Sunday, January 22, 2006

About worship

When we sing worship songs that have lines like:

"I'm raising my hands to worship you"
or
"I'm on my knees praising you"
or
"I'm dancing now, cause I feel so much joy"

I've always wondered something: why don't people do what they are singing? It's like somehow the fact that we are singing "I'm on my knees worshiping you" means we don't actually have to do it, cause, uh, we're singing and somehow that means we don't have to do what we are saying. I dunno, I've stopped singing lines like that cause I either have to do what they say, and look real weird for being the only one in the whole church doing it, or not do what I'm saying I'm doing and be lying. I guess the best thing would be to be like David and "dance naked before the lord."

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You dance, lift your hand only for God, He deserves all these praises. Don't fix your eyes on others. Please read 2Chronicles 20. "Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One, you are the praise of Isreal." (Psalm22:3) David could dance almost naked cause he humbled himself!!!

7:54 PM  
Blogger Andrew Michael Jacobs said...

j.zhao makes perhaps the best of points. it is hard to add anything except that what he says is so correct it is hard for me to attain it at heart level.

1:42 PM  
Blogger Dan McGowan said...

I just wrote about this same issue, from another angle, over at my blog: www.commonsaints.blogspot.com. (Check out, "You Can't Make Me!")

The REASON people don't DO those things they sing is simple - they don't WANT to. Which leads, then, to the next obvious question - do we NEED to do those things?

Some say "yes" - some say "no."

I say "yes." And here is why... Nowhere in scripture do we have "possible worship options" presented to us... nowhere do we read, "Clap your hands - if you feel like it." or "Shout for Joy, if the Spirit moves you to do so." Yet this is exactly how we treat such statements...

But imagine applying this same logic to other important statements in scripture.

"Do not commit adultery - unless you really dig her..."

"Do not murder - unless you are so angry you are driven to do so..."

"Do not steal - unless you need something so bad you cannot live without it..."

Silly, huh? But this is exactly what we do with what I call "The Worship Commandments" all over scripture - we soft-peddle them!

In the end - people will only DO what they WANT to do... no matter what is sung or what the lyrics say... I guess we have to rest on the truth that only God knows the heart...

3:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for all your opinions. I had struggled for this before, but one day, I was asked:"Will you get used to the life in heaven? In Revelation: the life style in Heaven is worshiping!" Actually, we worship, we sing or dance, it is a way used by Lord to give His grace to us (Psalm 50:23). My nephew is 3 yrs old, when he listened to worship song, he always said to others around him:"let's dance, dance... ". My pastor's son (3 yrs old) said the same words when he listened to worship song. Sometimes, we adults have a very hard shell covered our hearts, body....

10:40 AM  

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