[Please read PART A before reading this]
But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth
John 4:23,24
Can you pick the triumph in Jesus as he said that – the hour cometh and now is ……..
It is as if every measure of time would either look forward or backwards to that hour. Something new and unknown to the earth was unfolded by Jesus.
God has been seeking for true worship. David and the Old Testament saints gave all that they could give, but they couldn’t give that which they didn’t have. This was because they were spiritually dead. God sent his Son as the answer in order to meet this need. We have received from him that which God seeks. We can now worship God out of his nature within our reborn spirits.
The enemy will work in such a way as to steal from you a revelation of this worship. The circumstances of life fuelled and distorted by the flesh will endeavour to hoard you and your vocabulary into a place of disagreement with love and with the word. It encourages you to think that you are all alone and so you succumb by speaking your thoughts instead of his thoughts. We are persuaded however that above all that surrounds us; we know that the one who has the last say so is installed in majesty.
When you worship out of your new nature your mind and imagination are carried past the barriers of fear.
Only perfect love can cast out this fear. This love is available in worship. How could you ever worship for any other reason asides love?
It is amazing that God is seeking for a particular type of worship when you consider that God had created multiplied billions of Angels before he created man. These already praise him night and day without ceasing. He even has angels whose sole duty it is to worship. These Angels serve God day and night worshipping and praising the most High. Yet the scriptures say that God is looking for a particular type of worship. It is nature to nature worship. God is a spirit; his life is the God-life or Zoë. He has given this life to your reborn spirit through the new birth. The life within your spirit is fully capable of corresponding to the life within God, this is spiritual worship. The Angels don’t have this life, they have angel life, just like animals have animal life and vegetables have vegetable life.
The life within you is God's own type and quality of life and the highest praise flows out of this life. We praise and worship him now no longer requiring any reason other than the fact that our nature loves to fellowship his nature. We are not trying to earn his favour, nor are we trying to score points with him. We do this not for profit, but just because we love him. He loves us first and our works second. When I know that God hotly pursues me in love, it frees me to love him without seeking to manipulate him with my actions for I know I am already loved. So I love back.
Why do we worship? Not because we want something from him or want some circumstance changed. We worship just because we choose to. When I “worship” because I want something, it means that my mind is really focused on the thing that I want and not on him. This locks the mouth in a place where the heart is not and robs God of having the mouth and heart in union. You must learn to discipline your senses in the gym of God and approach him as father of the family. There are some that need to be taken through lengthy psyches in order to locate a reason for praise. This really reflects the fact that they have not saturated their minds with him. Really you don’t need a reason to praise or worship. You have the true reason within - his love and his life. We have him.
The bible talks about two mountains. [See Hebrews 12:18 - 24]
The people in the Old Testament came to that first mountain and it was a fearful experience. The people couldn’t draw near to this mountain because of fear in their hearts, this robbed God of the fellowship he deeply desired. Even Moses the lawgiver trembled. By extension Moses cannot take you up this mountain past the barrier of fear for he himself had the same limitations.
Then we come to another mountain, the New Jerusalem on high. On this mountain there is no fear. We draw near with excitement and love because Jesus leads us into the very holiest of God. He leads us into the most holy by a new and living way.
On the first mountain there was only one son, this son is called the only begotten, for none other could lay claim to sonship. On the second mountain, the one that is available for us today, there are many sons in glory. He is no longer the only begotten, but the first born among many brethren.
You must choose to walk away from the first mountain where fear rules and whose worship is conducted in fearful trembling, and walk in the reality of this other mountain where the one on the throne is for us.
There is a tendency in some quarters to measure wealth in terms of money, gold or silver. The Apostle Peter says that these things are perishable [1 Pet 1:18, 2 Pet 3: 10 – 12]. One of these days there will be a big melt down according to the word of the Lord, the whole system will dissolve in fervent heat as God brings forth a new heaven and a new earth. God has given us clear revelation that the true riches of the earth are not perishable, this is because they are eternal - they are the humans on this earth. You have to learn to appreciate the estimation that God has placed upon man. You will survive this melt-down and pass on into the fuller plan of God. He wants you to present to him the most expensive thing on this earth – YOU! This is worship. He doesn’t want from you that which perishes, he wants the imperishable. He wants you.
You will survive the meltdown. You will outlast the sun. You will throw your hands up in worship.
You see, man is a spirit being who functions and expresses himself through a soul. Your spirit craves fellowship with the father like a flower seeks the sun. The Father also longs for you like the farmer longs for the rain. Your soul will pick impulses from the happenings in the natural world, hence when you are in worship your spirit gets into communion and your soul crawls down to oxford street lost in thought. The reason is because you haven’t gone to the gym of the soul where you focus its adoration on the truths of the word. This would have aided you in true worship, but notwithstanding there is enough within your new nature to pause, stroll down that road and drag your soul back to the place where its focus is the father and nothing else.
Your mouth is expressing in melody the adoration that your spirit “feels” towards the father. Mix it with the confession of the word to deliberately keep your soul in line. This will aid your mind and help recover your imagination in calling up images of father’s love. It will also raise your mind’s awareness of the presence of the Lord in his word.
How do you do this? The secret is in the fact that words will reframe and reassign thoughts. You take a thought and own it by saying words [Mt 6:31]. In other words your words will always arrest the progression that your soul is making. This is the true reason for what is called confession.
If you want your imagination to bring up images consistent with the nature of God you will need to declare rather boldly and consistently the things that your spirit knows to be true about God. You say this loud enough to drown the noise in your soul. Your imagination will start bearing another fruit that aids your spiritual worship. This is worship in truth. You are activating and enforcing the truth as revealed in God’s word. When this is accomplished in your soul and your mind and imagination are recovered you return to that fellowship that your spirit was having with the father and you carry on by faith. Again your soul will take a fancy journey down to the nearest Sainsbury or Tesco store. Do not panic. The fact is that the spirit is willing; it is the flesh that is weak.
The flesh will impose this wandering and roaming upon your mind and imagination especially in worship. God has always known this, but it is all new to you. This is not the devil, but the flesh in action. You lift your voice again above the “noise” in the soul and boldly declare what you know about Jesus and his sustaining power over your whole being. This is confession. This will extend the dominion of God into your soul and extend the territory of worship – this baptises your senses in God’s own wine. You have to learn to fill your mind with the word as it will aid these seasons of confession. This is not so much good statements like “By his stripes I am healed”, it is more like “he is my substitute, he is my high priest, and he is my healer”. You see, the first set of confessions was centred on a thing called healing, while the second is centred on a person called healer. Healing is what your body needs, healer is who he is. In worship I get absorbed into the atmosphere of God. I fill the whole place with the perfume of his name, his standing, and his glory. He will baptise my senses in whatever I call him.
In effect you would be giving to the father God the most precious thing – yourself. That is what he really wants and that is the hardest thing to give it seems, but as you learn the revelation of worship you take the war over your soul to a whole new level. There is a vocabulary in the word that will aid your emotions, intellect and will in pouring out the adoration locked deep within. As you give enough of yourself to him in worship, you are able to receive and retain enough of him in your walk until your very presence becomes the presence of God. He will exchange your presence with his. Currently you are so aware of your fears, so you talk your fears. You cannot help it, they are so real to you. It is a habit. As you learn the revelation of worship out of the reborn spirit and on the basis of the revealed word, you will rescue your soul from fear. That which is within your spirit will transport your emotional life across the barrier of fear and sorrow.
I am not even describing somebody who carries an anointing to lead people in worship or anything of that sort. That is different. You need to realise that when we say a person is “anointed” what really happens is that the Spirit of God takes hold of the spirit of a man, and through the spirit of the man bypasses the man’s soul and reaches out through some part of his body in order to bring the blessing to others. Please read that again. The implication is that this concept of “anointing” while valid it really leaves the man’s soul intact and unaffected! This operates as the Spirit wills. In fact if the degree of anointing is intense, the same process takes place in the person that God is trying to get to. The anointing bypasses the receiver’s mind and changes the condition in the natural. Both parties have their souls intact and unaffected. Both are still drunk in “wine”.
You might need to re-read the stuff you just read above. This describes the enigma of an anointed man whose senses are immersed in wine.
Many Christians go through this even in what’s called “worship service”. This holds true for both the one used of God to lead the worship and those cooperating with him. The senses are often submerged in wine while the mouth is uttering mysteries. You can deliberately declare war on your senses as you worship Yahweh Adonai. You can ,on purpose, mix confession with what you have been doing knowing that words will anchor the soul into the harbour of peace. As you worship out of your new nature on the basis of the revealed word you create opportunities for the Spirit of God to use your spirit to pour out into your soul. You soul gets so saturated that it pours out into your body and through your body out into the earth. This brings your senses into a fresh intoxication with things heavenly and spiritual. Practice this often until it becomes an atmosphere perceptible in your daily walk to you most importantly and to others secondarily.
What!! You feel saturated by what you have read? Hmm Relax, grab a pizza and re-read PART 1 & 2 again and again.
...to be continued
