Feeling it.
A disclaimer before you read what I share: I try to be cautious not to write judgmentally and not to appear unduly critical - these are my observations so that all of us, myself included, can perhaps be more mindful of this.. trap, I would call it? - when we worship.
"I feel it." I admire those who pay much attention to the Holy Spirit, being led through the Praise & Worship set list by Him, thanking God for making His presence known among us as we put our praise on the altar. But I also wonder if anyone else makes the mistake - as I have done before, of focusing too much on emotional highs/lows, the leap of your heart, the sudden assault of goosebumps, the sudden tear-jerker... and mistaking these temporal physical reactions to be the fullness of God's presence.
Undermining Christ.
In many praise & worship gatherings I have been in, I see Jesus Christ reduced to a box only opened on Sundays for a good temporal goosebump thrill. Has the amazing life-changing grace in Christ, the Word of God, the only thing we have that shall never pass away though the world will someday end, the meaning and the purpose of creation, the great praise of God's glory, been reduced to a church building ambience? We have to genuinely ask ourselves sometimes whether there's more to lifting our arms, closing our eyes, the teary smile as the goosebumps set in... whether we are truly amazed at our God or enjoying the physiological reaction that non-Christians often have with emotional secular songs as well. I am certainly not saying that God isn't actually present with us as we worship - for He certainly is. The food for thought I'd like to suggest is more like: God is present, but are we enjoying His presence because we love the exhilaration? Or are we enjoying His presence because He is the Almighty God, Saviour of the world, the Maker of all things, the Sovereign Ruler, and He is graciously having His spirit and presence descend on us to be personal to each and every one of us - a humbling privilege that equals nothing the world can give? Are we rejoicing and being in awe at His presence because of a roller-coaster thrill, or because He is the greatest joy in our lives, causing us to rejoice even amidst sorrow and compelling us to offer ourselves on the altar because of this great hope of glory in Heaven?
Psalm 24:7-9 // Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of Glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.
When David, the man after God's own heart, wrote this grand verse, he wholeheartedly welcomed the King of glory in all His splendour. "Who is this King of glory?" he rhetorically asks. Would our honest answer to that question be, "Oh, the giver of my Sunday goosebumps, that's all." Or, from the depths of our hearts, from how God has graciously revealed Himself personally to us in our lives, in our circumstances, through His Word, through our prayer, can we wholeheartedly say that this King of glory is "The LORD strong and mighty"?
Psalm 8:3-5 // "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour."
This is grace. How amazing is this grace, that the Almighty God Everlasting cares to reveal Himself to us every moment, cares to reward those who earnestly seek Him (Hebrews 11:6), and that He not only cares to be among us in our church sanctuary, but cares to make the heftiest sacrifice so we can be redeemed to Him for eternity.
Why church? Why worship?
People go to clubs because they love the ambience, they love to let their hair down, refresh and relax. If that's all we come to church on Sundays to do, not to meet with Christ, not to tune our hearts again and declutter our minds so that each day (Monday through Saturday too) we can live more and more for Christ, then what is the difference? The reason we choose church over other Sunday morning activities (or inactivity - sleeping in), or the reason we choose church to 'unwind' instead of going bowling or to an exhilarating concert or what not, must be because we are Christians; hence church, the place where Christians worship.
And if we are Christians, and reduce Christ - the great Word of God incarnate, the high meaning of the Universe's creation, the great peak of the praise of God's glory foreknown before the world was created, to a temporary feeling, that is sad. What has become of the "surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things" (Philippians 3:8)?
Informed zeal. Knowledgeable passion.
A lot of people think that theology only puffs us up. The thief beside Jesus on the cross had not studied theology one bit, but that very day he was with Christ in paradise. So, yes, of course, theology does not earn us salvation. And it is no lie that theology can do us more harm than good, if we receive it without the Holy Spirit, as impersonal additions to our brain space shelved in the same category as our school subjects. However, that is no excuse for us Christians today to rest on our lack of knowledge, on the basis of the excuse that "knowledge puffs up" (1 Corinthians 8:1).
Proverbs 18:15 // The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge; the ears of the wise seek it out.
Proverbs 15:14 // The discerning heart seeks knowledge, but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly.
Proverbs 1:29, 31-32 // Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the LORD ... they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.
Knowledge and theology, properly and personally digested, will yield what I'd call informed zeal and knowledgeable passion. We must seek to be zealous, serving the LORD with spiritual fervour (Romans 12:11), but a greater knowledge of Christ and the grand glorious design of the LORD in His Creation and Sovereign Will, will lead to a far more meaningful and distinct experience in God's presence as we worship.
So don't shun knowledge, but let knowledge and passion, information and zeal, conceive to give birth to a relationship with the LORD that can stand trials, temptations and can endure much more steadfastly along the narrow road of the Christian's life on earth. Acquire the knowledge from God's Word, from famous theologians equipped with understanding from the LORD, from listening to preachers... and truly understanding the LORD, never neglecting prayer so we safeguard ourselves from merely knowing about Him, instead knowing Him for ourselves.
We can be very passionate about a human lover whom we know nothing about, professing how much we love having him or her around, saying we get goosebumps each time he or she passes by, but there is a limit to this passion that lacks knowledge; and if he or she doesn't pass by in the same way for three weeks, won't that passion be lost, or at least eroded? In a greater way, we can be very passionate about God's presence, saying we know of Him, we've experienced His proximity, and we've felt the effects of it. But shall we stay infatuated with physical feelings and settle for the very sad limited relationship we can have with a God we don't even know personally? And even if we claim to know God as kind and loving because He delivers us from our daily troubles, that is a great starting point, but that is really just scratching the surface. Scratch further, earnestly and eagerly; dig deeper, lovingly and desperately. There are great treasures of knowledge and understanding that will make us love God with more understanding and be so much more amazed at His grace.
As we add to this knowledge, ensuring it doesn't stay impersonal but hits our heart and enters its domain, when God is again present in the church sanctuary and you feel those goosebumps, you will remember the personal knowledge of the LORD which you have gained by grace concerning His "good, pleasing and perfect will", not just in your individual life, but in the entire Universe! You will see His greatness from the barrenness of the earth to its life, to its countless generations fraught with rebellious sons and daughters, to severing His own begotten Son from Himself to save us by grace, to adopting sons and daughters who put their faith in Him, and finally to the Day of the Lord when He comes in glory to redeem all to Himself. It is grand. It is great. It is unfathomable. It stretches from the beginning of time all the way to the end of the age. It is beyond our individual lives, and yet there is still so much more we will never know until we go to Heaven and be with God eternally.
When this informed zeal wells up in you, you will praise: "This Great God who made the whole Universe for the praise of His glory: He cares to be with us at this moment in this place. And this is just a minute glimpse into the eternal inexpressible and glorious joy of Heaven." There is so much more each of us have to learn about God. And that will make our experience of God each week sweeter and sweeter, and filled with greater wonder.
"I feel it." I admire those who pay much attention to the Holy Spirit, being led through the Praise & Worship set list by Him, thanking God for making His presence known among us as we put our praise on the altar. But I also wonder if anyone else makes the mistake - as I have done before, of focusing too much on emotional highs/lows, the leap of your heart, the sudden assault of goosebumps, the sudden tear-jerker... and mistaking these temporal physical reactions to be the fullness of God's presence.
Undermining Christ.
In many praise & worship gatherings I have been in, I see Jesus Christ reduced to a box only opened on Sundays for a good temporal goosebump thrill. Has the amazing life-changing grace in Christ, the Word of God, the only thing we have that shall never pass away though the world will someday end, the meaning and the purpose of creation, the great praise of God's glory, been reduced to a church building ambience? We have to genuinely ask ourselves sometimes whether there's more to lifting our arms, closing our eyes, the teary smile as the goosebumps set in... whether we are truly amazed at our God or enjoying the physiological reaction that non-Christians often have with emotional secular songs as well. I am certainly not saying that God isn't actually present with us as we worship - for He certainly is. The food for thought I'd like to suggest is more like: God is present, but are we enjoying His presence because we love the exhilaration? Or are we enjoying His presence because He is the Almighty God, Saviour of the world, the Maker of all things, the Sovereign Ruler, and He is graciously having His spirit and presence descend on us to be personal to each and every one of us - a humbling privilege that equals nothing the world can give? Are we rejoicing and being in awe at His presence because of a roller-coaster thrill, or because He is the greatest joy in our lives, causing us to rejoice even amidst sorrow and compelling us to offer ourselves on the altar because of this great hope of glory in Heaven?
Psalm 24:7-9 // Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of Glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.
When David, the man after God's own heart, wrote this grand verse, he wholeheartedly welcomed the King of glory in all His splendour. "Who is this King of glory?" he rhetorically asks. Would our honest answer to that question be, "Oh, the giver of my Sunday goosebumps, that's all." Or, from the depths of our hearts, from how God has graciously revealed Himself personally to us in our lives, in our circumstances, through His Word, through our prayer, can we wholeheartedly say that this King of glory is "The LORD strong and mighty"?
Psalm 8:3-5 // "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour."
This is grace. How amazing is this grace, that the Almighty God Everlasting cares to reveal Himself to us every moment, cares to reward those who earnestly seek Him (Hebrews 11:6), and that He not only cares to be among us in our church sanctuary, but cares to make the heftiest sacrifice so we can be redeemed to Him for eternity.
Why church? Why worship?
People go to clubs because they love the ambience, they love to let their hair down, refresh and relax. If that's all we come to church on Sundays to do, not to meet with Christ, not to tune our hearts again and declutter our minds so that each day (Monday through Saturday too) we can live more and more for Christ, then what is the difference? The reason we choose church over other Sunday morning activities (or inactivity - sleeping in), or the reason we choose church to 'unwind' instead of going bowling or to an exhilarating concert or what not, must be because we are Christians; hence church, the place where Christians worship.
And if we are Christians, and reduce Christ - the great Word of God incarnate, the high meaning of the Universe's creation, the great peak of the praise of God's glory foreknown before the world was created, to a temporary feeling, that is sad. What has become of the "surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things" (Philippians 3:8)?
Informed zeal. Knowledgeable passion.
A lot of people think that theology only puffs us up. The thief beside Jesus on the cross had not studied theology one bit, but that very day he was with Christ in paradise. So, yes, of course, theology does not earn us salvation. And it is no lie that theology can do us more harm than good, if we receive it without the Holy Spirit, as impersonal additions to our brain space shelved in the same category as our school subjects. However, that is no excuse for us Christians today to rest on our lack of knowledge, on the basis of the excuse that "knowledge puffs up" (1 Corinthians 8:1).
Proverbs 18:15 // The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge; the ears of the wise seek it out.
Proverbs 15:14 // The discerning heart seeks knowledge, but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly.
Proverbs 1:29, 31-32 // Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the LORD ... they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.
Knowledge and theology, properly and personally digested, will yield what I'd call informed zeal and knowledgeable passion. We must seek to be zealous, serving the LORD with spiritual fervour (Romans 12:11), but a greater knowledge of Christ and the grand glorious design of the LORD in His Creation and Sovereign Will, will lead to a far more meaningful and distinct experience in God's presence as we worship.
So don't shun knowledge, but let knowledge and passion, information and zeal, conceive to give birth to a relationship with the LORD that can stand trials, temptations and can endure much more steadfastly along the narrow road of the Christian's life on earth. Acquire the knowledge from God's Word, from famous theologians equipped with understanding from the LORD, from listening to preachers... and truly understanding the LORD, never neglecting prayer so we safeguard ourselves from merely knowing about Him, instead knowing Him for ourselves.
We can be very passionate about a human lover whom we know nothing about, professing how much we love having him or her around, saying we get goosebumps each time he or she passes by, but there is a limit to this passion that lacks knowledge; and if he or she doesn't pass by in the same way for three weeks, won't that passion be lost, or at least eroded? In a greater way, we can be very passionate about God's presence, saying we know of Him, we've experienced His proximity, and we've felt the effects of it. But shall we stay infatuated with physical feelings and settle for the very sad limited relationship we can have with a God we don't even know personally? And even if we claim to know God as kind and loving because He delivers us from our daily troubles, that is a great starting point, but that is really just scratching the surface. Scratch further, earnestly and eagerly; dig deeper, lovingly and desperately. There are great treasures of knowledge and understanding that will make us love God with more understanding and be so much more amazed at His grace.
As we add to this knowledge, ensuring it doesn't stay impersonal but hits our heart and enters its domain, when God is again present in the church sanctuary and you feel those goosebumps, you will remember the personal knowledge of the LORD which you have gained by grace concerning His "good, pleasing and perfect will", not just in your individual life, but in the entire Universe! You will see His greatness from the barrenness of the earth to its life, to its countless generations fraught with rebellious sons and daughters, to severing His own begotten Son from Himself to save us by grace, to adopting sons and daughters who put their faith in Him, and finally to the Day of the Lord when He comes in glory to redeem all to Himself. It is grand. It is great. It is unfathomable. It stretches from the beginning of time all the way to the end of the age. It is beyond our individual lives, and yet there is still so much more we will never know until we go to Heaven and be with God eternally.
When this informed zeal wells up in you, you will praise: "This Great God who made the whole Universe for the praise of His glory: He cares to be with us at this moment in this place. And this is just a minute glimpse into the eternal inexpressible and glorious joy of Heaven." There is so much more each of us have to learn about God. And that will make our experience of God each week sweeter and sweeter, and filled with greater wonder.
