Worship By Calling His Names NAME

Sacred love songs must remain sacred love songs. They lose their beauty the moment they go beyond being expressions of love to imply literal doctrine truths.

For example, when Paul and Silas prayed and sang to God in the Philippian jail (Act 16:24-26), some pastors say the resultant earthquake was because God was so pleased that He began to DANCE. That statement is, of course, tongue-in-cheek – a sort of theological poetic license if you will. However, some Christians take it literally, and often assay to MOVE God through their praise and worship.

And one way they try to move Him is by chanting His names and titles. In fact, some will not consider your prayer legitimate if you do not begin by rolling out the “You are Jehovah jireh, Jehovah shalom, Jehovah tsidkennu ….” thing. (Some venture as much as to call Him by obscure Hebrew terms as a display of their knowledge of the intricate names of God).

Again, this practice is a carryover from our ancient tradition of adulating and flattering our kings and brave warrior lords. While this is a beautiful contribution of our culture to the worship of the true King of Kings, we mustn’t forget that this ‘King’ we worship is not like our human Obas and Emirs who need to be sweet-talked in order for them to act on our behalf.

The unfortunate phrase, “WHEN PRAYER FAILS, SWITCH TO PRAISE” is premised on this flawed opinion of God’s nature. God is not an idol or a man to be manipulated; and God is too big to be flattered.

Nevertheless, if we really want to impress God by chanting His names; there’s one name of His that I know is guaranteed to get His attention. It’s the only title of His that He actually had to ‘earn’ – and at great expense too. It’s the unique name His most Beloved Son called Him while He was on earth. That beautiful name is “FATHER”.

Not anyone can call Him that. It took the sacrifice of His beloved Son on the Cross to make that relationship possible (Jn 1:12; Gal 3:26, 1Jn 3:1). So, each time we call Him “Father” – with understanding – we show to Him that we appreciate His boundless love for us and the great effort He took to make us His children.

O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His NAME together.  – Ps 34:3

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

God Does Not NEED Your Worship

Their idols cannot speak. They must be carried because they cannot walk. – (Jer 10:5 HCSB-r)

It’s amazing how much of African idol worship and animism has been absorbed into Christianity. Some of them are quite innocuous (like ‘talking’ to our offerings before we place them in the offering basket ).

Nevertheless, quite a few of these ingresses of our ancient traditions into biblical Christianity have warped and affected our faith. One of these is the treating of God like we used to treat our ancient idols and deities.

In many of our traditions, the gods have to be appeased and sacrifices offered daily at their altars. Idols whose altars are left unattended to eventually fade into oblivion; that’s why they send such harm to their votaries when they ignore them.

Astonishingly, many Christians still view worship as a form of appeasement or oblation to God. However, God’s power is not diminished on days we don’t worship Him, neither does He become grumpy if we leave our “prayer altar” unattended. These are ideas we get from our former Orisha and Alusi worship.

God is all-sufficient; He does not need worship – whether ours or the angels’ – to exist. Also, (even though some pastors say so), worship is not God’s food, so we’re not giving Him His daily rations during our ‘morning devotions’.

We need God, God doesn’t need us. He is so much set apart from His creation, so majestic, so glorious… so unlike our weak, petty, needy idols. As a matter of fact, it is this revelation of His self-sufficiency and awesomeness that leads to worship. Worship is the natural consequence of revelation.

We need to reclaim the majesty and worthiness of God in our praise. A proper, biblical, revelation of God is what produces true worship; because by it we see His true worth-ship, that  is His true worthiness to be praised.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

The Problem With “Entering God’s Presence”

As much as worship feels subjective and emotional; it’s important we remember that it is primarily a spiritual exercise – a sacrifice – to God, (Heb 13:15). And just as in prayer, there’re rules of acceptable worship that we mustn’t contravene in the lyrics we use to praise God.

Some of these infringing lyrics can be found in classic songs about “Entering (or coming) into His presence”. Other ones are “I enter the Holy of Holies”, “Please don’t leave me, Lord”, “I need more of you”, etc.

We’re not living in the Old Testament where we “enter” the Holy of Holies once a year, (Christ entered into it for us “once and for all”, Heb 9:12); now we dwell perpetually in His presence (which means we can’t “come” to where we already are, Heb 12:22).

Furthermore, as a token of His redemptive love for us, He promised us that He will never leave us nor forsake us, (Heb 13:5), therefore begging Him in worship not to leave you is casting aspersions on His love. So also is telling God “I want MORE of you” when we’re supposed to be thanking Him that He gave us His ALL!

While there’s nothing wrong or heretical with such worship lyrics, they have no spiritually edifying value since they’re asking God to contravene His word and will.

Additionally, though these songs can be seen as simple ‘sacred love songs,’ many Believers take their words literally, and this in turn affects their spirituality; making them approach God with a guilty conscience and second-guessing His boundless love for them.

If we want our worship to be truly acceptable and wholesome, then we must make sure our lyrics are scripturally legitimate and doctrinally sound: holy, acceptable and reasonable to God. (Rom 12:1).

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

Proper “Sacred Love Songs”

Sweeter than spring time

Purer than sunshine

Ever my song will be

Jesus, You're beautiful to me.

– Cece Winans (“Jesus You’re Beautiful”

“Sacred Love Songs” are a compilation of poetic and romantic songs by several well-known Gospel artists produced by the venerable Bishop T.D. Jakes to provide Believers with songs with which they can express their romantic feelings to their spouses in a wholesome, godly way.

In a literal sense, that’s what our worship songs already are; they are love songs written and sung to our sacred Redeemer and Lord. Indeed, some worship lyrics, if taken out of context, will make great wooing ballads.

And just like our secular romantic odes, much of what we say are either meaningless or even insulting; if taken literally. When a guy tells a lady, “You’re the sugar in my tea; the butterfly in my stomach, the cure to my pain…” she knows he’s not been literal and is only trying to express his love.

Likewise, when we sing to God, “You’re  as bright as the morning star” or “Your love is as everlasting as the Hills” He doesn’t strike us dead for such an insulting comparison, or remind us that hills don’t really last forever. The angels don’t do a face palm when we meaninglessly tell Jesus that He’s “sweeter than springtime,” and “purer than sunshine.” Even the Psalms are full of such literary devices.  (But seriously Cece, “purer than sunshine?”)

Nevertheless, even in romantic expressions, care needs to be taken that the lines of propriety are not crossed. Our words have to be properly worded. And as is the physical, so also is the spiritual. We must worship God exactly and precisely. Heb 13:15 says we should offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips.

You’ll observe that the worship lyrics in the New Testament show less floridity and more precision – less comparisons of God’s love to natural phenomena and more exactness in their description of who God is and what He’s done. That’s the kind of worship that’s holy, acceptable and reasonable to God. (Rom 12:1).

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

The Art – and Science – of Worship

But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship him. – John 4:23

Worship is the feeling and expression of reverence and adoration to God. It’s our natural response as Believers to God for who He is and what He’s done. We are nothing without worship. Without an opportunity for us to commune with our maker our spiritual lives become shrivelled and our minds atrophied.

We’d appreciate the importance of worship to our vitality when we observe the correlation between its discontinuation and the seasons of drought and dryness in our lives. We all must worship; as a matter of fact, Rev 4:11 tells us that we were created for worship. Hallelujah!

Nevertheless, there must be a system to our worship. As much as worship flows from our heart it must be in correlation with our heads.

Worship is not a mindless, mechanical act we perform because we’re “Christian”, it is a conscious expression of ourselves to God. And as much as it feels emotional, worship is actually an intellectual exercise. That is why Ps 47:7 says because God is the King of all the earth, we should praise Him “with understanding.”

God is not just seeking those who’ll worship in spirit, but also in Truth. (John 4:23)

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN