Worship is an integral part of the Christian life. It allows us to solidify our relationship with God, and reminds us to focus our hearts and minds on his word. In the same way a human body requires food and water, so does our spiritual health depend on worship. Without it, our hearts grow cold and our faith withers into nothing.
Scripture tells us that the devil will do anything to get between us and God. 1 Peter 5:8 even warns us to be, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
Our enemy will wait, and scheme, and hunt for any sign of weakness in our lives. It shouldn’t come as any shock that he’ll try to sabotage our worship. In the days ahead, be sure to put on the armor of God, and keep these 10 lies from stealing your joy!
1. Worship is All about You
You’ll need a worshipful setting, worshipful music, in a building with worshipful architecture. The leaders of the worship service must do things just right, otherwise, if you do not worship, the fault is all theirs.
2. You Should Be “Getting Something” Out of Worship
If you leave the church campus unable to identify what you “got out” of the service, someone has failed you mightily.
3. Worship is Irrelevant; it Doesn’t Matter
Millions of Americans are buying into that lie. All you have to do is see how most people skip church altogether on Sundays.
4. Only Exciting, Emotional Worship Matters
If it’s not loud, fast, and intense, it doesn’t count.
Listen to people put down the more traditional, more restrained, more formal type of worship and you will know that lie is being bought into. We speak of worship services being dull, dead, sleep-inducing, and cold. One wonders if it ever occurs to us that the Father in Heaven alone judges worship.
5. The Quality of Your Offering Does Not Matter
Read the Old Testament book of Malachi to see the folly of this. People were bringing diseased animals to the temple as their offerings. The Heavenly Father was/is no fool; He understands an insult when one is given.
The amount of your offering and the sincerity of your worship matter. But not in the way we might think. The widow (Mark 12) put in two small coins, but our Lord said hers was the largest offering given that day. The point is obvious: What gives the offering its weight is its value to us.
6. The Architecture Must Be Conducive to Worship
My friend Mike Canady tells of an American preacher who traveled to the African country where he (Mike) served as a missionary, and addressed the believers there on how to construct buildings and Sunday School space and such. Mike laughs, “The people there knew how to have church: Under the nearest mango tree.”
7. Everyone Else Worships Better Than You
You’re the only one who gets bored, has trouble concentrating, and whose mind wanders during prayer.
8. Your Feeble Attempts are an Insult to the Lord
Better you stayed away than to offend the Lord with such.
9. We Pay the Preachers to Worship for Us
Our job is to come to church and watch them perform and then critique them. If I give them a passing grade, I have done my job.
10. Worship is A Passive Activity
When our worship leaders do their jobs well, we worship. Worship is something that happens to us, not something we do. Whether I feel anything or not is unimportant; what counts is I can check off worship for one more week.
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