Is Worship a War? Pt. 2

When I was younger, I remember a song called "Fight Thru Praise".  It actually helped me get past all my distractions in worship.  At that time, it was a challenge to get through all my defenses and really express my heart to God. Perhaps it was good for me at the time, but I want to talk about the dangers of getting into this mindset that worship is a fight.

1.) Fighting through "distractions".  For one, when I would go into prayer or worship, the first thing on my mind were all the small concerns of the day; what am I going to make for lunch, when will I get my chores done, how will I get all my tasks done... Or more serious ones like, "is my friend's mom going to make it through this cancer?" Or, "how will her family deal with this?" Etc.  maybe I was dealing with emotional problems; depression, anger, frustration, feelings of loneliness... Maybe even guilt or sin issues.  I used to think that all these were things the devil was bringing up to distract me from God.  And so my goal was to fight through them and get to a place in my mind in which I was only focused on Jesus.  Even recently when I led worship at a small church singing mostly hymns, I used to tell the congregation to put all their worries and concerns of the day aside and to put their focus on God.  This in itself is not necessarily wrong.

Interestingly enough, John Crowder says that these things that come up aren't from the devil, they are from God.  He talks about this either in his video about music (http://youtu.be/WDVuMjOzqiU) or his video about prayer (http://youtu.be/yVBGQk_9ZzI). I can't remember which, but both videos are excellent.

From God?  God is purposely distracting me from worshiping him?!  What?  John Crowder says that He's bringing these things up to remind you that he's going to take care of them.  God cares about what you care about, down to the smallest detail.  So in those moments, rather than fight through them, just put them in God's capable hands.  It's a time to place our trust in Him.  Then we can move on to a much more clear-headed state of worship! 

In a sense, you would be putting them aside, but not to deal with later; to let God deal with them.  He's going to do that anyway; there's no need to stress about them.

So in fighting through them I was only creating more trouble for myself.  If you find yourself distracted from worship by your daily concerns, give those things to God.  It's so much better than trying to deal with them on your own.

2.) Fighting through sin / Striving.  In all my years being a leader in ministry, I've never seen one person gain victory over their weaknesses by focusing on overcoming sin.  Not one!  If they overcome one thing, they only realize it's gotten worse; it's hidden itself and reared its ugly head in other, more complicated ways (look at the Jews.  They would stop worshiping idols for a while, but then later on, there they go again, and five times worse!).  I've tried to help people overcome sin.  I've told them all the advice, shown them the consequences, pointed out things they can't see.  Nothing helped. You can't overcome your sin, and I can't help you.

Only Christ can overcome sin, and only when trust-falling into Him will He melt your sin away.  When I say melt, I don't mean he will forgive it.  That's a given.  He already forgave you by dying on the cross in the first place.  I'm talking about taking it away from you so that you never do it again, and you never struggle with it again.  Christ melts it away with such ease, there's no fight.  Trusting God is the most passive "action" you can take to combat sin.  It's practically inaction.  It is simply a realization; a knowing; a quiet confidence that Christ has already overcome sin for you.  With him, your sinful nature died.  It's gone.  Everything is set up to trick you into believing that it will always be there...

In part one of this blog, I mentioned that when we're always focused on our part in worship, we get into a striving mentality.  I think people feel that their worship makes them more pleasing to God; more acceptable in His sight.  What they don't know is that they are pleasing to God already.  People think that what we are doing makes us more holy.  They don't realize that Christ is our holiness.  If there was some way I could make myself holy or righteous by sheer will and determination, Jesus would never have had to die on a cross for me.  Striving implies that we are trying to make ourselves holy for God.  But that is impossible.  It's the other way around; Christ makes us holy by His spirit dwelling in us.   Striving is a battle that lasts as long as you believe you can achieve holiness over time.

A sin-focused believer acts like a sinner.  A Christ-focused believer acts like Christ.

When worship music is focused on God and who He is, real worship happens.  That's the stuff I want to be a part of.

I tend to get frustrated because when real worship starts taking off, someone always brings the focus back to us by saying something cliche like, "just tell God how much you love Him," or, "Let everything we do be pleasing unto you.", or "God we invite you into this place," (as though he hasn't been here all this time) or, "just press in," (what does that mean, anyway?).  People even like to remind us of our shame, "God, we are so unworthy of you, we are such sinners, and yet you love us.  Even at our worst, you love us..."  There they go bringing the focus back to what we can do, or how terrible we are...  Can't we just focus on God for a while?

There's nothing wrong with telling God you love him, or getting into worship in an active way.  There's nothing wrong with acknowledging that he loves us despite our worst moments.  My issue is focus.  Am I looking at myself, or am I looking at God?  Am I worshiping my own desires, or am I worshiping the object of my desires?  Am I trying to impress God with my good behavior, or am I impressed by God?  Realize that everything you have gained physically and spiritually was bought, paid for, and given to you by Christ.  Even your faith has been given to you (Rom 12:3).  Even your good deeds are Christ working through you.  You can't take an ounce of credit.  All your efforts to be holy have been in vain.  You're already holy through Christ (I can't say that enough!).

Here's another danger of the "fight the war of worship" mentality:

3.). Giving Satan too much credit.  He might be active during worship, sure!  If you think he is, rebuke him and then focus on God.  You don't have to engage in some sort of fight against him.  You have control of your own mind.  Don't get into thinking that Satan has one ounce of sway over you.  He has no right to you no matter how sinful you were last week (or your whole life). And you have authority over him because of Christ, not because you read your Bible every day and were faithful in your devotions.  Not because you have several years of ministry under your belt.  Not because you've racked up a bunch of spiritual points by doing good deeds.  Not because you're a pastor or a missionary.  Our actions have nothing to do with our authority.  It is our right as heirs to Christ's throne.  It is our identity. [see my post about how action does not define identity]  If you are a believer, you automatically have authority over the enemy through Christ.  Who are we as believers to think that our actions have earned us (or lost us) one ounce of spiritual authority?  People who get into that mindset are fooled by the enemy. 

Satan likes to make us think he has legal jurisdiction over us because of that one sin or the fact that we haven't picked up the Bible in two weeks.  He wants us to forget our identity as heirs to the throne of Christ.  Being an heir means that we have the same authority that Jesus has.  The only way Satan can get a "foothold" as they say, is by getting you to believe a LIE about who God is and who you are in Christ!  Sin has nothing to do with it.  Sin gives him NO jurisdiction or foothold whatsoever.  Satan only has as much power over you as you believe he does.  So if he can get you to believe he has power over you, then he can do damage.  The battle against Satan has already been won, my friend.  If you're fighting with him, you've been duped.

Here's another one:

4.) Getting into the mindset that our will is always in opposition to God.  This goes hand in hand with striving, but this is more about how we view God.  This can get us thinking that in order to worship Him, we have to fight.  This is simply not true.  It may be the case if we are ignorant of the truth; ignorant of who we are and who God is.  The more you get to know God, the more you want what He wants; the more you think the way He thinks.  Your desires transform into His.  Then you actually enjoy doing His will because its something you want to do.  If I'm told that my will is always going to be in opposition to God, that will hinder me from truly experiencing Him, or it will take an hour of fighting through my own will before I can get to His... 

This mindset did hinder my relationship with Him!  I thought that my whole life was going to be one loathsome event after another, one fight against my will after another.  I couldn't trust God!  Why would I trust someone who is always going to make me do things I don't want to do?  For someone who was emotionally controlled as a young girl, and then mistreated by spiritual leaders as a young adult, I started to think that maybe God was just like those abusive people in my life; always making me uncomfortable and feel terrible about myself.  But that's just not who He is. 

And then, what about when my will DOES align with His?  I'll think that desire is sinful!  Our own selves are not always going to be our worst enemies.  Your will is not in constant opposition to God.  People call it the "flesh".  They say you'll struggle against it for the rest of your life.  Let me tell you something you might not have heard: your flesh died with Christ on the cross.  We have been crucified with Christ and we [our sinful nature; flesh] no longer live, but Christ lives in us!  Your sinful nature is dead, my friend.  Why fight with something that is merely a memory of what used to be?  It's not you anymore.  And it never really was your identity to begin with.



All these are problems that stem from a wrong view of who God is, and who we are in Christ.  And these wrong views affect us in every way.  Most importantly, they affect our relationship with God, which, in turn, affects how we worship Him.  An like I said in part 1, the truth will set us free.