Just What is Going on Here?
A Devotional
© 2001 Steve Lattier and Men’s Help Ministries

Why is it, that you or I can walk into almost any church in the world and there will be between fifteen and thirty minutes of singing? What’s the deal? I mean there is not a structured church service outlined in the Bible so why the inerrant consistency? It doesn’t matter if you walk into Charismatic, Baptist or Pentecostal. It goes without saying that the rest of the denominations fall in line also. Does the church feel a raging need to entertain? Does the preacher need that amount of time to get warmed up? Are they just being kind to the latecomers and have a built in “buffer” for them? There is as much range in the type of singing as there is types of music. There are churches that allow no instruments saying that there is not specific reference to musical instruments in the Bible. There are multitudes of churches that have an established choir that “performs” by singing in order to “lead” the congregation in song. Some have beautiful ancient pipe organs, others an acoustic guitar and a piano. I have seen full scale “bands” playing styles ranging from a bluesy back beat to country strains. There are those that insist on only using music and lyrics written before about 1900 and there are some that are writing there own every week. What in the wide world are all these churches doing? Its simply called “worship.” It is an often repeated command. No, not one of the “Ten Commandments” but a command nonetheless. But why the musical interlude? Read these verses from Psalms.

The Word:
Psalm 29:2 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of his* holiness.

Psalm 99:5 Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his footstool; he is holy.

Psalm 100:2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.

That is the starting point for the way most churches have structured their services. Yes I know that I haven’t explained a whole lot yet in regards to worship. Lets dig deeper. We must be careful in our churches so that we don’t get too many rules regarding the way we worship. I will give more detail later but worship isn’t “singing two fast songs, one ballad and one slow song.” It is a condition and expression of the heart. Too many rules and we wind up putting worship in a box, you can’t do that with a heart condition.

The Word:
Isaiah 29:13 The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.

Even many hundreds of years before Christ, God was painfully aware that many people were putting on a show, really just giving Him “lip service.” Those songs are much more than catchy tunes to keep your attention for a little while. Listen to the words, read the lyrics, let the message that is being sung be your message to God! Paul was trying to teach the Roman church this “surrender.”

The Word:
Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual* act of worship.

Let me give you all the detail so that this might take on a personal meaning for you. I did some digging in the old Hebrew and Greek around the concept of worship and I found out some awesome details. I want to share them with you now. Worship, in Greek, is “Proskuneo” (please don’t try to pronounce it, you might hurt yourself!) Before I tell you what that means I want to go all the way back and look at the two root words that this is made up from, then bring you all forward! As far back as my material goes we start with the Greek root “Pro” which means “before” then it progresses to the next incarnation “Pros” which means “at, near, by.” The other half of the word comes from the root “Kuon” which means a “dog” (real) or an “impure man.” We are ready to put it all together, have you followed this closely? So far we have a “dog, an impure man” that is “before, at, near or by.” The definition of Proskuneo is this “to kiss the hand of one, in token of reverence.” (or like a dog shows affection by licking his masters hand.) So if we are to Proskuneo the Lord then we are to “come before, near” to God with the “knowledge of our sin and impurity” and “kiss His hand.” Whew! That just takes my breath away to think of it. That is what is happening during that song time! It is much deeper than just pretty songs that sometimes bring a tear to be wiped away! Worship is literally our chance to humble ourselves and kiss God’s hand. In order to do that there is something we must do first. Let me lead you by asking this. Can you kiss anyone’s hand if you are standing erect? Metaphorically speaking we must not try to stand in front of God, we must put ourselves under Him. Yes, that is right we must be lower than God to reach his hand with our worship. To be able to get the proper relationship we must be willing to do two things. The first is to raise God to His proper status in our lives and our hearts. He is the God that created the universe after all, we are not now nor will we ever be equal to Him! We must leave our all to big ego at the door to the church while we worship. The second thing that we have to do is to recognize our failures. That doesn’t mean that we are failures just that we are imperfect and that since we worshipped last we have blown it and that we are terribly sorry for that. Right there beside our ego we need to go ahead and put our pride as well. You cannot truly worship God if you are wearing your pride and ego as a badge of honor, it simply cannot be done.

The Word:
Psalm 29:2 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of his* holiness.

Psalm 99:5 Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his footstool; he is holy.

1Peter 5:5 Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."* [6] Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. [7] Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Those three verses are what worship is all about, lifting God up where he deserves to be and lowering ourselves to where we deserve to be. See what I referred to when I said it is a condition of the heart? Often you will see, in some of the more charismatic churches, people who raise their hands during some songs. They are raising them in simple show of the surrender that they feel in their heart at that moment. Sometimes during heartfelt worship the body will show what is happening in the heart. People dance, they weep, their hands are raised, they have a look of joy. They have surrendered totally to that moment where they have just “kissed the hand of God.” In order for you to get that heart there must be a basic recognition of God’s supremacy and the awesome miracle of your salvation. Those of you that have children think back for a minute to a time when one of them was just a toddler and they came up and wrapped their tiny little arms around your leg and said “I love you.” Can you remember how you felt? Do you remember blinking back that single tear? Now you kind of know the heart of God when you worship Him as your Heavenly Father!

Pray with me:
Father I am sorry for not worshipping like you would have me do. I have had to much of “me” in my life and I want more of you! Lord help me to leave my ego and my pride at the door when I come to worship you. Help me to lift you up at the same time I recognize my own failures. I want to have our relationship in the proper order from this day forward. Help me so I don’t struggle with humility. I need your help Lord, to come to the fullness of knowledge of the miracle of my salvation so that my heart will desire to kiss your hand! I ask for your help in the name of your son, Jesus. Amen!