In America we have a “Worship” service. In the jungles of the Philippines, the Native Americans, and religions all over the world hold rituals with magic. What is the difference? When I was first asked that question I thought, it was an easy one. As I thought about it, I began to find that the answer is not so simple.
What is magic? Is it pulling a rabbit out of a hat, or doing some cool card trick? No, that is simply creating the illusion of magic. Magic is simply performing rituals in an attempt to persuade or manipulate spirits to do what you ask them to do. People around the world typically do magic acts to try to help themselves and others. Often a person, such as a Shaman, will perform the magic ceremonies and lead others in a ritual to evoke the spirits to do what they want them to do. This Shaman goes through many chants, sometimes hallucinogenic drugs, and drum beats to slip into a state of altered consciousness where he can then contact the spirit world and find what he needs to do, or what the people need to do to cause the spirits to act on their behalf. This altered state of consciousness is sometimes real, but is often created reality due to the drugs, chants and drums changing the Shaman’s mental state.
What is worship? Worship is simply giving God the glory that He deserves. It is not singing, it isn’t dancing, it isn’t going to church. Worship is an act of the heart where we admit that God alone is Sovereign and God alone is worthy of our worship. Worship has no ulterior motives, and doesn’t require an emotional response, or experience.
For example: you can simply decide to love someone who is unloveable. When done with an attitude of love for them because God loves you in spite of your sin…that is worship. You have recognized that God alone is good, and full of grace, so you too want to be full of grace and love. When you declare, “Great is your faithfulness, oh God my Father” you are declaring His goodness, and that is worship.
So what about our churches in America? Do they worship on Sunday morning? What about the way we pray? Do we worship, or do we go through rituals to try to manipulate God to act on our behalf? Do we approach singing on Sunday morning as an opportunity to ascribe worth and honor to God with no strings attached, or do we go into a mantra of choruses trying to evoke “genuine worship” emotions?
How do we pray? Do we follow some special formula that we learned is effective? What is effective? Is effective prayer, prayer that gets God to do what we want? Does A.C.T.S. sound familiar? A-doration C-onfession T-hanksgiving S-uplication (requests). What if we forget to do “A” because we are in a hurry? Will God still answer our prayers the way we want him to? Have you ever heard of the “Prayer of Jabez”? We won’t go there.
The more I investigate the American idea of worship and prayer, the more I see us trying to manipulate God to meet our felt needs. We all want to be healthy, wealthy and wise and somehow the church in America has decided that God owes it to us. We then go to Him and remind Him of His promises (as if He would forget) and then “bind” him by them by claiming them as our own–name it and claim it!
What about some of the songs we sing? Can they be used as magic? Do we try to order a worship service “just right” so that we can evoke emotional responses in the congregation as proof that we have indeed entered into worship? Some of our songs are no more than mantras aimed at sending us into an altered state of emotion so that we feel we have worshipped. Maybe if we can really genuinely worship God, He will then hear our requests and fill our driveways with fancy toys.
The truth is, many Americans who come to church on Sunday morning are coming with magic tricks, hoping to manipulate God to meet their needs. The man deep in the jungle does the same things we do. He goes to the local Shaman and finds out what he must do to get the spirits to meet his needs. If he wants a good harvest, he will chant certain things, and maybe even sacrifice a chicken to appease the spirits. He may as well be in church in America sacrificing his money, and quoting, scripture saying that God is now obligated to meet his needs because He has sacrificed his money and his time.
God cannot be manipulated, and he requires that we come to Him on His terms and in His way. He is very narrow minded, but He opened the way for everyone to come to Him. He has always been this way too. Cain came to God his own way and was judged for it. The people at the time of the flood of Noah didn’t come God’s way, and they were destroyed. Sodom and Gomorah, the tower of Babel, and the cross that Jesus died on all had one way out, and it was God’s way or hell. It seems pretty harsh of God to do that, but the truth is, He provided a way out for everyone, and they never took it. Not only was a way out provided by God, but it required nothing from the people except that they trust God’s way to be good enough.
To this day, people insist on coming to God on their own terms, and think He can be manipulated to do things their way. In the end, they have nothing but judgement to look forward to. God wants to be worshiped as the only sovereign God and as the one who has restored our broken relationship with Him. When we come to Him on His terms and recognize that He is not bound by anything, but that He chooses to love us…that should bring emotions to us that are consistent with true worship. Jesus said that one day true worshippers will worship in spirit and in truth. The truth that God is no longer counting man’s sins against him, but is blotting out our debt of sin should evoke in us a response at the deepest level of our spirit.
Who cares about our felt needs?! God has met our biggest need entirely on His own even when we still hated God and everything about Him, he still sent his Son to pay our sin debt. Now, Jesus is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters, we can know what real life is all about and experience it forever, God promises that He has our good as His top priority and He loves us as a Father loves his children. We should never come to God with an attitude hoping to manipulate Him…He cannot be manipulated. We simply come as a child to their father, and when you need it, ask for it, and trust God to decide if it is for your good or not. No need for flowery prayers, just ask in your own language. God is a communicator, and is so intent on communicating, that He even put it in writing. Read your Bible, and you will see God wants to communicate. We don’t need to come with drumbeats, mantras. It seems to me he prefers that we come with all our personality still in tact so that He can talk with you the way he created you.