If Jesus were to stand in our midst today, He would be singing praises unto the Father. The writer of Hebrews quotes from the Old Testament (Psalms 22:22), applying this Scripture to Jesus Christ: … He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, “I will proclaim Thy name to My brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will sing Thy praise.” Hebrews 2:11, 12.
We are not going to concentrate on trying to bring forth prophetic revelations of the future, nor will we be disturbed in trying to understand every detail of what is going to happen, for God will lead us. Our main objective will be that His presence shall be in our midst and that we are continually singing His praises and giving worship to the Lord, as we enter into an even greater anointing.
In times past the Holy Spirit came upon David and other men of God and they sang and worshiped the Lord. Can you understand then what God would really like to have from us? He wants us to be so given to worship that we shall break through from one realm into another and another, until this Walk will be known for its worship of the Lord. In the midst of all the blasphemy of this age, His desire is that we stand in submission to the Lord, magnifying His name, worshiping Him, completely submissive to Him in every way, laying ourselves as living sacrifices upon His altar—determined that we will truly be worshipers of the Lord.
The world will be fearful about many things. Their hearts will be failing them for fear, but it will not be so with us. Even if we walk through a fiery furnace, we will be singing. If we go through a lion’s den, we will be singing. Whatever happens, we are going to worship the Lord and trust Him. It will not be just a whistling in the dark to keep down our fears—it will be lifting up our voices glorifying the Lord. I know that our worship will become an issue, and people will not even call it worship. But I don’t think God calls anything worship that is so similar to deadness, that has the same quietness, the same lack of activity, and the same rigor mortis in it. God deliver us from it all and loose us into the flow of living worship unto the Lord; to worship and praise Him with all of our hearts.
Break out of those things which cause you to be all bottled up in your feelings and emotions, so you are wholly preoccupied in your unbelief and fear of your own problems. Forget it all and open up. We are called to worship the Lord. I see by revelation that as we come before the presence of the Lord, it is there that He tests us. He has allowed circumstances, problems, relationships, necessities, and all kinds of demonic assault to come against us. Why? To see if we still love Him enough to worship Him, to see if worship will have priority above everything else.
There are still times in which people are fearful that they will not be ministered to sufficiently. Forget that. Come to the house of the Lord and enter into a real worship of the Lord and it will not matter whether you have personal ministry or not. God will see that you get it when you need it. The most important thing is that you begin to worship God with all your heart. There you will have a meeting with the Lord. There are many things God will not allow to be lifted from you because they are there to test you, and they will stay there as long as you are focused upon them instead of being focused on the Lord.
If you look at circumstances, you will die in your circumstances and perish in the wilderness, as Israel did. The wilderness was not for their destruction, but for their testing. God brought them forth into the wilderness to prove them, that they might know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God (Deuteronomy 8:2, 3). Until you read that in the Word, you may have the idea that they were on an extended picnic for forty years, with God furnishing all the food and everything else they needed, so even their clothes didn’t wear out. If you only see that, you are looking at the wrong thing. He brought them out there to give them a word that they were to bring forth worship and praise to the Lord, that they should be a kingdom of priests unto Him. This was where they failed. They didn’t come forth to be a kingdom of priests in their thinking; they came forth to be a host of grumblers, and they perished in their circumstances.
The Lord loose us from our bondage to circumstances, loose us from the oppression of being bogged down with our own problems and our own needs until we fail to break through to the worship God wants. Stomp on it! Put it under! Take dominion over it! Enter in to worship the Lord with all of your heart, with everything that is within you. Until we break through and worship, we will simply be going through the motions in many areas.
“In the midst of the church I will sing praise to Thee.” We ought to come and find that we are suddenly turned loose by the Spirit of the Lord. As psalms come forth by the anointing of Holy Spirit, it is Jesus speaking through us, glorifying the Father, bringing such an anointing until every word magnifies the Lord. We are missing it if we bog down in the details of this pilgrimage and we take our eyes off the cloud that leads us.
O Lord, loose us into a dedication to worship, into a striving to break through, into a yearning of heart, into a loving of God with all our heart and soul, until everything else takes a secondary role and nothing matters except the magnifying of the Lord.
Remember that first of all, you are worshipers; then you are workers. The emphasis is wrong if you become first of all workers for the Lord. When this gets out of balance you bog down in the work, even though it is of the Lord. You are intercessors, but first of all, you are worshipers. Secondly, you are intercessors. Whatever you are, you are a worshiper first of all, and you open your heart to worship Him, to magnify Him, and to do His will.
We believe to be loosed from the barriers and hindrances. These things are like corroded points in a car that hinder the spark from coming through, resulting in the whole mechanism becoming sluggish. When we sharpen up our worship, everything begins to function. Loose yourself into the pure flow of worship, into that fresh, alive oneness with God, exalting Him, thrilled with Him, awestruck by Him, submissive to Him, glorifying Him, loving Him with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength!
You must have faith to worship, as much as anything else, for most of what reaches the Lord is simply faith. You cannot just sing along, thinking that this is an activity God will honor. Worship is a contact with God that is made by faith. You believe that He hears all you do, and you focus on His presence and you love Him. The will is involved in worship. It is not just something you are doing with your mouth as you focus your spirit and your mind on it. It is the greatest work, the most concentrated effort a human being is capable of doing; yet it is not a labor any more than preaching is a labor. True preaching brought forth in the Spirit involves faith, as the whole man is focused on delivering a word from the Lord. In the same way our whole being is focused upon magnifying the Lord, exalting Him, and worshiping Him. I have to exercise faith for every word, for every new, living message. How does it happen? It is not by works, but it is a labor of faith that is continually focused upon the Lord and it flows forth!
Your worship comes forth in the same way—by a focus of faith upon Him. Your will is the trigger of your faith. You have to determine to be a believer. You are not a believer because it is reasonable to be a believer. In the Word, God illustrates that principle many times, by making faith seem unreasonable. The demands He makes seem unreasonable to human reason. In this way He eliminates the reason department completely. This bothers many people. I don’t know why it should. They claim to be following reason, but their lives are very unreasonable. The whole world is unreasonable, and by its wisdom it isn’t finding God, but it is being delivered over to its folly.
It is not what you reason, it is what you have faith to believe God for, that counts. You determine, “I am a believer! I am a believer! I am in this walk because God revealed it to me, not because it was reasonable. It is a revelation to my heart and I believe it.”
You are a worshiper because you set your will to be a worshiper. You determine that you will be a worshiper. Like Job, you say, “Though He slay me, yet will I serve Him and worship Him.” This is your declaration, “I am a worshiper of the Lord. I will worship God. I will stand in His presence continually, in the holy place, there to make my offering of incense, a praise to His name, an acceptable sacrifice. I am one of His priests and this will I do.”
A guideline of the Spirit has been set before us in these simple instructions for renewed, deepened worship. Break through! We can bog down in the mechanics and the teachings, in the labors and revelations, in all the enterprises and projects, in ministry to the new people who are coming in, until we are swamped and we miss what it is all about—the fact that He is Lord! We are magnifying Him as Lord, serving Him as Lord, worshiping Him as Lord. We must have the emphasis where God wants it, and by faith we accept this emphasis He has set before us.
I don’t want to be an apostle of labors; I want to be an apostle of worship. I don’t want you to be prophets of labors; I want you to be prophets who know the Lord, who walk with Him, and worship Him. This is the first priority, the basis of a walk with God. Without worship there is no walk, and there is no worship until you believe to be a worshiper, and you set your heart to be a worshiper.
We want correct spiritual development. This Walk is precious and we grow in it, but you have not grown correctly if you have not grown in your awareness of the Lord and if you are not practicing His presence with a greater reality. You may have grown in the mechanics of ministry, your psalms may be better, your ministry more effective, your revelation deeper, but you have not grown correctly, unless you have also grown in your perception, in your focus upon the Lord, and your continual awareness of Him. This is the real key, because this is a walk with God, and out of that walk with God, all of these other things will come.