Worship 002

Deuteronomy 11:16 ESV
Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them;


We can not help but acknowledge that our hearts are at best fickled and at worse they are deceitful beyond measure.  Even though we are redeemed and set apart for, in and to Him our hearts are still prone to waywardness, rebellion and self-seeking.  Certainly, as we mature, we expect to see our hearts grow stronger and wiser and more faithfu but there's no easy or quick (or here, definitive) way for that to happen.

Examining our hearts in light of the Word under the guidance of the Spirit was a practice, indeed a duty the Puritains placed great emphasis on.  This examination was not just some curosry "check-up" but a deep and intense examination a spiritual angiogram if you will.  They saw this as essential not only for maturation in the faith but for the glorification of God.  I believee that regardless of how much time and effort we spend in the Word and prayer, if we do not purpose it to examine our hearts, it is little more than busy work.

David prays:

Psalm 139:23-24 ESV
Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! [24] And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

A very bold prayer and one we would be well advised to not just pray asking but pray demanding.  It's a risk, it's dangerous because God must say "Yes!"  It is a risk and an danger because it will result in a deep and perhaps painful challenge to many of the things we thought we had right.

But unless we are willing to pray this and accept what He shows us we have casue to question if indeed we are His or not.  To ignore the need for self- and God's examination of our hearts and/or to fail to acknowledge and respond to what is found is a sin of self-protective rebellion and a self-abusive sin.

It is perhaps in regard to worship that our hearts need close examination - which too little of which is ever done.  The church has wandered into the morass of comfort, convenience and culture that has alienated her from her head and sorely weakened her witness.  We have stacked so many pretty things, practices and ideas around worship that only a very dim light can be seen.

Where we should be focused on what God prefers we focus on what we prefer.  Instead of seeking and practicing what God requires we seek and practice what our flesh and the unbeliever requires.  Our worship has become more about us and less and less about God.

We promote worship as contemporary or traditional.  The real issue is whether it is acceptable or unacceptable, holy or profane, reverent or rebellious.  We have not only brought strange fire to God's worship but we have laid aside some of the most fundamental tenets of the faith.  We have abandoned the main and plain truths for the bright and shiny deceptions.  We have made worship an issue of "What's in it for me (us/them)?"  instead of "What's in it for Him?"

This is nothing new.  The first murder resulted from unacceptable worship.  So we can take some strange comfort in the fact that this is a common and continuous problem.  but that strange comfort must convict us and bring us to repentance.  it should drive us to the Word to do the hard work of examining OUR hearts in regard to worship and what we think, believe, want, don't want, etc.

We must prayerfully cry out for God to show us how to worship Him not just in spirit but in truth as well.  The "how" of our worship is a clear indication of the "who" of our worship.  We need, individually and collectively to examine our worship (inside and out) to see if it is what He wants.