Tag Archives: music

Weapons of our Warfare – Let the Streets Resound with Singing (& Some Final Thoughts)

I had to resist the urge to title this one “Worship”, the nomenclature we have given to music in the Church. If I could wrap up the biblical definition of worship in a very short sentence it would be submitted service and obedience to God. While we can certainly include music and singing into our worship, music and singing are not what constitutes worship. But take heart, our worship is a weapon of war because our submitted service and obedience to our King will thwart the enemy’s plans every time.

But the sound of our singing and our music as we praise Him is a different weapon.

“Then he [King Jehoshaphat] consulted with the people and appointed some to sing for the Lord and some to praise the splendor of His holiness. When they went out in front of the armed forces, they kept singing: Give thanks to the Lord, for His faithful love endures forever.

The moment they began their shouts and praises, the Lord set an ambush against the Ammonites, Moabites, and the inhabitants of Mount Seir who came to fight against Judah, and they were defeated.” – 2 Chronicles 20:21-22

“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the jail were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s chains came loose.” – Acts 16:25-26

“Your singing will be like that on the night of a holy festival, and your heart will rejoice like one who walks to the music of a flute, going up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel. And the Lord will make the splendor of His voice heard and reveal His arm striking in angry wrath and a flame of consuming fire, in driving rain, a torrent, and hailstones. Assyria will be shattered by the voice of the Lord….And every stroke of the appointed staff that the Lord brings down on him will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres; he will fight against him with brandished weapons”. Isaiah 30:29-31

“Now the Spirit of the Lord had left Saul, and an evil spirit sent from the Lord began to torment him, so Saul’s servants said to him, “You see that an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our lord command your servants here in your presence to look for someone who knows how to play the lyre. Whenever the evil spirit from God comes on you, that person can play the lyre, and you will feel better.”…Then Saul sent word to Jesse: “Let David remain in my service, for he has found favor with me.” Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would pick up his lyre and play, and Saul would then be relieved, feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.” 1Samuel 16:14-23

“Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise,  making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil… Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 6:15-20

This year has shown us, in more ways than one, that the days we are living in are evil. The sound of chaos, hatred, and rebellion has filled the streets, and for a moment, it put the Church back on her heels. But now, I hear a new sound in the nation, as God’s people take their song out of the church buildings and into the streets – from parking lot services to huge gatherings of people singing and praising God all across the country. More and more the streets are resounding with the warfare sounds of the saints.

We are at war, whether we like it or believe it. So loose your song, Beloved. Sing praise to your God.

A few final thoughts…

> In Ephesians 6, Paul tells us to put on the whole armor of God, but we are never instructed to take it off. The armor is not temporary clothing, it is a life lived in faithful obedience to Christ. If we take that off, sin is at our door and it will have us.

> Your faith – your dependence on and trust in God – is always the target. Guard it well. Build yourself up in it. Always recall to mind the faithfulness of your Father. He has proven that He can be trusted. Do not let the enemy convince you otherwise.

> The more I walk with Jesus, the clearer something becomes. Spiritual warfare becomes exhausting when my focus is on the enemy. When I’m trying to figure out where he is and what he’s doing, I get overwhelmed. So as I’ve gotten older, I spend much less time trying to get the enemy to move.

Instead, my focus is on moving God.

This is why it is critical for me to have an intimate relationship with my Father, so that I can know what moves Him.

My worship {submitted serving and obedience} moves God. ⠂My faith {my trust and dependence on Him} moves Him. ⠂ My prayer that desires His will over mine, moves Him. ⠂My song of praise, even in dark seasons, moves Him.

When I choose love when my flesh would rather hate, it moves God. When I do the work to forgive when walking away would be easier, God is moved. When I choose to live a life that moves God, war is being waged. But God is and will always be my Defender. He is my warrior King and the battle ever belongs to Him.

My final take on the topic of spiritual warfare?

Move God, and the devil will move.

find me

So a song comes along and doesn’t just move me, it shifts me. It creates a question that dogs my steps, my words, my thoughts.

If He returns today, what will He find me doing?

Choosing to walk in the Spirit, or letting my flesh call the shots?

Loving Him, and my neighbor? Because loving God while hating people isn’t loving God. Will I be found walking out that truth?

Making decisions from a place of faith, or fear?

Actually being a light in the darkness, or just complaining because it’s dark?

Living fully as who I was created to be, or wishing I was someone else?

Just attending a church or being the Church?

Promoting unity, or bringing division?

Full of joy, or full of self-pity? Or bitterness. Or jealousy. Or judgment. Or fill in the blank.

Walking in peace, or looking for a fight?

Living to please Him, or someone else?

Will He find me thankful? Grateful for all He has done, all He has given to me? Or will I be found complaining? Wishing there was more.

I have no control over when He comes back. But should He return today, what He finds is all on me.  And you.

Sidebar:  Do not underestimate God’s ability to use a song to shift your perspective. To change you. 

 

pieces

One song played in my house all weekend. It’s called “Pieces”, sang by Steffany Gretzinger at IHOP’s One Thing 2015. These words got down deep in my soul…

“Your love’s not fractured, it’s not a troubled mind

It isn’t anxious, it’s not the restless kind

Your love’s not passive, it’s never disengaged

It’s always present, it hangs on every word we say”…

For two days this song thumped it’s beat on my heart until my heart began to respond. At first, it was just background music while I did other things, but before long…I couldn’t do other things and I couldn’t stop thinking about Him.

About this Love that I had gone back to earning. As if.Continue reading “pieces”

what do you do when the road bends?

Life is sweet on the straight road, even if the road is narrow. Yes, the straight and narrow is easy travelling. Pick up and put down those feet because I see where I’m going and the view is wide on this narrow road. The plan filled with all my “someday” things is in hand and I’m believing the Planner and all is well.

bend-in-roadAnd then the road bends. What do you do with a bend in the road? When God throws in a corner that you can’t see around? What do you do when your question of “what next?” falls at your feet all alone and no answer falls with it?

This is when anxiety knocks at your heart. It wants in and you want to open the door because frankly, you’d like the company. Road bends are lonely, quiet  places and sometimes even the voice of fear is a welcome sound.

(Did I say you? Sorry. I meant me. Or I. Definitely not you. Just me and I. But it feels better to say you so I’ll just keep doing that, k?)

And you know because you’ve heard that knock before so you just know better than to open that darn door. Because anxiety never comes to visit alone. It brings friends and they come for a party in your soul. Fear, stress, worry, depression all come in wearing party hats and carrying no chocolate.

So you ignore the knocking or maybe you don’t and before you know it there’s a monster bash going on inside of you.

Because road bends are hard. They are lonely and they are quiet places that feel like God is fasting from talking to you.

When the road bends the plan falls and flutters away and what do you do when the road bends before you arrive at your “someday”?  When you are too young for that ‘I’ve lived a good life’ thing and too old to believe the world is still yours to conquer. When you’ve held on to ‘someday’ so long you’ve got a hand cramp.

Well, I’ll tell you what you do. You listen to this song and you put that thing on repeat until you hear the words in your sleep. You listen to every word until the sound of anxiety knocking fades to silent.

Grander earth has quaked before
Moved by the sound of His voice
Seas that are shaken and stirred
Can be calmed and broken for my regard

What’s waiting around the bend may be ground shaking and stormy…not your ‘someday’ thing you’ve waited to come. And what we can’t see beckons fear to come to the door of our heart and shout ‘what if?’. True, no?

What do you do with the fear that comes with a bend in the road?

Let Truth answer the shouting of fear. God is on this side of the bend.  Everything else may be hidden but God does not hide from us. He may be quiet, but He is there. With you. Always. And whatever shaking, stormy thing that may or may not be around the corner must still bow to Him, will still be controlled by the loving hand that holds your life.

Far be it from me to not believe
Even when my eyes can’t see
And this mountain that’s in front of me
Will be thrown into the midst of the sea

Right here where the road bends is where we find our heart’s true bent. We will either answer the sound of anxiety and fear pounding at the door, or we will turn the music up and trust God. Pull out our mustard seed and move the ‘what if‘ mountain.

What do you do when you can’t see around the bend?

Let the bend in the road bend your heart to believe God is good no matter what and He is for you not against you and whatever comes, or doesn’t come, He is with you.

Through it all, through it all

My eyes are on You
Through it all, through it all
It is well

So let go my soul and trust in Him
The waves and wind still know His name

It is well with my soul

There is a bend in my road and God is not fasting He is speaking through a song. And it is finally well with my soul.

worship music (or, worship God)

He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” (Genesis 22:5)

Abraham was about to go “over there” to sacrifice his promised, beloved son, Isaac, in obedience to God, and he called it worship.

But where’s your boombox, Abraham?

music notesI believe we (the Church) have redefined worship. To many, if not most of us, the word “worship” is synonymous with “music”. In fact, you rarely hear those two words separately anymore in the Church.  We have worship songs, worship music, worship bands, worship services. We even have worship encounters.

But do we have worship?

As I searched the scriptures, I came to a startling conclusion:  music was not used for worship in the Bible, it was used for praise.  But we have so joined those two separate and distinct acts, that they are now defined by the type of music being played. If it’s a fast, upbeat “make you wanna dance and shout” song, then we are praising. If it’s a slow, contemplative, “make you sway and/or cry” song, we’re worshiping. Sunday services generally begin with “Praise and Worship”, and are even specifically formatted with a little “praise” at the beginning, some “worship” in the middle, and some really good “praise” at the end.

Am I right?

romans_12_1“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

In both Hebrew and Greek, the word means to bow, to prostrate oneself in homage to God, and in both the old testament and the new testament, worship involved sacrifice. In the old, they offered sacrificed animals. In the new, we offer sacrificed lives. Neither has anything to do with music.

Worship cannot be defined by a few hours on a Sunday morning of people singing, swaying and dancing to the latest worship songs. It can’t be defined by how well we were able to “enter in” based on how the band played and how the sound system was working that day.

Worship belongs to God, not to us. When we make it something we do for us, it is no longer true worship, it is self-worship.

Worship is not an experience or a response to a song. Worship is obedience to God’s command.

With all of that said…I LOVE the music in the Body of Christ! I love the gifts that God has given to the songwriters, musicians, and singers, enabling us to make a joyful noise, to praise Him, to exalt Him. And the win/win is that when we do that, we feel good, and we experience His presence because He inhabits the praises of His people.

Church, use the gifts of music that God has placed in you. Praise God, exalt God, make a joyful noise. Even make a slow, beautiful noise that makes me cry and put my face to the floor. But don’t continue to call music  “worship”, and don’t keep defining worship as an “experience” with God.

So here is the realignment, for me:  Do not reduce worship to the realm of music. Do not seek to worship God because you need to feel something. Learn to worship Him with your life. In the quiet spaces, in the difficult times and the good times, in the wilderness or on the mountain…worship God with a sacrificed, obedient life.

“Offer your bodies (the complete man) as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” 

If I continually seek after the next great song so that I can “experience” worship, but give little attention to my own obedience, to my own heart condition, then I am not a worshiper, I am just someone who likes good music.

Church, if you pour all your resources, time and efforts into creating the ultimate “worship experience” on Sundays (or any other day), but you are not teaching your congregation to live sacrificed, obedient, holy lives…then you are not a worshiping church, you are simply a church that has really good music.

Challenge (I’ve done this and, admittedly, it’s not easy, but it will shift something in you):

For one week, worship without music. In your quiet time with God, when you would normally pull up your playlist to start things off — don’t.  No “worship music” for one week. Instead, ask Him how you can obey Him that day, and then do it. Ask Him if there is something you are holding onto that needs to be sacrificed as an act of obedience. Then make the sacrifice. Worship God.

Let me know how it goes!