Remember the post I did last Friday for Lyrics I Feel....well its been bugging me ever since. The more I have thought about it the more convinced I am that I DO NOT believe we were made soley for worship.
Worship seems to me to be all about servanthood, and is rooted in the soul...now don't get me wrong. I do feel that we should worship our Lord...and if He has truly done a work in your life you cannot help but to worship and adore Him and it can be a very spiritual thing...However I am convinced that He is reaching out to lift us up from off the floor where we have prostrated ourselves and that His desire is to commune with us face to face. I am persuaded that we are actually made to fellowship...and fellowship is rooted in the spirit....
Our worship mentality is very old testament...where man and God were seperated by an endless gulf and God was fearful and harsh. We feel the need to fall on our faces and yes, as I said, when He has done incredible things in your life you really want to and should fall before Him in praise and worship but the cross changed everything...it didn't change the fact that He is deserving but it did change our position in the equation ...the gulf has been spanned, we have been made one with God through His Son and in such an intimate way that we can count Him our friend, our brother, the lover of our souls.
He is God, yes and it may seem weird to think of God having needs ...but in reality, this whole cross/God/ resurection thing was all about Him...He had needs...He needed to expand Himself, to have more fellowship ....so He made a plan...a way to increase Himself...it involved the slaying of His Son, the birth of His woman, the Church and it involves you and me.
He wants so badly to have fellowship, He wants to be seen and known for who He really is...just like we do...we get it from Him, you know...
Now He has called us "no longer servants but friends".... Amazingly, I was chosen before the foundations of the world to be IN Him...and through His work on the cross to be IN His body, His Church, His Bride.
Perhaps God and man are not so terribly different...both have need to be known, to be seen, to have companionship...
To my way of thinking I was not made primarily for worship ..... I was predestined for fellowship with God Himself...a much higher calling don't you think?
12 comments:
I think we were made to have a relationship and fellowship with the Lord...and that naturally... worship flows out of that love and relationship!
And yet, I believe it is possible to "worship" God's creation without knowing Him...so, I think fellowship is what we were actually created for!
Oooo, you've got it. We worship because we are in a relationship, if we get it the other way around we end up worshipping what He made. It is when I am closest to Him that I worship Him most, when I am furthest I just want to hide.
Thank you for your comment on my testimony. May I make a suggestion? The Lord has brought many ex-Catholics into my life of late and has also begun to bring still Catholics in. What I have fond, in talking to both sets, is that the only thing that, in general, the only way that a Roman Catholic gets past the church and into the relationship is through His word. If you end up in discussion, send them to their own Bible to look it up. We are not trained in the Bible but are very prideful because we have been taught that the traditions are all there. Those of us who have had any training are taught to look at it only through the eyes of the teacher or priest, not through our own in the Spirit. Lots of patience, prayer, and study of His word is usually God's way to a Roman Catholic heart. That said, just about every Christian denommination has those who are born-again and those who are not, some are called to leave, others are called to stay and lead the others to Him. I know some within the Catholic church who have been called to stay. Most, once they realize that all they are taught is not in the book that they were told contained it, feel the Lord calling them to leave.
Thank you again for visiting. Maybe you would consider sharing your story as well?
Wow. That is so much to absorb. You're going to have me thinking about this one for several days!
I see what you're saying, though. When the Bible says things like, "And they (Adam and Eve)heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day..." (Gen. 3:8)...why was He walking in the garden? It sounds like something He must have done before. He was coming to fellowship with them.
I agree with Kimber. Out of the relationship and fellowship flow true worship.
When Jesus died, the veil of the temple was torn completely --from top to bottom --to allow us complete access and fellowship with God.
I agree that our worship flows our of our love which is a result of the relationship.
Great post!
Worship without relationship isn't what He is looking for. Obedience without love would be be easy and I think many times is the Road Most Taken, Is it easier to do than be?- seems to be a popular theme. I agree that worship is a natural part of relationship. Relationship takes time and effort and we humans seem to be in short supply of both. That is what our immediate gratifcation society has taught us. Stopping to smell the roses is easier to say than do...
One cannot go deeper with anyone with whom they don't have a relationship. We relate because we are his relations! We are his DNA, his kin. Its seems that worship comes from a deep place within and pours out unwittingly.
Thanks for sharing your heart Cheryl! You stir me.
I'm stil dwelling on this post...very thought provoking. I have also enjoyed reading all the comments.
Well, this is a deep subject! Thanks for shedding some light :)
hmmm still thinking about all you said....i guess i would say yes fellowship or LOVE is the highest reason we were made, and i guess i think of worship as an ultimate way of expressing my love....like i love Him so much, i worship Him!!
yes ... and yes ... i believe it's both, blended together ... one without the other is incomplete ... to fellowship with Holy God automatically flows us into worship with Him, for Him, to Him ... to truly worship Holy God draws us to intimacy with Him and a deep longing and craving for fellowship which we must fulfil. yes, he calls us friend, but He will always be God and we will always not be God. i think it's the whole ... God is God, Lord, the Great I Am, Sovereign, Holy, Good, Love ... ... and He calls us friend ... and He is the lover of our souls ... and i believe He created us out of His love for us ... that He loved us into being ... before the foundation of the world.
excellent, thought-provoking post!
I think we were made to do both...we are supposed to fellowship but we are also supposed to worship!
yes!
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