August 17, 2006
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Someone wondered about my notes, I take them in longhand, and just listen and write lots. Some of it is scribbles, so I transcribe them to help me to remember them. And I take down the Bible verses, and later go to my Bible and copy them out for you. I figure it makes it easier for you to read if the scriptures are on the screen. I count myself so blessed to have such good teachers. The Word comes alive when you have good teachers.
WEDNESDAY BIBLE STUDY 8/16/06
The topic is: Praise and Worship taught by Pastor Don Moore. I think I would call it SPIRITUAL JAZZ.
Pastor Don stated that when we enter into praise and worship, we enter into a place where we can get our prayers answered. There are different levels and types of praise and worship. But all praise and worship is a prayer. If it is not directed to God, it is just praise and worship to edify ourselves. The Church spends a lot of time edifying itself, and not as much time edifying God.
Praise and worship is not confined to one hour on Sunday, we can have praise and worship in our car, at home, when we talk to ourselves, when we talk to our mate, at work. In fact we can have praise and worship anywhere, anytime. We want to let our life be a praise offering.
Many of our praise offerings probably are depressing to God, if all we are talking about is our problems, complaints, and things that affect only us.
There is no clear line between prayer, praise and worship.
Prayer is talking to God, meditating upon God, and communicating with a Supernatural Being-God. There are different types of prayer: prayer of dedication, of supplication, of service, of intercession, of consecration, of healing, of faith. When we pray in a positive way we reach the heart of God with our heart.
Sometimes when we worship in church prayer becomes a performance. Some pray to get an emotional reaction from people, to emotionally stir up the people and stimulate them. This is not really the heart of God. Others pray – oh poor me, pity me. One example of that kind of prayer is a prayer that continually asks God to forgive me, a wretched sinner. When we got saved God forgave all, while we repent of the sins we do now, we are no longer a wretched sinner – God either forgave us or he didn’t, he either cleansed us completely, or he didn’t. To keep praying the wretched sinner prayer is implying that God didn’t completely die for our sins.
Worship services usually kick off with conventional praise – and is a member to member thing. We talk/sing about our struggles, and what we have been through, how God has saved us. We were miserable, now we have God and things are better. I have Jesus to see me through. This is not really praise of God, but it is praise of what God has done in our lives. It is more focused on us and our lives and what God has done for US.
Pastor Don sang a few of the lyrics of – Reverend Paul Jone’s song “I won’t complain” Here are the lyrics as an example.
I’ve had some good days
I’ve had some hills to climb
I’ve had some weary days
And some sleepless nights
But when I look around
And I think things over
All of my good days
Outweigh my bad days
I won’t complain
Sometimes the clouds are low
I can hardly see the road
I ask a question, Lord
Lord, why so much pain?
But he knows what’s best for me
Although my weary eyes
They can’t see
So I’ll just say thank you Lord
I won’t complain
The Lord
Has been so good to me
He’s been good to me
More than this old world or you could ever be
He’s been so good
To me
He dried all of my tears away
Turned my midnights into day
So I’ll just say thank you Lord
I’ve been lied on
But thank you Lord
I’ve been talked about
But thank you Lord
I’ve been misunderstood
But thank you Lord
You might be sick
Body reeking with pain
But thank you Lord
The bills are due
Don’t know where the money coming from
But thank you Lord
Thank you Lord
Thank you Lord
I want
I want to thank God
God
God
God
Has been so good to me
He’s been good to me
More than this old world or you could ever be
He’s been so good
He’s been so good
He’s been so good
So good
So good
So good
So good
To me
He dried all of my tears away
Turned my midnight into day
These kinds of songs talk of suffering, but unless Jesus has asked us for a testimony, they are self-centered praise songs. Focusing more on the person, their suffering and victory than on worshipping God.
Pastor Don says that there is a place for these songs in the service – it isn’t as if they are “bad songs” and many are very beautiful. They are good for starting to pull people together to praise and worship – but they aren’t pure praise songs, there is still too much of a “me” factor, not just focus on God. They are songs that talk to the emotional condition of the human being. And they do serve a human purpose. Amazing Grace is another example of this kind of song.
These are great songs, but they are not Praise as Praise is described in the Bible. The purpose of these songs is to begin to tie people together, to get them settled down into one accord, and to prepare them for real praise.
Praise is directed at pure adoration of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Giving accolades of praise to God, defining His nature, dying to ourselves and focusing on Him. He is King of Kings, Lord of Lords.
Real praise is a description of love and adoration, pouring from my heart to the heart of God. To Him is all the glory. How wonderful God is. “Jesus, there is something about that name” is an example of such a praise song or “Be Magnified.” These kinds of praise and worship songs take our focus off of our individual human suffering and misery and give praise to Him. He inhabits the praises of His people, and Grace stoops down when we praise, and He listens to us, hearing us. So often, when we get out of the way and just praise Him, our problems resolve themselves.
A good flow of praise and worship in a church service goes from individual, to group songs for the people, then praise, which leads to worship. It is a natural flow.
When our worship is focused on glorification of God, He bends down to listen, and you communicate heart to heart with God, it is a humbling of ourselves, and we are not expecting a response from God.
I see the Lord High and Lifted Up. When we worship, we are in the grandeur of the presence of His Glory. It is a love song to God when we worship.
When we praise and worship God, we enter into his inner court in praise and adoration. Given we are the temple of God, we enter into our inner court in praise and adoration of God.
An example is Psalm 51 – where David comes to God, saying he messed up, asks forgiveness, and basks in God’s glory.
We have to ask what we are doing in our praise and worship. What is the Church doing? When we are in worship, sometimes the repertoire that we set up to follow will fall apart and we will be operating in Spirit order. God is waiting for us to get into His inner court where there is no rigid order (not that there isn’t order, but it is God’s order). Pastor Don calls it the place of snot and tears. He also called it a kind of Spiritual Jazz – where musicians and worshippers can play, pray, and flow in the Spirit, in the order of the piece they are playing, but according to the flow of the Holy Spirit.
We will see this in the Old Testament when the Priests and Levites knew what they had to do – what their jobs were, but they still left room for the Holy Spirit to work.
Christian entertainment has it’s place. It is far better than secular entertainment, but we also have to get beyond a place where we are waiting to be entertained. That doesn’t mean that we don’t make plans. Jesus, when He had to speak to a large crowd of people, planned the best place to speak and stood up in a boat to preach – He needed to do that to get His message across, water carries sound very well.
We looked at an example of Old Testament Praise and Worship, in great detail. The passages we studied concerned the dedication of the Temple of Solomon. David was unable to build the Temple, even though he had a heart to do so because David’s life was so filled with war, and that was not what God wanted in His Temple. So Solomon was to build the Temple and then Solomon consecrated it. If a warrior had built the Temple, there would have been a spirit of war within the walls, and God did not want that.
Pastor Don mentioned that we need to worship in our individual lives, not just when we gather to church. If we could get deep into worship, not get distracted by things, by our coffee, our phones, the TV, but really spend a few minutes, 10 minutes or more in pure worship, it would cross over into our day-to-day lives.
Tomorrow we will look at Worship the way God shows us in the Old Testament. I know you will be blessed.
Have a blessed day.
Heather
Comments (14)
Hi Heather , just stopped by to say hello and I was thinking of you a bit ago.. Hope all is well.. Have a truly blessed day tomorrow………T
Your comment gives me another side to think about reality. A damaged camera distorts images as similar to a damaged brain distorts sensations. Correspond to this, you talk about truth. I have a question regarding it. What is objective truth? Objective truth cannot be your interpretation. It has to exist outside of your preference whether you like it or not. While we keep this in mind, you’re impling that God is truth. God can relinquish all of my frustration, anxiety, confusion, etc. What makes you say that God, to which our sensations cannot grapse him, is truth? We cannot see, hear, touch, smell, or taste God. Why are you making something that does not exist into something that exixts? We cannot prove his existence. Therefore, God has to function as a concept. Without proof, you might say that his existence is not in this world (space-time) but in a different world. You can also say that Santa Claus and the fairy-god mother exist where God is. If the existence of God is true, the existence of Santa Claus and the fairy-god mother is true because whatever can be said is true. But if you regard God’s existence is true and not Santa Claus and the fairy-god mother is true then what can I say about this. I can say that the concept of God, Santa Claus, and the fairy-god mother are learned from childhood. Whatever is taught, you take it into consideration. In regards to truth, what is considered true is learned: what ever can be said within that learning state is true. This assertion explains for the variety of beliefs whether it is scientific or religious. Objective truth has to stand for what it really is (whether you like it or not), and that, you have to be able to sense it. If it takes to step outside of what we have learned then we must do it. But if one is unwilling, that person is what you called brainwashed. A brainwashed person does not have objecitve truth. If you can give a good argument, I am willing to believe that God is objective truth or truth. I do not want to be brainwashed in my beliefs because of my willingness to believe your beliefs.
P.S. Your comment is always welcome.
what a beautiful song, and thanks for just being there heather. like always im encouraged by you and your posts…love, joy=)
I enjoy studying Gods word with our pastor Jack he makes things so simple and believe me I need simple.
Love ya, Darlena
What you say is true. When I first came back to the Lord I felt stupid for “praising” Him, because He is so great He made everything, and then it felt backwards for little me to say “good job God”. But worship is good for US — it gets our attitude right. Then later, I heard on Revival in Belfast album the words “put on the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” It took a while to understand, but finally I did: when we are in trouble or having a bad day, praising God with pure praise like you describe, actually helps us feel better and gets us out of the “woe is me” frame of mind. Thank you for this post, and I’m looking forward to the next one:) Love, Gerrie
Wow! I really needed to hear that today. I never thought about “Amazing Grace” not being a praise song being fully focused on praising God. It is one of my favorites. I think I need to rethink my list of favorite praise and worship songs. Thank you!!! I hope you have a blessed day!
Excellent! Spiritual Jazz…..I like that! Yes, praise and worship should be our lives, our very being. Have a great day Heather! ~Amelia
This was a good post, Heather. Thatnks for relating this to us. Around here, it is hard to find a church where true praise and worship is practiced. Sadly, it’s all becoming fake, or superficial…focusing on “us”, or on the “awesome band”. Ugh.
I yearn for the days when I was in the middle of a church full of people with arms raised to God, singing to him, worshipping him and praising him. Crying for joy and desperation to know him and to touch and be touched by him. That was when I was younger, though….watching my elders all around me worshipping. That was a good environment to grow up in, and I long to find that, again, somewhere.
John
John
Some of my closes momments with God is where I put my feelings and such behind..and just worshiped him for who he is. I do end up with a snotty face.. eyes all red. Because if he didn’t love me.. I don’t know where I would be. Even though I like worship at a chruch.. for some reason I like it better when it’s just God and I. I can then give him my whole heart and not worry if i’m getting snot on the floor. I can have the ugly face cry.. and just give it all to him. I don’t want others to see me that way..it’s to personal I think. And at church service.. there is a time limit. I don’t like that either. Anyways… just my take on worship.
It amazes me how you can stay so focused during those teaching times. Even though the sermon may be wonderful, I’m afraid I often get distracted. Praying alone instead of corporately, thinking of a praise song…and run it through my head a number of times during the sermon, even finding bible scripture that takes me away from the teaching and off on what my hubby calls “tangents”. You are so good to stay concentrated and collect the wonderful sermons for those of us that don’t listen very well to the preacher.
Objective/absolute truth IS NOT subject to interpretation. The Law of Gravity will work whether or not we believe in gravity. God is God whether or not we choose to believe in Him or not.
We cannot see, hear, touch, smell or taste gravity – but gravity exists. We cannot see, hear, taste, touch, smell mathematical principles like infinity, but they exist. Yes, we cannot see, hear, touch, smell or taste God, but we have evidence of God through His creation.
It seems that you are saying “God does not exist?” How can you know for sure? You cannot prove a negative.
Years ago people learned that the earth was flat. That was proved wrong. Years ago people learned that the sun revolved around the earth, that was proved wrong. Learning through our senses is not always reliable.
Why must we sense objective truth? Our senses are very unreliable. Try this experiment – take one container of hot water, one of lukewarm water, one of ice cold water. Put hand in hot water and leave for one minute, take hand and put in lukewarm water – the water will feel cool. Then put hand in ice cold water, leave for one minute, and put hand into lukewarm water – the water will feel hot. The lukewarm water is the same temperature, the only thing different is what we are sensing with – our hand in hot/cold water.
In order to have an objective truth – you have to have an objective truth maker – God is that truth maker. In order to have a creation, you have to have a creator. Look at the computer on your desk – it had to have a creator – if I stated that random molecules over time came together and through trial and error they formed a microchip, then electrical molecules randomly came together and powered the mircochip – you would laugh me out of the room. We all know someone invented the computer, thought it out and produced it, it was not created from random molecules by chance. Our brains are far more complex than any computer, and no computer today can parallel all that our brain takes in and does. For all of scientist’s work, they have yet to create life from random elements in a laboratory – oh, and by the way, they use elements already provided by earth – they haven’t created something from nothing.
Something cannot be created from nothing – so who is the creator – it is logical that if there is a creation, there is a creator, and God is that creator.
For me it takes more faith and subjective thinking to believe that there is not God. It is far more logical to believe in God, our creator.
And yet, our creator, God, allows us the liberty to choose to believe Him or not – that is His love for us, that He does not want to force us to believe Him – and He could if He wanted to. It is our choice to believe or not to believe – and trust me, that choice has eternal consequences.
So glad you were able to break free from your past to now serve thye Living Savior! Thanks for your comments….Be Blessed….Mike
“It is a love song to God when we worship.”
I agree very much
Thanks for your prayers for my son,he’s doing well! Glad Jim caught some fish! Love,Becky