Free to Worship (part 3)

Your love motivates your actions towards God. Do you love Him today?

You need to give Him your very best praise in less than 5 seconds from me writing this post you, and you reading it.

Hallelujah!

Praise Him!

He would like for you to give your best act of worship, right now, in your own way.

Sing, Dance, Shout, Lift Holy Hands, etc.

Let my share this quote with you from John Piper. He said, “Where feelings for God are dead worship is dead.”

Does that change your perspective? I hope so. You are alive and feeling good today just to praise and worship God. Are you grateful?

We are continuing from where we left of at our last blog post called “Free to Worship by Dereck Prince part 2.” Enjoy part three of this article.

“From time to time I have been present in a meeting when something that was said or done provoked a burst of clapping and sometimes also of shouting.

Probably some who responded in this way did not realize that it was a scriptural act of worship. Shouting—let me add—does not mean loud singing. It means shouting—exercising the full capacity of our lungs.

When Solomon was dedicating the temple that he had built to the Lord, he spread out his hands. But he also went further: he knelt down on his knees (2 Chronicles 6:12–13). This form of worship typifies total submission to the Lord.

In Ephesians 3:15 Paul reveals that he too approached God in this position: “I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Ultimately the whole universe will make this act of submission to the Creator. In Isaiah 45:23 the Lord declares: “I have sworn by myself . . . that to Me every knee shall bow. . . .” In Philippians 2:10 Paul reveals that this act of submission will be made specifically to Jesus, as God’s appointed ruler: “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. . . .”
There is a further act of worship which includes the whole body and which is depicted in the Bible more often than any other: to prostrate one’s self before God. When we prostrate ourselves in this way, we acknowledge our total dependence on God. We thus revoke the desire to be independent of God which prompted the original disobedience of Adam and Eve and which characterizes the fallen nature of every one of their descendants.

At some time or other most of the great men in the Bible had found themselves flat on their faces before God. Twice in Genesis 17 it records that Abraham fell on his face before the Lord (verses 3, 17). When the Lord appeared to Joshua outside Jericho as the commander of God’s army, [Joshua] fell on his face to the earth. He was further commanded to take off his sandals from his feet (Joshua 5:13–15). Both actions—falling on his face and taking off his sandals—expressed worship. It was in this posture of worship that Joshua received the Lord’s direction for taking Jericho.

By contemporary standards, however, the most unconventional act of worship is described in 2 Samuel 6:12–14. When David had successfully brought the ark up to Jerusalem, he danced before the Lord with all his might. Since David was a mighty man of valor, the phrase “all his might” must indicate extremely energetic actions that included every part of his body. This was the most appropriate expression of his exuberant joy and gratitude to God.

The chapter closes with a word of warning to any who might react in a negative way to such a vigorous expression of worship. David’s wife Michal criticized him for such a display, and as a result was deprived of the privilege of bearing children. A carnal attitude of criticism can result in spiritual barrenness. I said earlier that singing is not in itself an act of worship, but this statement needs to be qualified. In some cases singing can flow imperceptibly into worship. On the other side, clapping hands or dancing may often be expressive of praise as much as of worship. Human language is not sensitive enough to mark the exact borderline between various forms of worship and praise.

Why the Body?

We may ask: Why does the body play such an important part in our worship? After all,Jesus said that we should worship in spirit and truth (John 4:24). The answer lies in understanding the relationship between the three elements that make up human personality: spirit,soul, and body. (See 1 Thessalonians 5:23.)
The spirit is the part of our personality that can make direct contact with God. (See 1 Corinthians 6:17.) But to express itself the spirit needs the cooperation of the soul—the part through which the will operates and which therefore makes decisions for the whole person. The soul, in turn, sets the body in motion. This is illustrated by the words of David in Psalm 103:1: “Bless the Lord, O my soul. . . .”

David’s spirit was stirred to bless the Lord and urged his soul to make the appropriate decision. His soul, in turn, had to set his body in motion—primarily his vocal organs—to express the blessing which his spirit was longing to offer. Seen in this light, worship is an activity in which the spirit works through the soul to produce the appropriate actions of the body. If the soul and the body do not respond to the spirit’s urging, then the body is in effect a prison in which the spirit remains inhibited and unable to express itself. There are multitudes in the contemporary church who are in this condition—spirits imprisoned in bodies through which they cannot freely express themselves.

Their physical activity in church is limited to a few routine movements. They walk in, sit down, stand up, sit down, stand up and walk out again. As a result, they scarcely participate at all in the highest activity of which their spirits are capable—the uninhibited worship of the Creator.”

I’m sorry, but I have to go, please come back tomorrow for the conclusion of this wonderful article by Dereck Prince. He will continue to share the reason why the body plays a role in worship, so you do not want to miss it, OK!

Watch this great song of praise called “Free:”