Worship & Passion

Everyone worships something or someone. It's built into our very nature as human beings. The issue we face is not whether or not we are going to worship but what or whom it is we shall worship.

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the one human beings have been designed to worship. It seems that something in us has become corrupt because, on our own, we do not seem to give ourselves naturally to worshiping the Yahweh God. When... or should i say... Because we do not, our lives are unbalanced and "wobbly." When our lives are not centered on the Lord God, we're like wheels that spin awkwardly and even crazily because they are off center. Life is worship. Worship is life. And like an off-center wheel, the wheel may work fine for a while but the wheel, as long as it is off-center, is eventually damaged and even destroyed. Our lives fail when our worship is off-center.

Jesus came to reset our center even though it is our own fault that we have lost our center.

The thing about worship in much of the Church today is that it is still off-center. We want to sing particular songs and pray a particular way and hear certain kinds of sermons/teachings because of how they make us feel. We want to feel the presence of God. We think feeling good is feeling God's presence. We equate our emotional charge with God's presence. Never mind that Jesus said that worshipers must worship God in spirit and in truth... and that nothing about how we feel is indicated.

It's not that God is against emotions and feelings. God himself has feelings and emotions. Jesus wept. Jesus had compassion. Jesus demonstrated anger. But these things were not what drove Jesus in his mission, in his life, in his worship.

Many Christians pray for and emphasize the need for our passions to be stirred. We're supposed to love God passionately, follow God passionately, worship God passionately. But are we just worshiping passion? We would do well to either redefine "passion" for ourselves or just drop it all together. (The ancients warned against passion.) The operative word is not "passionate." Rather, we should focus on the words Love, Follow, Worship.

Maybe the Church in America should throw out its emphasis on being being passionate and, instead, emphasize Christ's passion. Every Christian, by definition, is a follower of Christ. We are to follow Christ in his passion. This brings us to the big question - What was Christ's passion? If Christians would follow Christ in his passion, our worship and our lives would look very different. The Church might even look like Christ.

May our worship be filled with the passion of Christ. May the passion of Christ consume our lives.