“The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”. (John 4:23–24)
Of all aspects of our modern church life one that is perhaps most mis-understood and even neglected is worship. For some worship is unnecessary and uncomfortable, for some worship is a warm up to more important aspects of a service, for others worship is a performance that is more focused on the ones who are worshipping rather than the One who is worthy of all worship.
A.W. Tozer writes in his well known book ‘Whatever happened to worship’: "The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God, and the church is famished for want of his presence’. Worship is the missing jewel of the church. We have become a generation of people who worship our work, work at our play and play at our worship’. In the midst of so many different expressions and perspectives of worship what is the ‘true worship’ that Jesus speaks of and encourages us to pursue?
Throughout the scriptures we see a continual invitation to ‘come worship the Lord’. What we sometimes fail to realise is that this invitation is not the Lord inviting us to what He needs, as much as it is the Lord inviting us to what we need. In fact there are few invitations more incredible, more powerful, and more of a priority than worship. We are invited to that which we were created for and that which we need; an encounter with the living God and a life-changing glimpse of the greatness, the awesomeness, the wonder, the power, the mercy, the goodness, and the loving kindness of God. Worship is that place where we see Him for who He is, the one who is worthy of all worship. Then as we behold His majesty, His might and His worth, we let nothing get in the way of our pursuit of Him in worship, not because we have to, but because we get to.
True worship is when we come as a people with a genuine desire to worship God for who He is. Not to be blessed but instead to bless Him and to give our lives in that pursuit. We look not so much for the moments but the mission and the lifestyle of becoming true worshippers, revealing and bringing us into an encounter of the fullness of who God is. It is this true worship that will lead to the kind of spiritual visitation that ignites churches; heals brokenness, strips away religious facades and restores the glory to God to His Church in a way that will cause the world will sit up, take notice and declare that ‘surely God is among you’ (1 Cor 14:25).
This month as a church we have have been preparing to do some worship recording not because we think its a good idea but rather because we have felt from the Lord that this is the season for us to be doing this. The songs that we will be recording have been written in response to what we feel the Lord has put on our hearts for this season in our church, and indeed the church. They give voice to His heart and prophetically declare His purposes for us at this time. We believe they are songs in season. We invite you to join us over the coming month as we pursue the Lord in this way and together seek to become what the Lord Himself calls the ‘true worshippers’.
Blessings
Andrew