The Passionate Worshipper

Worship has become an industry. Bands and artists are pumping out song after song, generating chart topping hits with songs that are “supposed” to be for glorifying God. Some songs are being recorded by other artists before the songwriter even gets the chance to take it to the studio! Sure there is a necessity for fresh worship music, but is it coming at the expense of passionate worship?

Where is the heart of worship we have sung about so often? Where have we missed the boat? I think the answer lies in Revelation 3, in Jesus’ letter to Laodicea. Take a minute and read Revelation 3:14-22.

When you read that, does it not sound a heck of a lot like today’s churches?!? All over the continent people are singing songs of “praise and adoration” to our God of love who is so great and kind and loving…but are we worshiping? Jesus says that he bases his judgement on a church based on their deeds (Rev 3:15). It is based on the Laodicean church’s actions that Jesus makes his comment “I am about to spit you out” (vs. 16). Better translated as “I am about to vomit you out” or, “you make me sick,” Jesus obviously has no tolerance for a church without passion. This church was going to church regularly, but they were not living. They were not dependent on God (vs. 17).

When was the last time our churches were hungry for God? So hungry that nothing we could do could satisfy our hunger, but only God could fill the void? Have we, in the last several centuries, experienced a lack of worship songs? Have we ever had a service where in our minds we were thinking “oh man, I hope someone writes a new song REAL soon…we’re running out!” I think we are depending less and less on God to produce God-honouring songs as it becomes easier and easier to create and produce the songs.

What will be the solution to our lethargic lives? 2 Chronicles 7:14 gives us a hint. “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” As the church, we need to be humbling ourselves, no longer accepting worship that comes from our own hands, but that which God has breathed divinely into us. We are told in Exodus not to come to God empty handed, but it is also important that we realize God is not only the recipient, but the provider of our offering.

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