Worship flows (both a noun & a verb)
Many people never test drive their faith. They just accept what the religious salesman tells them. However, Spirit-led curiosity is more powerful than programmed religiosity.
Surrounded by a natural world saturated with God’s glory, we too often sit in our personal and religious boxes, unamazed. According to the Bible, Christians can be “led by the Spirit” or we can “quench the Spirit.” Which phrase best describes you?
The unasked question about church is: Should we flow with the Spirit or to follow a program? Your life is a continual flow of time, air in your lungs, thoughts, blood through your veins. Why not go with the Spirit’s flow? When a worship meeting is unprogrammed, people are free to be “carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (See 2 Peter 1:21 NIV.) To let the Spirit flow, keep human egos way down low.
I dream of church becoming a lab where people are encouraged to freely experiment with the gifts of the Spirit! Lectures are fine, but after a while I want to get into the lab & try the stuff out. (How did church get stuck on lecture?) It’s good to hear a talk about God, but perhaps it’s better to do the research for yourself. When church became a sit-in for spectators instead of an outreach of overcomers, it lost something.
Without spiritual laboratories that train people to interact with Christ, Christianity is too often reduced to a mere lecture series. To come together and experience Christ working supernaturally is much different than attending a church service. All preaching and no interactive sharing makes passive church members.
Let’s all meetup with our lab manual and do what it says. We could start with the 50-something “one another” passages. Let’s learn to treat the Bible as our Christian lab manual. Read what it says and then try it out and see how amazingly it works in our lives!
Church reminds me of Food Network–you get lots of information, but you don’t get to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” Worship is the expressive, heart-felt, interactive adoration of the living God. Worship is not a spectator event to watch as part of an audience. It’s an activity to be done with all your heart.
Worship focuses completely on the living God. It forgets about self and other concerns and is overcome with God’s presence.
Worship is built into the human heart. People love to adore sports teams, celebrities, bands, nations, songs, shows, books. But none of that can compare to worshipping the living God!
If you’re not deeply moved and thrilled by anointed, Spirit-led worship, you might not like Heaven very much. (See Revelation 19.) I love to praise the Lamb of God, to raise the sounds of Heaven, to gaze on His presence, to let Him amaze me!
When people meet to interact with and obey the risen Jesus, supernatural manifestations unfold in their midst. Try it and see! Instead of being awed by God’s glory, Christians are too often bored by His story (the Bible).
Christ wants to lead us beyond tribalism, partisanship, and divisiveness, and into the supernatural unity of the Spirit.
Circumstances don’t create your attitude; your thought patterns do. Make the choice to rejoice and then do it. Don’t wait for a happy feeling or pleasant circumstances. “Rejoice in the Lord always.”
