We have established in the PART I of this series that worship in the New
Testament must be done in spirit and truth and therefore can only be done by
those who are saved (that is those who have their spirits quickened by the
injection of eternal life by the Holy Spirit on account of their belief in
Jesus Christ.) Yes, acceptable worship must originate in
the regenerated human spirit by the quickening of the Holy Spirit in truth but
must equally be given expression by the soul and body. Man is tripartite – spirit,
soul and body.
The Bible says,
‘And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I
pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (1 Thess 5:23, KJV)
Therefore man must worship God with his three
constituent parts bowing to the Suzerain Monarch of heaven in unison. This
means the spirit, soul and body must work harmoniously together in bowing
‘themselves’ together for man to achieve a holistic worship experience.
THE TEMPLE OF GOD
‘Or do you not know that your body is the temple of
the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your
own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in
your spirit, which are God's.’
(1 Corinthians 6:19-20, NKJV)
Now the layout of the temple of God in the Old
Testament had three broad chambers namely: the Outer Court, the Holy Place and
the Holy of Holies. These three chambers perfectly represent the three broad
compartments of man as follows:
Outer Court…………Body
Holy Place………… Soul
Holy of Holies………………. Spirit
Though the three broad chambers were collectively
called the temple of God, God actually dwelt in the Holy of Holies. Same way as
man is collectively called the temple of God but He actually dwells in man’s
innermost part – the spirit.
The verses of Scripture above (1 Corinthians 16:19-20)
affirms that anyone who is born of God belongs to God because they have been
bought with a special price. This means God owns them wholly; spirit, soul and
body – He is their Lord! The Scripture also admonishes believers to ‘glorify’,
that is,‘bring pleasure to God’ which is another way of saying ‘worship God’ in
their ‘body’ and ‘spirit’. What is obviously missing in this passage is the
soul, why? This is because the soul connects the spirit to the body as a
conduit. This is also because man touches God with his spirit but touches the
world with his body. So the body and spirit are in some sense contact points to
the world and God.
SPIRIT, SOUL, BODY AND HEART
The salvation of the spirit is instant; the salvation
of the soul is gradual and the salvation of the body is a culmination.
The spirit contacts and receives from God and is
regenerated; the soul receives from the spirit and processes it and is transformed;
the body receives from the soul and is quickened. The spirit houses God; the
soul houses man’s personality and the body executes whatever orders it receives
from the soul. This is why acceptable worship must originate from the spirit
because this is where God dwells. Worship that originates from the spirit is
easily shaped by truth and has God as its object and Christ at its epicenter.
Worship that originates from the soul has self as its object and is easily
shaped by Satan and has worldly riches at its epicenter.
The heart as used in Scripture is actually where the
spirit and soul intersect and bears the balance of the human personality. If
the balance of the heart tilts down towards submitting to the Suzerain Monarch
of heaven, this is called humility. If the balance of the heart tilts up toward
glorifying self, this is called pride. Only the humble can receive grace to
offer acceptable worship (1 Peter 5:5).
EXPRESSIONS OF WORSHIP
All acceptable worship must originate in the spirit
and powered by truth. The high point of worship is when God is pleased. This is
why it must be done in spirit and truth because God is Spirit and dwells in the
spirit; while truth fully captures God’s will and how to execute the same.
Worshipping God therefore cannot be separated from doing His will.
Paul said,
‘For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in
the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my
prayers’ (Romans 1:9, KJV)
The word ‘serve’ as used in this verse of Scripture
means to worship through craft or works of righteousness. The source of all
acceptable worship is one: the spirit; the substance of all acceptable worship
is one: truth; and the goal of all acceptable worship is one: PLEASING
GOD.
Paul in the verse above said he worshipped God by the
instrumentality of the gospel. This means his own expression of worship was
being an apostle in the gospel of Jesus Christ. To another it might be pleasing
God in art, science, engineering, humanitarian service, financial support to kingdom
causes etc. Wherever the will of God is done and He is pleased, there is
worship! So worship is not just an activity, it is a life style. It is a
deliberate, militant commitment to pleasing God at all cost. If you refuse to
take or give bribe, lie or cheat etc and God is pleased; you have worshipped
Him!
The four major expressions of worship are as follows:
I. Words (Speaking God’s mind in speech, writing,
melodies etc)
II. Silence (Not saying anything in the face
accusations at God’s behest)
III. Action (Carrying out God’s instructions)
IV. Inactions (Refusing to do things that are
congruous to God’s will)
MISAIMINGS: MUSIC, EMOTION AND WORSHIP SERVICES
There is a bodywide misconstruction of worship being
synonymous to music and/or singing. You can worship God without singing; you
sing without worshipping God and you can sing and worship God. Music that hails
from the spirit and is powered by truth and pleases God makes acceptable
worship.
Music is a powerful art form that engages body and
soul easily by provoking deep emotions. God Himself loves music but music must
give Him pleasure to qualify as worship. So it’s not just about ingenious
blends of instrumentation and lyrics, it’s about sourcing inspiration from the
spirit and giving expression to truth.
Music that hails from emotion cannot make acceptable
worship. Acceptable worship can involve emotion because music provokes emotion
but it must hail from the spirit and must be powered by truth. Music does not
need the Holy Spirit to provoke deep emotional response. It does not need truth
to get people clapping. In 1985, at the famous Live Aid Concert in Wembley
Stadium, London, one of the greatest performances by a rock band happened. The
name of the rock band was Queen whose lead vocalist, Freddie Mercury, gave a
supercharged performance that got the over seventy thousand people in the
stadium clapping as if led by a prophet of God. Matt Redman, captured this and
penned a song entitled Heart of Worship in which he clearly affirms worship is
not about music but Jehovah – the Great Monarch of heaven. This is not to
rubbish music because I must admit; it sure is a powerful tool for worship.
In Christendom today, on the average, Bible study and
miracle services hold in the middle of the week while ‘worship services’ hold
on Sundays as if God should not be worshipped in all services. Christians are
conditioned to understand worship as something that happens only when belivers
come together in the name of the Lord. No! Fellowshipping together can only be called
worship if God is pleased. Corporate worship is hinged on the individual
believers pleasing God. The goal of any corporate meeting is to empower
believers to the point where they worship God personally. Worship is not
something done only on Sundays or few days of the week. Worship should be done
24/7/365 until Christ comes or the believer falls asleep.
THE WORSHIP OF SATAN
Can a believer worship Satan? Yes!
Let it sink.
Catch your breath.
Then let’s see how.
The Bible says,
‘Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high
mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he
said to Him, "ALL THESE THINGS I WILL GIVE YOU IF YOU WILL FALL DOWN AND
WORSHIP ME." Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written,
'You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.'"
(Matthew 4:8-10, NKJV, emphasis added)
I particularly like Matthew’s account of the
temptation of Jesus because it ends with Satan bluntly asking Jesus to bow down
and worship. From this account, it seems the devil all the while was simply
working Jesus’ defenses to the point where he could achieve his ultimate aim:
worship! Worship was the crescendo that the devil planned.
Satan took Jesus to an exceedingly high mountain and
gave him the vision of the world’s glory, wealth and pleasures. He promised to
give them all to Jesus on the condition that Jesus would ‘simply’ bow down and
worship him. Why did Satan first SHOW Jesus before ASKING Him? This is because
in seeing, the heart bows.
Remember I mentioned in Part I that the greatest
catalyst of worship is the vision of God’s glory and I mentioned that any man
who had a vision of God’s glory bowed – Isaiah (Isaiah 6), Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1),
Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9), and John the beloved (Revelation 1) all bowed. Bowing
to God is a matter of choice which we have to make consistently in love in our
hearts in the face of contradictions. And just as we choose to worship God we
can also choose to worship Satan.
Satan gave Jesus a vision of the world’s glory as a
substitute for the vision of God’s glory. Jesus refused to be distracted by it.
He rather chose to feast His eyes on the vision of God’s glory. The vision of
God’s glory leads to the worship of God while the vision of the world’s glory
leads to the worship of gold (Satan).
The greatest commandment in the law is to love God
with all that one has and the second greatest commandment is to love one’s
neighbour as oneself (Matthew 22:37-39). Both commandments have one thing in
common: LOVE. Love is a function of the heart. When we love, we give all. When
we love God, we give Him all that we are and have. We set our affections on
things above which are the visions of His glory and not on the things beneath
which are visions of the world’s glory (Colossians 3:1-2).
By showing Jesus the visions of the world’s glory,
Satan wanted to capture Jesus’ heart and win His love. Jesus chose to love God
and not gold. So worshipping Satan is simple: relishing in the vision of the
world’s glory and loving gold. Anyone who does not seek He that is above
(Christ and His kingdom) and seeks things that are not above (His
righteousness) but goes on to seek the world’s kingdoms and their glory and
loves gold instead of God is A WORSHIPPER OF SATAN!
So you see worshipping Satan is not just something
people say but things people do. A believer who claims to worship God but loves
gold and seeks worldly glory which is material wealth is an effective
worshipper of Satan.
It is sad some churches today teach believers to love
gold and fix their eyes on the visions of the world’s glory. People are
literally taught to love money and despise God.
MONEY, MAMMON, GOD AND THE ROOT OF ALL EVILS
I recently wrote an article on this elsewhere, I have
taken the liberty to use some excerpts here:
Money is feral –like fire, it can both cook and burn;
like electric power it can both electrocute and electrify. This means it can
both be disastrous and useful depending on how it is handled.
By design, money is meant to be a tool like, say, a
sledge hammer, water heater, and tooth brush and glass cup. But because of the
enormous power money possesses, it can, like wild tides, overflow its banks and
latch on to the heart of man like a leech or virulent parasite if allowed to
rule. Thus, provoking inordinate love and affection for it and building a
throne (control centre) for itself within the heart of man. Once the heart of
man which has been designed to love only God and his fellow man begins to love
money, a malignant aberration called the root of all evils is established.
The root of all evils will definitely yield the trees
of all evils with time. When this happens, a person loses their soul.
This is why the Bible declares in unmistakable
terms,
‘For THE LOVE OF MONEY IS A ROOT OF ALL EVILS; it is
through this craving that some have been led astray and have wandered from the
faith and pierced themselves through with many acute [mental] pangs.’ (1
Timothy 6:10, AMP, emphasis added)
The spirit force that catalyses the love for money in
the heart of man is called Mammon! Money is not Mammon and money is not
evil.
So,
MONEY IS NOT EQUAL TO THE ROOT OF ALL EVILS
MONEY IS NOT EQUAL TO MAMMON
But,
MONEY+MAMMON+ LOVE FROM THE HEART OF MAN = THE ROOT OF
ALL EVILS
As earlier stated, money is like fire which is a tool
of destruction in the hands of an arsonist and a tool of construction in the
hands of a blacksmith.
It is definitely an faithful servant but wicked
master.
Jesus said,
'No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate
the one and love the other, or he will stand by and be devoted to the one and
despise and be against the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (deceitful
riches, money, possessions, or whatever is trusted in). (Matthew 6:24, AMP)
It is simple; a man who loves money cannot love God. A
man who loves God cannot love money. A man who loves God will definitely trust
in and serve God. A man that loves money will definitely trust in and serve
Mammon. A man who trusts in and serves God will sell anything and/or give up
all his possessions to worship God by spending generously on the cause of His
kingdom (an example is the early Christians who sold their possessions to
execute God’s will on earth [Acts 4: 34-25]). A man who loves money will give
up God, bow down to Satan in worship in order to gain money and/or material
possessions (an example is Judas Iscariot who sold Jesus for thirty pieces of
silver [Matthew 26:15]).
One way to know that God is our Master and money
(gold) does not have a hold on us is that we worship God by giving up money for
establishing His kingdom thereby giving Him great pleasure!
FURTHER READING:
-THE SPIRITUAL MAN BY WATCHMAN NEE
-KINGDOM RECALIBRATION BY AROME OSAYI
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