EGO-CENTRIC WORSHIP

EGO-CENTRIC WORSHIP

 

There has been a great deal of emphasis on worship in church circles lately. Jesus stated in (John 4:23-24) "True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.----for God is Spirit, so those that worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth." The English word for worship comes from the word "worthship", and should be directed to the object we want to extol, which should be Almighty God our Creator! Much of what we consider as worship in Charismatic circles today might better be called "performance", or perhaps "entertainment", and is often more about "us", than about "Him" The reason is that we get what we consider "spiritual" confused with what is really "soulish". It is easy to get the two mixed up because they are closely connected together. We are tripartite, or three part beings, as the scriptures describe us.  We are a spirit being, we have a soul, that lives in a body. (see 1 Thess 5:23) where Paul makes this clear distinction of these three parts. Our bodies are visible and easy to separate from the other two which are invisible. It's not so easy to separate between soul and spirit, and according to (Heb 4:12) they are so closely connected that only the Word of God can divide between the two. "For the Word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires." True worship of our Creator God has nothing to do with entertainment. Entertainment says "Excite me, Thrill me, Satisfy me", it's all about "me", and meant to benefit the soul, and excludes the spirit completely!

 

The soul consists of our will, our intellect, and our emotions. In other words these represent the three verbal statements "I want", "I think", and "I feel", which control the life and actions of the natural person. But when we are "born again", the Holy Spirit quickens, or makes our human spirit come alive from it's condition of death, or separation from God (See Eph 2:1-10). Then the Holy Spirit can empower our human spirit to control our actions in a manner that pleases the Father. Someone has said "The soul is capable of praise and thanksgiving, but only the spirit can offer worship to God that is acceptable to Him". So we can see how what we call "worship in the spirit", can really be only "soulish", and not "spiritual" at all! We need to have discernment from the Holy Spirit, and a knowledge of the Word of God to be able to decide which is which, when we come together as followers of Jesus, to function as the Body of Christ! This should be a 24/7 activity for us anyhow, and not just part of a so-called "worship time" in a Sunday morning service. Jesus Christ is certainly worthy of our worship, because of what Paul has to say about Him, as recorded in (Col 1:18-20) Hallelujah!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer