Who is the focus of your worship

Today I want to share a post from a guest blogger. A fellow church member and someone I once worked with on a personal project. Kelvin Mutize is a young man, passionate about worship and very hardworking. He is full of compassion and volunteers for Champions for life, a church program which supports children infected and affected with HIV. I wanted you to hear from him, so here goes.

Studying the books of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Revelations, Daniel and Job one thing that stood out was the detailed explanations of how these man of God had numerous encounters with God and in detail they explained how their whole experiences set a platform to know God from that place forward ad that revelation became the basis of their worship.

God is a good God and the way that He appears to me and you is totally different especially determined by our level of comprehension of who He is and it’s true that we have not been all called in the same way but today we want to focus on your walk with Him by self introspection to gauge where we are. We are not comparing but looking from the start of our walk with Christ and our lives today.

Questions To A Worshipper

• Is the presence of God (face of God) evident in your life

“And it came to pass, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him”. Exodus 34:29

Worship is becoming to us, we become more and more like the one we are worshipping daily and because we spend time in his presence of God we become more and more like God. The question is, does the glory of his presence become evident in your everyday life as we ought to be shining because of that which we carry forth from his presence.

• Who is the focus of your worship

“This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth (declare/ herald) my praise”. Isaiah 43:21

It’s easy to lose focus of the reason why we worship, as we grow older we tend to ask a lot of questions and we call it rationalization. Have you lost your focus are you still as hungry as when you started living for his glory? Has protocols, constant bugging and confrontation with people destroyed your focus in worship?

• What experiences have you had whilst worshipping God?

“He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him”. John 9:36-38

The place of growth in one’s life is when we experience the touch of God, it fuels our hearts, minds and lives to continue to press on. The more God reveals the more we search for him and as a worshipper if you are in a place where God isn’t revealing himself to you then it’s time we start working on our own lives and hearts to check if we haven’t gotten numb to God.

There was a point when Smith Wigglesworth had backslidden and when he recognized that he was in that place he went on a fast until God restored him. Worship alone causes revelation and when revelation is absent then you need to go back and earnestly chase after God (entreating the Lord)

How many of us do actually inquire of the Lord for a Sunday song list, style of our worship and how many of us inquire who God is and how heaven worship so that we may understand what fuels the worship of heaven? How many of us inquire to know the sound of heaven and when was the last time you sought to see God in a new light?

These questions are meant not to bring you down there are there to make you realize, self introspect of your life as a worshipper, singer, musician, choir member, ordinary church member where ever you are standing.

Think about it what has changed, what has shifted, what has made the difference to your life as a worshipper?

Worship journey

My family, as far back as I can remember, have always sought God, even when we didn’t even know we were seeking God. My mother especially, would take us as kids to Sunday school. I remember pre-school days, my family stayed in Mutare, a small town in Zimbabwe, and I would attend Church Gomo ( Church on a hill), and I remember singing familiar songs like “Huyai mose, tinamate Mwari”, ( Come everyone, lets worship God).

Later we moved close to the capital city of Zimbabwe, to a town called Chitungwiza and my mum took us to Salvation Army Sunday School.  There we learnt all the bible stories they teach in Sunday School and morals and Christian values which I am convinced played a major role in shaping my adult life. So throughout grade school this was our way of Worship. The bible commands us to worship and Isaiah 43:21 comes to mind, “The people I have formed for myself, they shall declare my praise”.

My father then got saved at an AFM (Apostolic Faith Mission) crusade when I was now in secondary school.   I remember coming home from boarding school and finding out we were now going to a Pentecostal church. We had attended their home services sometimes when we were still going to Salvation Army and a  friend of mine would look at me and we would laugh when it came time to pray because they all prayed at the same time and others spoke in a funny language that didn’t mean anything. Others actually cried in a meeting full of people and acted like they were shouting at God. My mum and I would later discuss these things and concluded that they cried because their sins were too many and they were asking for forgiveness.

This is the church we now found ourselves attending after my father got saves. Slowly we became Pentecostal and soon I also repented of my sin and asked the Lord Jesus to come become the Lord of my life. I have always said this was the time I met God, I mean the true and living God. He moved from being a distant and terrible father to a present and loving father. I got baptised in water and in the Holy spirit and after some time began speaking in the strange language I had once laughed at.

When I first started writing this article, my aim was to highlight two types of worship I have noticed in my own life. When I was in high school and part of my adult life, the only way I can think of describing my seeking God is in a song we used to sing. The lyrics go like this:-

I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart

I will enter His courts with praise

I will say this is the day that the Lord has made

I will rejoice for He has made me glad

 (Composer unknown)

 

A couple of years back up to now, the way I can describe my hunger and search for God’s face are amazingly articulated in the below song:-

              Take me past the outer court, into the holy place

Past the brazen altar, Lord I want to see your face

Take me past the crowds of people and the priests who sing their praise

I hunger and thirst for your righteousness but its only found one place

So take me into the holy of holies, take me in by the blood of the Lamb

So take me in to the holy of holies, take me close, cleanse my lips

Here I am…. “Prophetess Juanita Bynum”

God takes us on a spiritual journey which I think never ends until we die or meet with Jesus in the sky. I am amazed at God and how He can continue to teach and direct you to greater and greater heights and from glory to glory in the spiritual journey. I have read and watched many testimonials of people of God crying out to God for more of Him. Others even take days or weeks away from everything but seeking His face. One thing is for sure though, He initiates the hunger and thirst according to what He has called a person to do in life.