Passion is the discovery of what is true and empowering about God’s personality. This touches our emotions and releases revelation. Key insights are released and become possibilities that empower our faith. Worship in that context is the permission to become lost in the rhythm of God’s heartbeat.
The father is never passive in worship. He is actively engaged with us. We allow our hearts to go out to him. We desire his company in worship. We reach out to him with everything we have.We intentionally use the truth of his nature to touch him. We celebrate all that he says about himself. We find favor in his sight and we revel in who he is for us. We discover that his kindness, love, generosity and joy are unbounded towards us. We can therefore rejoice in his mercy and give thanks for unending grace.
His delight over us turns into our delight over him. Our heart moves in tune with his. We lose our self-consciousness about what we are not by basking in who he is for us. True worship takes us to the resurrection side of the cross. In high praise we ascend to a high place. Worship has to be about touching heaven. It is about our imagining our place in Jesus around the throne. It is a life enhancing experience. It transforms us by empowering us from within. We draw back from the outer power of the soul so that we may feel the presence of God in the inner man of the spirit. Our innermost being is continuously ever present with God. He lives in our spirit.
Worship enables us both to reclaim and then maintain our inner territory. It opens our heart and renews our mind in Jesus. We never worship the same way twice in succession. There is no system to intimacy. It is not about what we are doing, but about what we are allowing to happen in our hearts.
Worship comes to us in the form of God’s favor towards us in Christ. It flows with us and moves through us. Worship is a person wooing us. As we respond, we enter into a relationship with God that is intimate and bold. True worship leaders are not choir masters. They do not lead singing. They are caught up in their own movement. The Lord plays their heart like an instrument. In that place of intimacy, he uses their heart to attract, inspire and compel people to respond.
Worship is always different because we are continually in discovery. It allows us to explore the father’s heart for us. Sometimes we begin from a place we know. A particular truth that we celebrate about him. At other times we take a run and jump off a cliff into the security of his heart. Sometimes when life is against us, the comforter comes and embraces us. We slow dance in his deep, compassionate understanding and we are healed, restored and strengthened. The memory of his amazing and compelling intimacy stays with us for days afterwards. The enemy is a lost to us and cannot take advantage of our pain. He cannot penetrate such comfort.
Intimate worship is a powerful restoring touch that draws us up and out of ourselves into the majesty of the Lord. Real intimacy remains enshrined in our memory banks. It can be called up in moments of battle, rising up within us. The touch and the feel of God that we have experienced leads us into a fresh encounter with his glorious nature. Encounter begets ongoing experience, which brings us to fresh encounters. His steadfast love never fails. It is new every morning. His mercy is endless. We are never alone. He is everywhere in and around us. Intimacy means that we never exit, nor rule out the father’s delight in us. His faithfulness is so overwhelming; it actually empowers us to become brilliant. when we relax into his faithful affection every hardship slips away from us and we are clean and strong.
We never exit worship. It is a melody that is either in the foreground or the background of our hearts. When it comes to the fore, we must give ourselves to it generously. Allow the moment to take us over for however long the Spirit desires. We must remember that worship is his dance and he must take the lead. We move to his tune. All creation worships continuously.
Creation was made from a word spoken by the father. A word is a sound that has creative significance and meaning. Creation moves to the rhythm of his heartbeat. That sound is all around us. Whenever we connect with the inner man of our spirit, we hear the sound of God moving within us. Stillness is about becoming quiet within so that we can hear the sound of worship and join in with what all creation is always doing.
When God inhabits our spirit the rhythm of his heartbeat and the sound of his joyfulness is implanted within our hearts. “Rejoicing always” is possible when we connect within to the sound of intimacy. We each have a certain sound, like an instrument in an orchestra. The father plays our heart through the Holy Spirit who loves to move us in the rhythm of heaven. Everything sings to the tune of his heart. When we are moved by love our hearts vibrate to the sound of his delight, and we too become delighted. It becomes our joy to delight ourselves in the Lord-Psalm 37: 4.
What is your sound in worship?
What is your next level of worship that must be embraced?
Do your praise, rejoicing and thanksgiving need a refreshing upgrade?
What does that look like to you?