IT'S ABOUT WORSHIP

I confess, I was one of those people, maybe a decade ago now, who willingly participated in the “worship wars”, those skirmishes that arose within the church when a trend began to move toward more contemporary worship music.  I loved the old hymns for so many reasons: 

·       great doctrine expressed in the words of so many (think, “A Mighty Fortress”, or “And Can It Be”) 

·       familiar words and tunes

·       the ease of singing in four part harmony

I fought against the change to catchy, sometimes less singable, less meaningful choruses (referred to by some as 7/11 songs – 7 words sung 11 times); modern instruments; jazzier, upbeat tunes; the absence of a choir accompanied by an organ; and just a few singers up on the platform.  I don’t know when my mind was changed, but I know that it has been changed, so that I can truthfully say that I LOVE contemporary worship music!

I love the old hymns of the faith, we still sing them at our church today.  Only now they might have a less familiar tune, or a more upbeat old one.  You know, some of them actually sound better! In addition to the old but new, hymns we love, the worship leader at our current church manages to find contemporary songs that express the doctrines of our faith so beautifully and worshipfully that I actually find myself NOT singing them, but allowing them to lift my mind and heart to worship the LORD Himself, and I love that they do that!  That’s what all worship music should do!

Last night Jim and I attended a Christmas concert at our clubhouse, performed by our community chorus.  They sang a variety of holiday songs and it was wonderful to see which of our neighbors and friends participated.  Before the concert began, I spoke to one of our neighbors who said that the chorus is what attracted her to this community.  She loved to sing, and sing she did!  Watching her face as she sang said all she was feeling about the joy of being in the chorus.  Her enjoyment and pleasure just lit up her face.

Coming away from that concert I began to think again about contemporary worship music and the one thing I miss since we went from choir led worship to worship team led worship.  I miss a CHORUS of singers.  

Not everyone has the ability to sing on a worship team.  For that, they need a different kind of vocalist, one with a stronger voice, the ability to sing solos, a level of comfort singing into a microphone.  

Choirs, on the other hand, enable less gifted singers, who are good at supporting a group, but not solo material, to sing together.  Choirs comprise a variety of vocal ranges, so many more people can participate in singing, and not just a few (I really miss singing alto parts!).  Choirs are a worship outlet for those who want to sing, and sing together in harmony with others, but would be scared to death, or just not suited, to singing with a very small worship team.  Choirs allow for more believers who are gifted with the ability to sing to participate in leading worship.

So, now that we’ve done without them for so long, maybe it’s time to bring them back, not every week, but once in a while.  Not accompanied by an organ, but accompanied by contemporary instruments, so that those who love that means of worship can participate in it now and then, and those of us who love listening to choral music can worship the Lord together with them.

The object is that we use our many gifts to worship the Lord together. 

ANSWERS TO THE ANGEL QUIZ IN BLOG #1

ANSWERS TO THE ANGELS QUIZ – SO HOW DID YOU DO?

If you have been following this series of angel blogs, it was a LONG time ago that you took the quiz testing your knowledge of what the Bible has to say about angels.  Here are the answers.  How did you do?

FALSE                    All angels are good.

TRUE                     Angels are sent to minister primarily to believers in Christ.

FALSE                    People who die become angels who watch over their loved ones on earth.

FALSE                    Jesus is an angel.

TRUE                      Angels are unique, created beings.

TRUE                     Satan is a fallen angel.

TRUE                     Angels do not accept the worship of humans.

FALSE                    Angels hear and answer our prayers.

SOME DO              Not all angels have wings.

COULD BE             Every believer has a guardian angel.

FALSE                     Every time you hear a bell ring an angel gets his wings.  

TRUE                     Jesus, not angels, is the only mediator between us and God.

TRUE                     Angels will never understand the joy of salvation first hand.

WISHING YOU AND YOUR FAMILY A TRULY BLESSED CHRISTMAS AS YOU WORSHIP THE ONLY ONE WORTHY OF THE HONOR – THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!

LAST WORDS ON THE SUBJECT OF ANGELS 10

This has been a LONG series of blogs!  I hope you’ve been enjoying them and learning some things you didn’t know before. You can find out more about angels as they appear in the pages of the Bible in the books on the subject written by Billy Graham and David Jeremiah.

 I don’t want to close out the series however, before giving some principles to remember when studying the subject of angels.  

#1  BE CAREFUL NOT TO SHAPE ANGELS INTO BEINGS OF OUR OWN MAKING

·    The Bible is our authority on ALL things having to do with God – and that includes angels.  Hopefully, as you’ve read through these blogs, you learned that some of the things we and others have believed about angels are not consistent with what God says in His Word!  

·    Like this line from the classic Christmas movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life”: “every time you hear a bell an angel gets his wings”!  If the classes of archangel and angel do have wings, they were created that way.  They didn’t have to earn their wings!  Sorry Clarence!  

·    If we get our ideas about angels from anywhere else – books we buy, or movies we see, or family traditions that aren’t based on the Bible, then we’re moving from the arena of TRUTH, into error.  

#2  ANGELS MUST NEVER REPLACE GOD IN OUR LIVES

·    The study of angels is fascinating – but my prayer is that it will simply give us a greater hunger to know GOD – the One who created these wonderful creatures and the One whom ALL the angels themselves worship.  

·   The magazine, Christianity Today, warns:  

“Angels too easily provide a temptation for those who want a ‘fix’ of spirituality without bothering with God Himself.”  

·   The theologian AW TOZER said:

“Forever God stands apart, in light unapproachable.  He is as high above an archangel as above a caterpillar, for the gulf that separates the archangel from the caterpillar is but finite, while the gulf between God and the archangel is infinite.  Both belong to the category of, “that which is not God, and are separated from God by infinitude itself.”  

·    Preferring angels to God Himself is an insult to God who is ABOVE all of His creation.

#3  ANGELS MUST NEVER RECEIVE OUR WORSHIP

·    In Romans 1: 25 Paul says, that when man “worships and serves created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised – he has exchanged the truth of God for a lie.”   

·    As we look at Scripture passages in these blogs, we discover that angels NEVER allowed man to worship them.  Both angels AND man have been created by God for the purpose of worshiping and serving HIM.  

So, who has the greater place of honor in your thinking:  angels or God Himself?

THE LORD WHO HEALETH THEE

It has been nearly a decade now that I served the Lord as a leader with our church’s senior high group on a missions trip to the Bahamas.  We served at All Saints Camp, a place that many people with various disabilities and sicknesses called home.   

We went to build some homes and demolish others, to lay a long cement sidewalk, and to minister to the residents.  Being there in the summer when the weather was very hot and humid made the work more of a challenge.  But our kids did an awesome job of working hard, without complaining.  

There was one day when, out of deference for my age I think, I was assigned the task of scraping paint blobs from a newly finished porch. alongside a girl who had been injured while doing demo on a house.  I didn’t last long.  I rated the job right up there with watching grass grow – boring and tedious – and after not even an hour, I moved on to some other task.  (The teen never complained ONCE!)

As I think about that day now, I’m reminded of a contrast that put me to shame. While we slogged away at that boring job, we were serenaded by a resident who lived just across the sidewalk from where we worked.  

 Some of our students were gathered around Anthony on his tiny shaded porch, singing along with him the hymns of our faith.  Of all the songs he sang, one was completely unfamiliar to me.  It was a chorus I have since discovered was written by Don Moen called, I Am The Lord That Healeth Thee:

I am the God that
Healeth thee
I am the Lord
Your healer
I sent My word
And I healed your disease
I am the Lord
Your healer

It is a wonderful, simple chorus, exalting one of the attributes of God – God, Our Healer – sung with passion by a man living in very humble circumstances.  What made that moment so memorable for me, and provided such a contrast, is that Anthony was blind.  Here I was, inwardly complaining about the tedium of the task I had to do, while Anthony was worshiping His Creator and Healer, and doing it with reverence and passion.  

This past week I have watched the Lord reveal this particular attribute of His – I am the God that healeth.

Way more than a decade ago now our family was in shambles.  Each of us was suffering in his and her own ways by events that went on for years. For me, especially, I remember those years as terrorizing.  I spent many nights awake and afraid, and many days as well.  I prayed as I had never prayed before, and while I am now able to say that the Lord was at work – I didn’t see it then – and He certainly wasn’t working the way I wanted Him to.  All these years later, just writing about it can still make me feel anxious.

After some years, things eventually eased up and a measure of distance from one another helped lower anxiety levels.  But relationships had not healed.  There were years when we couldn’t even talk about it with one another.  Relationships were strained and I, for one, had little hope they would ever be any different and I grieved over it. 

How small was my faith, for I seriously underestimated what my Sovereign, Omnipotent God, who is in the business of doing the impossible, would eventually do.  

Slowly, slowly, within the last few years I have begun to enjoy a sweetness of relationship with the one who was the cause of my fear and anxiety.  There is a new level of understanding, appreciation and love between us that I never thought we would ever see.  I thank the Lord for it every day.  He has proved Himself to be “the God that healeth”.  

What prompted this blog however, was what He has done in the last month or so.  I wish I could reveal all the details, but doing so might hurt someone, so I will keep them to myself.  What I can say is that He took two people who were mostly estranged and gave them a time together to remember forever.  He took a relationship previously shaped by anger and distance, and healed it completely. He didn’t just mend it, He transformed it to one of real love and appreciation for the very personality and behavioral differences that were the cause of division before.  

I’m blown away by God’s faithfulness to hear our prayers and answer them, in His time and in His way, and without any “helpful” interference from me!  

 Why do I doubt that He is able to do things like this?  I doubt Him because I focus on the seemingly, impossible to change, people involved and not on the God of whom it was said, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”   I doubt Him because I have expectations that He will work in THIS way, and no other, and I miss what He IS doing though it could be staring me in the face.

I don’t think Anthony doubted the Lord as Healer, even though he was never healed of his blindness.  But then, who knows that maybe he had been healed in many other ways in his life so that prompted his reverent worship of the Lord, Who is Healer?

Does the Lord ALWAYS heal us physically or emotionally or relationally?  No, sometimes, for reasons we may never understand this side of heaven, it is for our best and His glory not to answer that prayer with a yes.  When the Lord does heal, it is a gift of His generous grace.

I am grateful for the healing He has brought to our family.  He is worthy of worship for He IS the One Who Healeth.