As I begin this devotional I am worshipping to a song whose chorus echoes my sentiments at this point: ‘I worship you for who You are! Jesus!’
If you are like I am, my worship has sometimes been tainted with selfish intentions. Not purely for love of my King and just simply for who He is. When going through difficulty it has been with the hope that my worship would earn me an out of the difficult situation. During one of my most difficult times as a minister, living alone and believing God for so many things while the situation seemed to remain the same, the Casting Crowns Song ‘Praise you in the storm’ was my constant companion. The haunting words of the first line resounded with me
‘I was sure by now that You would have reached down, and wiped our tears away! Stepped in and saved the day! Once again I say amen and it’s still raining!’
The chorus declares that he will praise God in the storm for God is who He is no matter where we are… How true that is! When facing problems the first thing the enemy wants to put doubt in our mind about is if God is really who He says He is; When he can succeed on this, he proceeds to make us question our identity in Christ: ‘Does He really love you? Maybe I am not loveable! Or perhaps my sin has made Him blind and deaf to my pleas, and my worship makes no difference!
In the Acts of the Apostles chapter 16 we read the account of Paul and Silas in jail. This was after they had been attacked by a mob, stripped and beaten with rods and then flogged v. 22-23. That would have been a good time to throw a pity party, gripe and complain about all the aches and pains that they unjustly received, rant at God at the unfairness of the situation. To cap off the party, question their call and if indeed God cared at all. But what did they do? They kept their time of devotion, singing and worshipping God so loudly other prisoners could hear them and were listening to them v.25.
Apparently the thorough beating they got didn’t do it for them, they were not afraid of the consequences and kept on declaring who God was in the prison. Before long Gods power was manifested and all the doors opened and everyone’s chains came loose v.26. Now I don’t know about you, but if it was me, pain or no pain the adrenaline would have kicked in I would have left the prisoners I was leading in worship in mid verse of the song and shot out of that prison so fast they would not have been able to keep up with me! Ok when you stop laughing tell me if you would not have been right behind me! Am sure you would! But what do we learn from the way Paul and Silas acted? They were not worshipping for what they could get, so even when the opportunity arose to be free they saw rather an opportunity to win souls for God and did indeed do so. Please read the chapter and see for yourselves, furthermore none of the other prisoners escaped either, meaning the worship had so touched them they were also not interested in a quick getaway but wanted to know more about the God Paul and Silas were worshipping.
This week let us ask God to make us those kind of worshippers, who will break chains of oppression as we worship, offer worship through our hardships, and cause others to want to know the God we worship. Have an anointed week of worship.