Worship Week |
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INTRODUCTION Hey family, I pray all is well in Jesus name. I am so excited to share all that the Lord has done in this week.. because if I am being so honest, this week has genuinely marked my life and has changed the way that I look at worship. I hope that through sharing some of the gems Abba dropped, that it would encourage you to go deeper in your walk with the Lord and maybe even change the way you approach worship for the better. Based on the introduction, along with the title you may have guessed that Week 6 was …. drum roll please… WORSHIP WEEK! We had the privilege of being taught by Lindy and Chase Cofer as well as Chris Burns and each session was so edifying. To be real, I didn’t really have much expectation in this week. Worship is so beautiful and necessary, but when I heard the theme of this week, I thought it would be geared more to those who felt called to the worship space, and by worship space, I mean worship leaders or musicians… but boy oh boy was I wrong lol.
WORSHIP IS KEY ‘Worship is a response to the love of God’ – Lindy Cofer Worship is so key in every believer’s relationship with the Lord. Our worship should be a direct response to what the Lord has done and that is – dying on the cross to reconcile us back to the Father. Worship is not just limited to the worship leader or the drummer, but to every single believer. The first time that worship is mentioned is in Genesis 22 when Abraham is told by God to go onto the mountain of Moriah and sacrifice His promised son Isaac. ‘And Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.”’ Genesis 22:5 We see that Abraham uses the word worship as a means to describe His act of obedience and trust. We also get a glimpse of the way that He feared the Lord which resulted in immediate obedience. Therefore, worship can then be defined as faith shown through obedience. We obey because we have been gripped with the conviction of the reality that God is who He says He is.. and the only right response is to obey through His grace by faith because of His love which prompts us into action. We don’t worship to earn God’s love. We worship from the place of God’s love. This revelation has been changing the way that I walk with God. At the core, the Lord has really been breaking the stronghold of performance in my walk which has ultimately been so freeing. Recognizing that there is nothing I can do to gain favor, be loved more or less than God has led to a kind of freedom that overflows into love, joy peace, etc not only towards the Lord but towards His people and myself. Worship is love expressed, expressed in obedience, rooted in revelation, birthed from the cross, sustained by grace.
WORSHIP IS WARFARE When we worship, we don’t necessarily usher His presence in, because He already is everywhere, we just become more aware of His presence.. thus being in the right posture for His presence to become tangible. Interestingly enough the word for presence and face (of God) in the Hebrew and the Greek are interchangeable. Meaning that as we praise, we are fixating our gaze upon His face. This ultimately explains why we can have many encounters with the Lord during worship, because we are getting fresh revelation through our praise. Something that was so tea that honestly shifted my perspective is that the bible says that the Lord inhabits the praises of His people (Psalm 22:3) and essentially we can see that worship actually allows for the presence of God to dwell and abide. This is absolutely a tactic for warfare. Worship is warfare. Worshipping ultimately confuses the enemy, and it is continuing to behold the Lord in the midst of whatever we may face, which essentially says, Lord I know that you are the one who fights for me… I need to do nothing but be still (leave the battle to you) and know that you are God. We also dove into the fact that worship gains territory in our minds and can literally win back territory over the kingdom of darkness in the Spirit. Chris Burns had talked about how worship can literally shift atmospheres.. It can turn murderers into prophets (1 Samuel 19)
CONCLUSION These are just some of the gems that I had the privilege of learning throughout worship week that I have already been seeing the fruit of in my everyday life. Learning how important worship is, and why we are called to enter into His gates with praise and with thanksgiving! The fact that we get to be His presence carriers throughout the earth through worship has been life changing.. I cannot believe time has been flying by as fast as it has.. I am eternally grateful for all the Lord has been doing.. We have been seeing a ton of salvations as well weekly during our weekly outreaches.. and am hoping to give an updated number at the end of DTS.. I know it probably sounds repetitive haha, but I hope you guys have been enjoying the newsletters and updates! Thank you guys to everyone who has been supporting and keeping me in prayer. I am so thankful and pray the Lord continues to meet you wherever you are at in Jesus name! Thank you also for being so patient with me as I have been running behind with these newsletter updates. God willing, I will be able to catch up before DTS! Talk soon! Love you all with the love of Christ! Yours in Christ, Rachael Niles |