Worship Part 2

A journal entry.  One of the midnight watches on the first week of June. A continuation of my study on Worship.

I can find no verse in Scripture wherein people worshipped God sitting down. Absolutely none. What I have read are people falling down to the earth on their faces before God. Yes, even devils did the same. It irritates me that not only have the very children of God lost reverence for the presence of God, they defend the omission, stating that it is outmoded, legalistic, and irrelevant in our day. It can be safely said that people who do so and say so, know only about God, but they have yet to be in the presence of God.

To be in the presence of God and discard utmost reverence I cannot understand. We sing about salvation, about blessings, and yes we say long prayers for food and the commencement of any service, but we do not believe we come into the presence of this thrice Holy God when we pray. Just as breathing is the natural reaction of our lungs to air, so worship is the natural reaction of the soul that comes before God.

"Prayer is preoccupation with our needs. 

Praise is preoccupation with our blessings. 

Worship is preoccupation with God himself."

I hold firmly in my belief that God saves a man for one thing and one thing alone, and that is worship. You lay prostrate before God and desire nothing but Him and Him alone. Not joy or blessing, but God. Everything has been said about prayer, but quite few about worship. Prayer may end, but worship continues on into eternity. It is what we are naturally inclined to do in the presence of God in heaven. Worship is greater than prayer.

In Exodus 30, God has given a concoction for a one of a kind anointing oil for the priesthood, and He has expressly forbidden its duplication. it was not to touch the corrupted flesh, but it is to run down from the head of the priest, down to his beard, and down unto the edges of his garments below.

And thou shalt anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them,

that they may minister unto me.. (Exo 30:30)

Since we have no conscious recognition of this most high duty, we emphasize everything else, thinking we are doing God a favor by being Christians. In effect, we substitute that which was not prescribed to be used. A desecration of the prescription, so that we may still have something to offer, at the risk of displeasing God. That is why our pulpits have no power, only programs. Our members have no burden, only needs. Our social media posts have no Christ, only mood swings and utter personal nonsense that the world neither has the time nor the concern to mind. The world does not need pictures of our breakfasts and heartaches, it needs Christ. We betray the true occupation of our minds, that is, the affairs of this life, and not the life that was promised us in Christ. We share the same problems with the world, yes. But we also share the same hopelessness that they wallow in. Indeed. I shrink with awful disdain whenever I read how a child of God could even post cryptic messages that neither have use for the kingdom, give glory for Christ's name, or a pleading for the lost to run to Christ. We are boasting of something we do not have: the presence of God. People do not leave the altar broken over sin or energized to strive for more holiness. Holiness is that character that overflows from true worship. Our just and reasonable service. Our sacrifice. (Romans 12:1). That is the reason why we live and think the way we do. We are content to have no fires in our altars, no weeping between the altar and the door post. And because we do not know God, we do not know how to worship. And because we do not know how to worship, we do not pray. And because we do not pray, we have no power. And because we have no power, the world laughs us to scorn. "Where is this God..?" (2 Peter 3:4)

God will do according to His will, and I am in total despair to ask to even be allowed to stand before the Son of man when He arrives to find no such faith in the earth. With the world becoming increasingly intolerant towards God and His word, we can do nothing to stop this evil. It will only cease when the Lord himself returns to rule. The only prescription left for us is to be faithful unto death. But even this, for us, is impossible: to be wholly given unto death. We must draw near to God in unceasing and believing prayer. If we do not, and rely solely on the arm of our flesh, we are doomed to fail. It is like the cross happening without Gethsamane. The overcoming of the cross was because of Christ's triumph in the garden, in extreme prayer. True to the saying, if we are weak in prayer, we are weak in everything. Seek the Lord while he may be found, in my judgment, is a call not only for unbelievers, but to believers as well. Know for sure that God IS shaking the tree, purging it, and all who profess religion yet does not abide in Christ will fall away.

I thank my God for calling me at a time when the real mark of being a true follower of Christ is, once again, just as it was in the New Testament church, being faithful unto death.