Call It Like You See It

" God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did" (Romans 4:17b, NKJ).

Father God, today I choose to look through my eyes of faith and call things that are not as though they are. I declare victory over every area of my life no matter what is happening around me. Thank You for the gift of faith. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

"A people after God’s Own Heart"

One of my favorite people in the Bible is David. I think it’s because he was seemingly more human then any of the other men and women in the Bible (not saying the others are like aliens or anything ;). But there were some really messed up things about David that are just downright wrong…such as lying, adultery, murder and so on. Yet, he was still favored and called “a man after God’s own heart!” That is amazing and gives me so much hope.

So the question is, “How do we become people after God’s own heart?”

I have come from a very conservative Christian background where they preached they way to God’s heart is by living a “Holy Life,” which means you deprive yourself of everything pleasurable to the flesh. I am not necessary talking about sin, it could be not going to Six Flags, or the women could not wear red shoes…..And this was all “for the glory of God.” What they were really preaching was that we can earn God’s favor by the works of our own flesh! So if you can stick to all the rules and commandants of God, plus the bonus rules of Pastors, then you can become a man or women after God’s own heart.

Have you ever tried measuring up to God’s love by your own strength? I’m sure you have- we all try! That’s part of being a Christian. But let me tell you-it's miserable.

When you come from a background of “Holiness or Hell” it’s downright scary being a Christian. By the time you get the 10 commandments down-man dumps on you about 100 more rules, such as “don’t play golf” or “don’t get on the Internet”. Therefore, every time you go to work and check your email you have sinned before God and the holy church.

Then there is the other extreme-those that say once you have professed the Lord as your Savior, it’s done and settled, you’re saved, so now you can basically live your life without any morals or convictions because God will always call you back home.

When you truly Love God, you will stay away from both extremes and you should find yourself in the middle. We must understand that Love for God is the only vehicle that will bring us to the heart of Christ and there we will find true "Holiness."

So back to David.

There are a lot of things we can highlight about David’s character, but I want to focus on three things.

David was a Shepherd-

a) Before David was called the greatest King of Jerusalem he was a Shepherd. He learned to lead and love the flock of which he was in charge. David was responsible to make sure his sheep were fed, had water to drink and were safe at all times. The same nurturing and caring spirit that David had for sheep he also had for people. When Goliath heckled the armies of Jerusalem, what upset David more than anything was that this giant was defiling and cursing the people of God. David was the defender and friend of the weak; he was willing to die for people. David loved King Saul and would not touch God’s anointed. Even when Saul chased him into the caves and tried to kill him, still David would not touch or speak evil of Saul. God loves a Shepherd! (I can preach on that note for a while ;)

David was a Worshipper-

a) Before David become known as the great Psalmist (or Worship Leader), he was a worshipper himself. While tending to the sheep, David would bring out the harp and sing unto the Lord. He learned to worship God when he was alone and there was no one around to see him. He learned to focus and totally surrender his love and affections in worship to God. As a Music director it’s amazing to me how many people want to sing on the platform and be worship leaders or soloists, yet they have never learned to be worshippers when it’s just them and God; or people that have not learned to be a worshipper in the pew without a spot light on them. God help us to be true worshippers!

David was a Fighter-

a) Before David was the giant-slayer, and became known to slaughter thousands in battle, he learned to fight by defending his sheep. It is very important how we learn to fight. Because how we learn to fight-and what we fight for-determines if we are true fighters. David fought for the integrity of God and for those who were weak. I have seen many people that just fight when someone does them wrong… the only time they defend anything is when someone treats them in a “Un-Christian” way. But these are the same people that will not defend a brother or sister in the church. If someone else gets messed with they turn their backs and say “that’s not my battle.” As worship leaders we must be defenders of the poor and weak in spirit, we must learn how to fight for our brothers and sisters, we must learn how to share their burdens and pains. David believed in social justice!

I believe David’s love and heart for the things of God brought him the favor of God, though the Lord was clearly grieved and even punished David for his adultery and murder. The sin was punishable by death and God decided to not only spare him, but still love him as well.

God is constantly examining the hearts of his people to see what we love. He is checking to see whether we have intentions for good or for evil.

If we want to be people after God’s heart we must Love what he loves. When we love what he loves, then we begin to truly become “Holy.” That’s why I don’t spend my time asking God to help me to not commit murder every day. That’s not even something I think of, because I am spending my time asking God to help me love people. When I do say things I should not say, I believe God still loves me and is gracious… for he looks at the intent of my heart.

What keeps us from sin and pride is Love! Love for God!

As a worship leader I am asking God for the gift of a Shepherd, Worshipper and Fighter!

Great "Worship Leader Quotes"

I wanted to share some of these quotes with you all! Enjoy!

C.S. Lewis -
"The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express the same delight in
God which made David dance."

A. W. Tozer -
"Without worship, we go about miserable."

C. S. Lewis -
"We only learn to behave ourselves in the presence of God."

Stephen Rivers -

"Great worship leaders are born through pain and suffering."

Jack Hayford -
"Worship changes the worshiper into the image of the One worshiped"

Lamar Boschman -
"When I worship, I would rather my heart be without words than my words be without
heart."

Graham Kendrick -
"Worship is first and foremost for His benefit, not ours, though it is marvelous to
discover that in giving Him pleasure, we ourselves enter into what can become our
richest and most wholesome experience in life." p.58 "A Heart For Worship" by Lamar
Boschman

Tommy Walker -
"How quickly we forget what it's all about. We can get so strategic that we worship so
our church will grow, not because He is worthy. But we're doing all this because God is
worthy and we want to worship Him."

Paul E. Billheimer -
"Surely that which occupies the total time and energies of heaven must be a fitting
pattern for earth."

Henry Sloane Coffin -
"If there is one characteristic more than others that contemporary public worship needs
to recapture it is this awe before the surpassingly great and gracious God."


Now there's nothing left to do but to worship Him!

"Your Offering is in the way"

Worship is a beautiful thing, when you are before God and you feel his love it seems like everything in that moment seems so perfect your worship flows and its like you can feel the breath of God.

It's so wonderful when you can come before God with an offering of praise, maybe even an offering of "I lived a pretty righteous life this year," an offering of "I read my bible everyday this week," an offering of "I have been faithful to my wife and kids," or an offering of "I suffered for Christ sake this week by standing up for righteousness when the guys at work where telling dirty jokes," and I could go on. My point is, it just feels good when you have something to offer God in worship, and I think most of us even believe God mostly only responds to us when we bring an offering.

However, what happens to our worship when we have absolutely nothing to offer God. I am talking about those times when you have not lived up to par. When you said things that a Christian should not say, when you watched things a Christian should not watch. And even sometimes we just get "weary in well doing," and even our righteousness feels empty and ritual.

I have come to realize that my "offerings have been in the way." In other words when I felt I had something to bring to God I only got a pat on the back, but when I know I did not have anything to offer God is when God started to change me, so when I began to lift my empty hands up before God and when God reached back down and found no offering in my hands to take and accept,instead of pulling back is hands he went ahead and took my empty hands and pulled me up to his side.

And so sometimes our "offerings can be in the way" of Gods intervention, but when we come before him empty and void, God has room to fill us.

Psalm 51:17 declares: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."

Pray, Discover And Name It

God himself defines the word “Creative”. Everything about him is everything but simple or “lame”. Our Father created everything with so much detail, greatness and splendor. We as people just don’t have the length of life of on this earth to fully discover all the Father has created, but it will take one generation after another to “Discover” and “Name” what God has put in place.
Scientist and inventors in multi-million dollar research centers stand behind telescopes and sit behind desks and proclaim to be creators in a God like fashion, but I beg to differ they are only discovering and picking up on clues that the Lord has left us. And Brothers and Sisters we have yet to discover the full greatness of our Father.
Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”
Genesis 2:1 “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.”
The first responsibility the Lord gave Adam is to dress and keep, in other words to take care of it, and this is what I call to “discover” you cannot keep anything you have not discovered. Genesis 2:15 “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress and keep it.“
The second responsibility the Lord gave is to “Name” the discoveries. Genesis 2:19 “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature , that was the name thereof.”
There is nothing new under the sun, every invention you can think of the light bulb, type writer, internet, video and the list goes on. Nothing is new, but was only newly discovered and named.
This brings me to my main point: Many times as worship leaders or music directors we are labeled as being “Creative” and that comes with pressures to do things new, write abstract songs about the Lord or to create some new beats and electronic noise to come up with some weird new sound to impress and wow the masses.
But the way we are going to be truly “Creative” is to let the Lord be the “Creator” and us be the “Discoverer” (means to learn or notice) and that will only come through prayer; we must seek the will of the Father and ask him what he wants to hear us sing unto him in our worship services.
I am not against the word “Creative” or the label “Creative & Arts Director,” I am wanting to simple remind us who is truly the “Creative One” and that is the “Creator,” we are merely following where God leads us to go, we are growing and gaining only when God promotes us.
I believe the Lord has so much for us to discover, lets pray and ask God what new songs he wants us to write, lets ask God to help us discover new technologies that may assist us in our worship services, plays, dramas etc…..Pray, Discover And Name it. Be blessed

We Have Overcome

I was really happy how the choir did this past Sunday...good stuff happening. A new song has been on my heart to share with the church this coming Sunday..."We Have Overcome," the preaching this past week has been about being resurrected (for there to be a resurrection there needs to be a death) in others words if you feel your dreams have died..”Watch Out” you are getting ready for a resurrection. Enjoy this song!

Singing The Word

I have been praying about the importance of really believing what we sing "To Come To Pass" just as we do in prayer.

Most Christians pray a specific prayer because they want to see God move in a specific way, but so many times in my experience of watching people during a worship service, is that often singing a song that may have a very specific and powerful request, for example songs like "Open the Eyes of My Heart," "Draw Me Close To You" or "Change My Heart O God," can be sung with more like wishful thinking (or singing in this case). And if we are not careful we can even sound like a young man sweet talking a young lady and saying anything to win her heart, even saying things that aren't true. And let me add there is no way to over exaggerate God's greatness and beauty, but I am speaking of singing with great fantasy and not really believing everything we sing, so because our unbelief or maybe even immaturity we are not seeing God answer what we are singing.

I have seen so many people sing great and some of the most powerful "Prayers" that you know God would answer if they would actually truly believe.

Psalm 119:171-172171 "My lips will pour forth praise, for you ,teach me your statutes. 172 My tongue will sing of your word, for all your commandments are right." These are the words of David.

David is our prime example of one worship leader that God called "A Man After My Own Heart," he sung his way through the good and bad times and saw God answer many of his songs.

Our time in the worship service is another form of a prayer meeting, where we can seek God and cry out to the Lord and have him answer our singing. I pray that we all can approach the worship service with great faith and carefulness and that we make sure that what we sing is related to the word of God, and then we can see God move in our worship services on another level. I can look back upon my life and tell you about worship services where I belive I grew in the Lord.