I
confess: I can be disdainful of Christians who quantify every experience based
on how they felt. I felt the Spirit. I felt that God was telling me
to . . . Feelings are unreliable. Knowing
trumps feeling. I nodded in agreement when I heard a sister in Christ being critical of songs which are clearly designed to elicit
emotions from us. I hate it when someone tries to manipulate me. And don’t get
me started on repetitious songs – are you really a songwriter if you can only
come up with one line to sing over and over?
Oops!
Let’s read this verse again. Get your Bible and read the whole verse, not just
the portion I quoted. Go ahead. Read the whole chapter to get the context.
These “living creatures” stand around the throne of God and repeat, day and
night, forever: Holy, holy, holy is the
Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come. How’s that for
repetitious? FOREVER!
How
about emotionally manipulative? In a chapel service when I was in Bible
college, the worship leader had us chant these same words over and over for a
lengthy period of time (although we probably quoted it in the King James
Version!). It was one of the most moving worship services I have ever
experienced. I definitely felt
something that day and I’m pretty sure that was the intended goal.
So,
what should we take away from this discussion?
- Let’s not be so quick to be
critical of how others worship.
- We don’t know all there is to know about
what heaven will feel like.
- Give some thought to how you will worship God as you stand around his throne – forever - and start practicing today!
|
No comments:
Post a Comment