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Disclaimer:  The following is a reaction paper written for a class that is fundamentally formulated to discuss worship in the church and how it has been translated from the worship of God’s people in the Bible.  While I refer specifically to worship leading as a musical practice in the modern church, please note that it can be applicable to anyone reguardless of their occupation.  For instance, a doctor can facilitate a worshipful environment for other believers because worship is in fact an all-encompassing way of life; not merely a musical game that we play on Sunday morning.

 

The Word of God clearly states that we fight not against flesh and blood, but against principalities. 

Ephesians 6:12 “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

 

So often times we forget about this simple truth and turn our swords against each other.  By doing so, I believe that we as believers give the devil a foothold, and allow him to gain more ground in this temporal world than he has a right to.  When our focus is on Christ alone, and the realization that Satan is only present in our lives to steal, kill and destroy, we can better understand what is necessary for us to do in order to endure the trials.

To know that Jesus Christ is the center of all good (good being defined as He Himself defines it, for we can never really understand what ‘good’ in its purest nature is) is to know that Satan is the center of all evil.  This dichotomy represents the whole of worldly struggle.  Our quest as believers is to overcome that through Christ, and find the balance between our emotional reaction and our mental will to overcome. 

Endurance is an essential part of our stability as believers.  Consider this: our human reactions are the result of four separate reactions; heart, mind, soul, and body.  The emotions, the psyche, the spiritual soul and the physical action are the four places where everything we do is processed.  The problem arises when we leave one of those things out of the equation.  Some think that emotions ruin our ability to properly assess a situation.  Other think that spirituality is mysticism and therefore, impossible.  These mentalities are ridiculous.  The Sadducees were guilty of this type of reasoning in Mark chapter 12.  They were over-thinking the laws, and not using any other means to answer their own questions.  They asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was and  look at what our Lord says. 

“Hear, Oh Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord!  And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength.”

 

He covers every aspect of our ability to make decisions.  We are to love Him, which is to say, we are to live in response to His love for us via all means of our capability to understand, operate physically, feel, and spiritually resonate.  And this was nothing new.  It’s stated by Moses in Deuteronomy thousands of years previous to Christ’s quotation of the greatest law.

Wow, Jesus.  That’s asking a lot, but it’s also basically answering the age-old question, “How do I keep doing this Christ-following thing?  It’s hard!  I’m tired!  It’s not like I thought it would be.”

The answer is almost always balance.  The source of chaos is Satan.  The source of stability is Christ.  When I am overwhelmed by a situation, I find that when I sit down and spend time in prayer and process the problem through all four vehicles of response, I come to a healthy, well-rounded understanding of what is necessary to do on my behalf. 

Satan would rather we make over emotional, or over analytical decisions.  He would rather we imagine the Holy Spirit’s movement, or forget about Him altogether.  He would rather we be lazy and not ever determine to do anything profitable again.  Jesus Christ has given to us the power to make good choices, and to endure the trials that the devil places upon us.  However, He allows such struggle to come into our lives so that we rely on Him, and remember our place in the grand scheme of eternity.  Our place to be remembered is that we are the called, the saved, the once squirming individuals who have decided to respond to the Spirit’s movement in us and come to Christ’s Body to live into eternity with Him and the rest of His bride.  We must not let the evil in the world control our mindset, or our emotions, or our physicality, or our spirituality.  Everything in us must be an echo of Christ in us, the hope of glory. 

Spiritual warfare will take a toll on our humanity.  We cope with it by surrendering daily to Christ and letting Him meet our needs in order that we can endure even more.  It’s a never-ending cycle.  The war will never end until Jesus comes back, but the fact that He IS INDEED COMING is enough to keep our eyes lifted above the struggles of earth. 

Therefore, how can this warfare not affect our worship?  If worship is truly an every moment decision, and our life’s purpose is to worship God, yet there are constant battles going on in every facet of our lives, how is it even possible that worship is not affected in a million ways by spiritual warfare?  Every single instance of our thought life is either worshipful to God, or is worshipful to some other god.

 For instance, let us just suppose that there is a test in Physics on Wednesday.  If I feel unconfident and choose in each moment to worry about it from now until them, I have given my mind over to the instability of worry.  I have determined that there is no victory here for me, and that the test is greater than my God.  The idea that I could not do well in said test was placed in my head by something of this world.  Worry is certainly not a gift from God.  The prince of darkness throws around lies all the time, and if my mind clings to one, then in this particular battle, I have forfeited the victory over to Satan. 

This situation is a bit more practical.  A worship leader stands up to lead the congregation in a new worship tune.  Everyone seems really into it.  The lights are extra flashy, the crowd is a bit bigger this Sunday, the power-point presentation is super fancy.  Everything is going perfectly, and the leader says in his head, “Jeez, Lord, where would this place be if it weren’t for me?”  In his mind, the glory of the Lord is being shared with him on the stage of his church, as the people are worshiping the Lord.  He is worshiping himself, and the battle in his mind is lost to the notion that he is qualified enough in his own power to be the lead worshiper in the church.

The Lord is not happy with the leader’s falsification of worship.  At this moment, one more brick is cemented into the wall that barriers the worship leader from true worship.  Eventually, as the bricks stack up, he will fall into outward actions that lead him farther astray.  Eventually his actions, will lead the church astray if he is not careful.  And he likely will not notice until it seems too late.

So what must the man do?  His own human nature has barred him from true worship time and time again.  The answer is that he must continually humble himself before the Lord, while he is on stage, and also off stage.  He must determine in his heart that he is a servant of the Lord in whatever the task, and he must realize that in order to properly give glory to God with his talent, he must not take credit for it.  One should recognize that being in the work of the Lord in such an outspoken way deems him an automatic target for those principalities we fight against.  It is an extra struggle at times to be in front of people, sometimes pretending to have it all together.  Satan attacks from all angles, and as a leader of worship in whatever facet, we must be willing to stand up all the taller and suffer through intense moments of pride that leave us on our knees begging for forgiveness at the end of each day.  Someone has to do it.  We, as the leaders in whatever aspect of life must step up and face the challenge and comprehend fully the victory that we have in Christ Jesus, especially in regards to our often prideful spirits. 

The worship leader has got to be steadfast in his thought, his action, his emotion, and his spirit.  There is room for error only by the grace of God, and even still, the slip of a public spectacle in the church gives Satan plenty of room to get people tripped up.  In order that we stand firm again the forces of evil, a life of constant prayer is necessary, and a heart that is purified daily before the Lord, and mind that is pure and stable is essential.  As Christians, we must attain a balance.  And at the same time, we must never assume that we have perfected our balancing act, for if we do, something is certain to kick our legs out from under us to assure us that we do not have everything together like we appear to.  Praise the Father for His unending mercies to us who are used by Him to usher other folks into worship.  We deserve nothing but the death He died instead of us, and yet, through this war, He is gracious, and He protects us from that which we cannot handle.  Praise Him for His gift of balance.

 

 

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