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Righteousness and Worship
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This has been an interesting week in the spiritual development department. Last week after church, Tom and I got talking with one of our worship leaders, and the conversation continued between me and Tom after we got home from church. We realized that as a Worship Ministry Team, we can create the atmosphere for worship, we can be good examples as worship leaders, and we can even encourage and verbally instruct, but we can't make hearts worship. I felt like we had hit a wall in helping people worship. I even wondered if this is all we should be expected to do as a Worship Team. What else can we do? But my heart aches for more. I can't believe we've "arrived."
As we discussed things, Tom said that it is the obedient heart that desires to worship. That parallels another topic that's been on my mind lately, that of righteousness and how God wants us to walk uprightly before Him. Every little sin, unconfessed, hardens our hearts against the Lord, breaks our fellowship and our communication with Him, and hence our worship of Him. On the contrary, as we are responsive to the conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit, confessing and repenting of those things He points out, our relationship with Him stays clear and our worship is sweet, even impossible to stop. All these thoughts have been bouncing around in my mind for months. And it has come to a head again this week.
So a prayer of mine this week has been that the Holy Spirit will convict us, our whole church family, of sins, small and big, and that He would create in us a desire to walk uprightly before Him. We want to be passionate about having a squeaky-clean conscience before Him.
Yesterday, a friend from the worship ministry joined me in prayer about all this. Today, we recieved this in an email from another church friend: "On a praise note, have you been praying for righteousness in our church family- or me specifically? I have had such a heightened sensitivity lately and a physical ache in regard to some specific issues of unrighteousness..." This is such an exciting answer to prayer. We talked things out on the phone and I encouraged her to take time tonight to confess. We talked about the process of sanctification: The Holy Spirit convicts, we confess, He forgives and cleanses. (1John 1:9) The confessing is admitting that 1) yes, it is a sin, and 2) yes, I did it. Both are significant. I am excited for this friend. If she can have a good time of confession tonight, her worship is going to be noticeably deeper and sweeter tomorrow at church. And I pray that this is happening in many hearts in our congregation, mine included.
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