100 people at this website at the same time reading this, we could get 100 different answers, but the point is…It’s good to have different times in your life where you really know and later remember God impacting you in a tangible and real way.
Some people can say, "I remember a time when God was so real to me, it was at this meeting, or it was…" For me, I've had many times in my life when I knew I was having a direct touch from God, or that He was speaking directly to me through His Holy Spirit, and giving me direction in my life for the coming days. But sometimes after you’re a Christian for a while, then you know so much about God, that it can interfere with you really seeing God moving in your life.
Remember the finger example?
It’s the same way with God, He’s so close to you that sometimes you can’t really see Him, and sometimes you need some new experiences that are similar to how people feel when they first get saved. And I encourage you to go to concerts, conferences, worship meetings, and things where you can get new experiences. But it's also key to take times like in your worship services at church to really see God in a new and fresh way. Whether you are leading or in the congregation, truly forget about what you know about God. Just worship Him because He is God. Stand and kneel in awe of Him. Picture Him on His throne in all His greatness. And let Him touch you. Allow God to be like that finger moving out away from you, so that you can clearly see Him. Focus in on Him, and worship. Remember your first love! Enjoy doing good! Love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength! Then you will be like that person saying, "Man I felt His presence sooo strong!" And it won’t matter if no one else in that service felt it, cuz’ you worshiped him with all your heart, and He touched you. I encourage you to pray that God will do things like that in your life, and worship him the same way at home!
New touches from God are like Rocket Boosters. We have our main rocket engines of that salvation experience, and then we have those rocket booster experiences at various times in our lives. Those experiences re-charge us, and allow us to focus and see that God is really real in our lives. God is alive. He is real. He is our Loving Father. All loving fathers love to give good experiences to their kids. Our heavenly Father is no different. He loves to touch our hearts, and let us know that He is real. He's a father who will gladly interact with us if we truly love Him. We should all ask ourselves this question regularly in our worship and in our daily Christian lives - "Where is my focus?" If we do this regularly, our answers will probably surprise us from time to time!
By
William Charles
Copyright 2005
Heart of a Worshipper International
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