In the last decade or so, evangelical congregations have woken up to the centrality of praise and adoration as Scripture commands. One of the great developments of our time is how we worship. \u201cPraise choruses\u201d and contemporary worship music, for all their limitations, aim our hearts and minds in the direction of God. One does not even have to be taught to lift your face or raise your arms as you sing these songs, as the songs themselves often drive one upward to seek and praise God. One has to be a spiritual miser not to recognize how such music has helped the church worship God.<\/p>\n
Yet the temptation of the horizontal is with us always, and it comes in many disguises in our worship. Worship leaders\u2014as they themselves often admit\u2014are tempted to take cues from Finney\u2019s Lectures on Revivals. Every worship leader worth his or her salt knows how to manage the emotions of the congregation, moving them from quiet devotion to raucous praise or from bass-throbbing adulation to whisper-quiet meditation. We don\u2019t have to deny that, despite sometimes obvious manipulation, we\u2019ve been touched by God in such services. But it is a constant temptation to replace God with technique, to seek not the Holy of Holies but mostly devotional exhilaration.<\/p>\n
That is to say, many weeks what we mostly want is for worship to give us a good spiritual feeling. I suspect that by our inattention to what we\u2019re singing. We sing various choruses that say, \u201cBring down your glory\u201d and \u201cshow us your face.\u201d But we do not know what we\u2019re asking for. People in the Bible who actually encountered God\u2019s glory fall on the ground in fear. For example, after the miracle of the fishes, Peter knows he has seen glory and that he is in the presence of the Glorious One. He doesn\u2019t give God an ovation. He doesn\u2019t weep with joy. He falls on his knees, begging Jesus to depart from him. The glory of Jesus has made it clear to him that he is a sinful man (Luke 5).<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Temptations of Evangelical Worship https:\/\/t.co\/GVJ0y0uTUe<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Ledesma Foundation (@LedesmaMinistry) July 3, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n