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Before I get into the actual tips-I’d like to share some things.

**You may find it hard to try to follow all these tips right away as if someone who is trying to teach you how to dance just taught you 10 dance moves at once and expects you to automatically do them immediately. Perhaps it would be a good idea to read through this once and focus on one tip at a time until you are used to it and then go on to the next one, then the next, and then if you want to go further you can keep learning from the Bible, the Holy Spirit, from Worship Leaders, Pastors, and Bible teachers who know this topic accurately by the Holy Spirit.

*Technically, our whole life and every activity of faith mentioned in God’s words can be an expression of worship toward God and not just singing to God, but this ‘message’ is focused on how to sing to God in Spirit and Truth and I think it covers some important points that a lot of other Bible teachers have missed.

I’ve attended a lot of Churches and watched a lot of sermons online and it seems to me that it’s common for worship leaders to remind people about the importance of worshiping God with your heart and indeed it is important. Without love we would just be like a resounding gong or a clanging symbol (1 Cor. 13:1). However since so many others are teaching about this, I think that I hardly need to mention it. Churches that tend to emphasize the Holy Spirit also tend to talk about the importance of worshiping God in the Holy Spirit which is very important and is a good message if it’s taught accurately. However, I rarely hear worship leaders talk about the importance of worshiping in Truth and the importance of worshiping with your mind (as well as your heart). Luke 10:27 …”Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” Notice that Jesus said “with all your heart” and “with all your mind”. He didn’t say the heart is good and the mind is bad.

When I was a new Christian some elder Christians told me something that was totally false and they realized it later and corrected themselves. They said, “what’s the difference between heaven and hell? One foot.” They were trying to say that there is about one foot between your mind and your heart. This implies that the mind is sinful and the heart is moral, ethical, and good. Scripturally speaking there is no one righteous not even one (Rom. 3:10). True goodness does not come from our hearts or minds when they are separated from God, but God’s goodness can be in both when our hearts and minds are influenced by Him (by His words and the Holy Spirit). Believing in Jesus is the first step to being influenced by Him and by far the most important. After that, we should seek to be sanctified in God’s words that are truth and to keep in step with the Holy Spirit.

John 17:17 “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”

Matthew 13:33 …”The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a women took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

Galatians 5:25 “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”

Consider how God’s words in these three verses might apply to singing to God in worship…

We should worship in Spirit and Truth and also do our best to keep worshiping in Spirit and Truth without ‘interruptions’ to the Holy Spirit and the Truth. Interruptions can occur when our thoughts, the inclinations of our hearts or our actions contain something contrary to God’s words and therefore to God Himself. This teaching shouldn’t make us feel condemned, but rather motivate us to keep striving with God’s help for holiness and purity. Instead of oversimplifying things and thinking of holiness and purity as not doing ‘the ten main things that sinful people do’ think of it as knowing God and God’s will in detail according to His words and living according to His words (especially in the New Testament). We won’t be able to follow God’s words perfectly one hundred percent of the time because our flesh will get in the way, but don’t despair because God is our merciful loving Father who loves us and gave us grace and forgiveness through our Lord Jesus Christ. This grace should motivate us to live a more and more holy life unto God. We need to learn to do a pretty good job of it because it makes a big difference although only Jesus lived completely without sin. He is literally the only One in the history of the world who lived completely without sin. Which is part of why He was able to atone for our sins, but offering Himself. Jesus lived a perfectly holy live. We should be more like Him and learn to live a more holy life as we live by His grace.

If you’ve experienced being filled with the Holy Spirit before and being strongly influenced by Him, then you know that it can be hard to maintain this situation all the time. The Holy Spirit is very Holy and if you have any thoughts in your mind or inclinations in your heart that are contrary to God during the moments of your day (or night) you may find yourself being less influenced by the Holy Spirit. He is Almighty, but gentle and will influence you to the degree that you let Him and will influence you less as you start resisting Him and asserting your will in ways that are contrary to God. Keeping in step with the Spirit will enable you to live from moment to moment according to God’s will and pleasing Jesus our Lord.

If we start to admire, accept or get interested in false teachings (even if it’s just one little false idea). These things can interrupt our relationship with the Holy Spirit and His influence over us. These interruptions can potentially make us a lot less powerful and capable as servants of God because the Holy Spirit is the One who empowers us and makes us capable.

This is why Jesus said (Mark 2:22) “And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.” We are the wineskins and the new wine is the word of God and the Holy Spirit works where we have God’s words and are in submission to them.

In the modern world, many don’t like the word submission, but patients submit to expert doctors for their own benefit and construction workers who build bridges submit to expert construction managers for the benefit of many. Submission isn’t bad if you are submitting to our perfect God. No one is more intelligent, wise, or powerful than God so submitting to God is absolutely a good thing for us and it’s humble. Even Jesus the Son submitted to God the Father and even Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit. Jesus the Son is equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit, but He submitted to God the Father throughout His ministry on earth. Are we greater than Jesus? Certainly not! He’s our Lord-He’s so much greater than any of us. He is the King who died for His people.

God is all powerful, but He wants us to use our free will to follow His righteous ways. The righteous ways He told us about in His words. So even though He is almighty, God lets us choose during each moment of our lives whether to live in line with His will or not.

Some Christians might say (after having read the last few paragraphs), ‘I accepted Jesus, but I smoke cigarettes and I yelled at the guy in the mustang who cut me off in traffic’, ‘I accepted Jesus, but then later I got jealous and I got selfish, and I teased my friend in front of my other friends and he got hurt’. We’ve saved by grace. We didn’t earn our salvation through our works so even if you said something or did something wrong like this, you are still saved. God didn’t like what you did, but He still loves you and you are still saved. You may have interrupted the Holy Spirit, and His influence over you may have temporarily diminished due to your inward or outward actions, but the Holy Spirit is still with you forever when you are saved-when you have believed in Jesus as your Lord and Savior. So, if you sinned, repent and ask God to help you do better. We should do it now, but if we are caught in a sin, don’t let guilt or discouragement over your sin stop you from continuing to try to be holy and obey. Just because you didn’t maintain a holy life yet, doesn’t mean that you never will. Don’t let the devil try to convince you that you should just give up. Get up! And Keep trying with God’s help! God is pleased by every good thing in His words that you are doing in your life. He can help you change the things that are not in line with His will. Some are sining and they know they are wrong and others are sinning and they don’t realize that you sining and think they are living a holy life. Maybe some pious Christians think that because they are avoiding the ‘the ten or fifteen things that sinful people do’ they are not sinning similar to the way the Pharisees thought. God’s words are a lamp to our feet and a light for our path-they reveal what needs to be changed so we will be more blessed and empowered by God in our lives. It’s good to let God correct us and help us repent as we read through His words daily and weekly. This will draw us nearer to God and help keep us humble and reliant on God.

Among those that are saved, the degree to which each one lives from moment to moment by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Truth), and by the guidance and influence of the Holy Spirit-well, it varies greatly from one to another. We should not say, ‘yeah, man I’m saved so which way to the wild drug party. That’s what my heart wants as I sing songs to God.’ or ‘yeah, I’m a very holy Christian so I condemn others all day and I hate them and I’m better than them. I will go sing songs to God now and think this way as I sing them. Oh yeah, and I really hurt and offended people who came to Church so now they don’t want to go anymore. Thank God that I am superior in holiness!’ We all have something that we need to work on-some more than others. And some us don’t even know that we’re wrong, but God does.

If any Christians have learned to do well when it comes to living by God’s words and by the Holy Spirit they should be humble as well (God’s words tell us to be humble and to be like Jesus who is humble). Wanting to be admired and be seen as great or thinking you are superior to others is worldly and contrary to God’s will (Acts 8:9, Revelation 13:5, James 3:14-16, Romans 12:3, Numbers 12:3, Ephesians 3:8). Philippians 2:3 “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit. but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.” (NJKV)

Sometimes when Christians have certain gifts of the Holy Spirit or God uses them mightily they become proud and start to go astray. They started out well, but they started to become proud or were tempted in some way. We should not classify ourselves or Christians with the same spiritual gifts as us or Christians that are in some way a part of our group as superior. Rather, let’s in humility consider others better than ourselves. If God works through you more, then like Moses or Paul you should be more humble if you want God to keep working through you. God is working for His glory not ours. He will honor us someday and call us faithful servants if we were humble and obedient on earth.

I think we can be honest and also consider others better than ourselves even if we have been mightily used by God. Because, for one thing, there is typically something better about another person or another group of Christians. Something impressive about their character, their actions, their generosity, their service to others, their musical talent, their intellectual abilities they use for God, their interpersonal skills, ect.

Even among nonChristians, many are absolutely amazing at their jobs and are very talented. Choose to think humble thoughts that are also honest and sincere. Some may be reading this and think, ‘man this Christian thing is hard. maybe I should just give up.’ Christian life aside, even life is hard and many have lived hard lives and then when they died it was all for nothing. But Christians who strive to live according to God’s will receive not only salvation and a place in heaven, but an eternal reward that on one can take away. So, if you think Christian life is too demanding, you are not seeing the whole picture and you should read the whole New Testament at least once to gain a better understanding of what you gain from living according to God’s will. It’s not just about doing what’s right, it’s about what you have to gain from living this way.

I am finally ready to start teaching about tips for singing to God. This was like a long introduction to help us understand how what is typed up below is related to aiming to worship in the Holy Spirit and in the Truth. And to do so as well as we can the whole time that we are singing to God.

*Please keep in mind that this is blog is a work in progress and I am still working on it though it’s already here.

 

1. Focus on Singing to God and for God While You Sing

While singing “Happy Birthday” to the guest of honor at a birthday party, those singing focus on singing to that person and focus on that person while they sing.

How much more should we focus on signing to God and focus on God while we sing?

On the other hand while a person is alone in their room or out for karaoke he/she might sing just because he/she likes singing. (Not that I am endorsing karaoke-I guess it depends)

Now let’s say he or she is sitting at a table with a birthday person and sings happy birthday, but somehow people notice that his or her signing is not very well directed toward the birthday person and the singing is not really for the birthday person as much as it is about that he or she likes to sing. Then, this really isn’t about the birthday person, but about him or herself. In fact, it’s kind of disrespectful.

God is much greater than any birthday person. We don’t worship people and we don’t worship ourselves, but we do worship God….because He’s God-unique, almighty, our Creator, and indeed we cannot even grasp how great He is without the help of the Holy Spirit and it seems like even then we are only knowing in part.

Holiness means to be set apart, reserved for God and spiritually sanctified with God’s help. Therefore, when we sing to God we should really make a conscious distinction between sining to God in worship vs. other kinds of singing. Sining for God and to God vs singing kinda mindlessly and aimlessly or mostly for our own enjoyment. God has given us many things to enjoy in life because He’s good-all the more reason to worship Him with songs and aim at focusing on Him and trying to make sure He enjoys our songs to Him. He is the one who gave us the ability to sing so it seems fitting that we should sing to Him as well as we can when we are signing songs to Him in worship.

2. Emotion for God, not Emotion Without Direction

Some get off track with emotion while singing to God. It’s one thing to have emotion for God as part of your worship when you sing to God. It’s another to focus on enjoying your emotional state while you worship rather than focus on worshiping God. Some people can sing and get in a deep emotional state without God and without worship songs. We should be careful that we don’t end up doing something similar to that while worshiping God. If we are emotional during worship, we should try to have our emotions be influenced and directed by the Holy Spirit as much as possible. and our emotions should be specifically focused on God and not just kind of encompassing us without direction.

*I said that we should try to have our emotions be influenced and directed by the Holy Spirit as much as possible, but some are better than others at this and even those of us that are good at this are likely to not always feel the Holy Spirit’s guidance. So, we can pray before we worship that God will help us do all this and then we can just direct our emotions toward God continuously during worship with our will and believe that the Holy Spirit will work as we prayed He would even if we don’t feel Him-because it’s God’s will and because God promised to answer our prayers. We can also keep praying about this until we are more confident God is working and helping us direct our emotions and efforts toward Him by the Holy Spirit. As Christians, we can often feel the Holy Spirits’ guidance and experience the various ways that He works, but we do not rely on our feelings too much, we rely on scripture and faith in scripture which is why we can keep serving God and honoring God even during moments when we don’t feel so inspired by the Holy Spirit. It’s good to seek to be guided by the Holy Spirit and inspired by the Holy Spirit earnestly, but even if we don’t feel Him sometimes we should not be moved, and if we do feel Him we should not move from scripture because the Holy Spirit will never contradict scripture. The Holy Spirit will only guide us according to scripture and will never add anything to scripture. We may not feel so inspired by the Holy Spirit sometimes, but as we keep focusing on God’s grace, and on the Holy Spirit Himself, and doing God’s works, we will likely start to feel inspired by the Holy Spirit again soon. More influence of the Holy Spirit helps us serve God better, but even if we do not feel the Holy Spirit we are still saved and in God’s grace. The Bible does not say we must feel the Holy Spirit in order to be saved and in God’s grace. We simply believe what the scripture says as the Holy Spirit enables us whether we feel Him or not (Matthew 16:13-17, I Corinthians 12:3). Sometimes the Holy Spirit will be working as we live according to God’s words and we won’t even realize it. When we are in God’s grace, when we prayed the Holy Spirit would work according to God’s words, when we have faith these prayers are answered, when we are sharing God’s words and doing God’s works, when we believe the Holy Spirit is working whether we always feel Him working or not-the Holy Spirit will work. Hope that was not too ‘wordy’ and ‘repetitive’. Well, it was, but don’t let that stop you from getting important stuff.

3. Worship in Truth

When we think of God during worship we should think of Him according His words and not according to our own ideas about God. If a person worships and thinks of the name of Jesus, the person of Jesus we read about in the Bible, the God and Father or Jesus our Lord Jesus Christ who sent Him, directed Him, and raised Him from the dead…if we think of the Holy Spirit who testifies to Jesus, indwells born again Christians, speaks what He hears from the Father, and performs signs and wonders among us (of course we can worship according other words of God too) we can have a powerful worship that pleases God. If you walk into a Church where people are doing this and you are spiritually sensitive you can often feel the power of God.

If you don’t know the Bible very well yet, then just think of God according to what little you already learned from the Bible as you sing, and sing with your heart and do your best. I think God will be pleased. But, as time goes by, you can keep trying to improve by following the tips I placed here.

Some may make a mistake and might imagine an image of what they think God looks like or is like based on ideas about God they got from the world as they grew up in it rather than from God’s revealed words in the Bible. For example, they may imagine an image of God the Father that looks more like Greek Mythological gods (which are not real) or like “Father Time” (not real) which they may have seen in movies or in cartoons as kids or in imagines or ideas they picked up here or there in the world, and which blasphemously misrepresent God. Many who never truly met Jesus and aren’t Christian would say, “I believe in God” and they have an idea of what they think God is like, but their ideas about God are more or less misrepresentations of God which need to be corrected by God’s revealed words about Himself. I think some Christians also have some world knowledge mixed in and confused with their Bible knowledge. This is also why, in addition to attending worship service on the Lord’s Day, it’s important to attend a good Bible study group and to study the Bible regularly and pray to understand it accurately. So, you don’t end up misrepresenting the Son, the Holy Spirit or the Father in your mind.

Technically, no one other than Jesus has ever seen the Father nor can see the Father. We know the Father through the Son who is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3; notice that no where in the Bible does it say that the Son is the Father. *More about my explanation of the Trinity in my Statement of Faith on this website). We know the Father through the Son who is the image of the Father (Colossians 1:15, 2 Corinthians 4:4) and through the words about the Father. A Christian could possibly have a vision in which they see the Son (I think this is rare), but they cannot have a vision in which they see the Father (John 1:18, John 6:46, 1 Timothy 6:16). If any Christian says they saw the Father in a vision-they have been influenced by deceiving spirits or they are lying. Be very careful about receiving God words from a person who claims something that is clearly contrary to scripture. That person person needs to repent, and pray hard and often to only be influenced by the Holy Spirit from then on as they study the scriptures a lot and learn from preachers who excel in Biblical knowledge and discernment of spirits and who have good fruit. No, I don’t mean apples or pears. haha

If a person is trying to sing songs to God, but pictures God according to their own ideas rather than what’s revealed in scripture this can interrupt the Holy Spirit, disrupt our worship to God and possibly worse…if a person sings to God with a picture of what they think God looks like or is like according to their own ideas or some ideas they heard in the world rather than what’s revealed in Biblical scripture this is not worshiping in truth and is contrary to the way Jesus instructed us to worship.

John 4:23-24 “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in the truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in Spirit and in truth.”

Notice that it doesn’t say, ‘God is flexible and loves you so much that even if you don’t worship in Spirit and truth it’s ok.’ God loves us and wants to teach us how to worship in Spirit and truth which pleases Him and is better for our souls. He does not want to us to worship according to other ideas, other than the truth. The devil, God’s enemy (and his corrupted angels) that God will send to hell in the future have planted all kinds of blasphemous and contrary ideas in people’s minds, in some works of literature and media, and in cultures and subcultures throughout the world. These ideas get in people’s minds and in Christians minds who are also in the world, but studying God’s words by the Holy Spirit more often helps us get them out so we can worship God better.

**Don’t be worried that you won’t worship God correctly, thank God you will keep learning how to worship Him better and better.

In John 4:23-24 Jesus said to worship in truth. What does Jesus mean by truth? John 17:17 “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” Therefore, when we sing songs to God in worship we should only think of God according to His revealed words.

 

The more we do this the better (brace yourself because you might find the rest of this paragraph and the next one to be complicated). John 14:6a “I am the way and the truth and the life…” Jesus is the truth and God’s revealed faith centers on Jesus. It’s accurate to say that it’s not faith without Jesus. Jesus is our one and only mediator to God the Father and we go to the Father through Him and the Holy Spirit can indwell us and direct us and help us after we have faith in Jesus. Jesus is our connection to God the Father so in the Bible anytime someone had faith it was either with knowledge of Jesus during New Testament times (as we are living in too) or if it was during Old Testament times it was a testimony to the future coming of Jesus (John 5:39, John 5:46, Luke 24:44, Acts 17:2-3, Hebrews 10:1, Hebrews 11:39-40). Yes, their faith was always related in some way to the future coming of Jesus even if some of those Old Testament prophets and people of God understood more than others…and none of them knew in as great a detail as people can know during New Testament times (Luke 10:24). Those who served God and had a relationship with God during Old Testament times had a role like that of John the Baptist-to prepare for the coming of Jesus Christ. The New Covenant was already planned for every nation even while God was giving the Old Covenant through Moses to Israel. Excuse me for diverting into another topic, but my point is that in order to really have faith in relation to God the Father-Jesus must be involved and hopefully after discussing that we are more prepared to worship in truth. God’s words (with faith in Jesus) are truth and Jesus is the truth (God’s words are truth whether we have faith in them or not, but without faith in Jesus we don’t truly understand them, they don’t dwell within us and all these words are related to faith in Jesus and testify of Jesus). *If this sounds hard to understand you are not alone, but reading the gospel of John many times and praying for the Holy Spirit to us help us understand helps a lot. The way the word “truth” is used by Jesus in the New Testament refers more than the way we typically use the word truth to refer to facts that are true vs ones that are not. When Jesus uses the word truth in the New Testament, this word is specifically for God’s truth/God’s words (that go on forever) and Jesus (who lives forever)-God’s words given through Jesus and Jesus Himself. The Holy Spirit is also called the Spirit of truth, who testifies to Jesus and guides us into all truth. So if we want to understand what Jesus means by truth more deeply we should study the scriptures a lot (especially the gospel of John where truth is mentioned often) and pray for the Holy Spirit to teach us the meaning.

We don’t have to know everything when we just met Jesus, but as time goes by and we mature we can keep learning more. The New Testament was originally written in Greek and the word truth as Jesus used it doesn’t translate as well into English. Studying it in Greek might help a little, but it’s far more important to understand by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit knows exactly what God’s words mean and can help believers who read the Bible in any language to understand God’s words deeply and holistically. This way people of all nations who speak different languages can understand well. God loves them all, wants to help them all, and helps us overcome our weaknesses so we can serve God well.

So, when we sing songs to God we should try to aim our minds, hearts, bodies movements and words toward God and focus on doing it for God and think of God according to His revealed words so that we worship in truth. That might sound complicated, but it’s likely not as much effort as many of us have made to learn to how to play our favorite sport well. I like sports too, but this is more important than sports. We can train ourselves and get used to worshiping more effectively.

We should also try to relate the lyrics of the songs to God’s words in Biblical scripture because this will please God and make our worship more powerful. This is why I personally don’t like worship lyrics that are too vague or abstract. I haven’t heard many songs like this, but I have heard a few that sounded something like, ‘The waters flowing down–currents rising up– the bubbles are everywhere–and I am floating–higher and—higher.’ A person who wrote a song like that may have started with (John 7:38 “Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within him.”) and just kept focusing on the fact that Jesus said “rivers” while centering the lyrics around thinking of things related to water. But, we see in John 7:39 that we get an explanation so we understand what Jesus is talking about: “By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not yet been given since Jesus had not yet been glorified.” Jesus talked about “river of living water” to get people to think about the Holy Spirit and He did not mention “rivers of living water” to get us thinking about water so I think worship songs that mention things like “rivers of living water” should make some clear connections for the singers and not be too vague or abstract. Matthew 16:5-12 provides a further example of why we should try to understand what Biblical parables are really about when handling them and not remain vague in our understanding or misdirected. If possible, we should understand what we are sining about (Mat. 13:23). A new person might not know the scriptures well yet and we likely don’t have every bit scripture memorized, but we can at least relate the song lyrics to some scriptures that we know in the Bible and just simply believe that God is pleased by the way we are directing the song toward Him. Even so, people try to improve how well they do their jobs at work and how well they perform their hobbies like sports, ect. so shouldn’t we keep trying to improve our worship?

A little more about this. I used to sing this worship song to God which I think is a good song. “Crucified and laid behind the stone. You lived to die rejected and alone. Like a rose trampled on the ground. You took the fall and thought of me above all” I think the “like a rose” part is good because the meaning is clear to the those who are singing and the content is very Biblical. But if there was more and more talk about the rose and the lyrics were to become more and more abstract I would prefer to sing a different song. However, if you end up in a Church where they are playing a song with some very abstract lyrics don’t worry about it just sing every for the glory of God-God knows your heart. You probably won’t find many worship songs that are too abstract or vague, but I think there are some and you might want to consider not adding them to your playlist.

Say there is a room full of people and you want to talk to one person among them. How would you do that? I suppose you would face that person, get closer to him, look at him while you are speaking and perhaps call him by name and talk about him. There may be many people around you while you are worshiping God and there could be many thoughts going through your head if you allow them to, but if we want to have a really good worship time let’s not focus on those around us or on thoughts about other people or things, but let’s focus on God and worshiping God as best we can. I say as best we can because we likely won’t do it perfectly and we don’t have to be perfect to live by grace-and we do live by grace. We don’t go to heaven because we did a really good job signing, but we go to heaven because Jesus died for us on the cross and shed His blood of us so that our sins could be forgiven. But, once we receive God’s free gift of grace we should live for God with all our hearts…or should we be living for someone or something else? When we come to know Jesus we likely have 20, 40, 60 years + left of life in this world and who should we live it for? Jesus is right at the center of our lives and He is King, not just King, but the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and is an absolutely good King of died for His subjects, who are not just subjects, but sons and daughters who live forever. He gave so much for us and we should give so much for Him even though what we give doesn’t save us. Even if we don’t manage to give Him 100% of our hearts and minds-the more we give the better and the more pleasing to God so let’s not be discouraged. God loves us in spite of our imperfections. But let’s keep trying to improve. After all, we will face challenges and we want to overcome them and worshiping God and living for God better and better will help.

Philippians 4:6-7 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guards your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

Although we should worship in Spirit and truth while focusing on God and focusing on singing the lyrics to God and trying to think about how the lyrics relate to scripture, we should not be anxious and worry that we are not doing these things well enough or that moreover the song might not be a good song to sing to God with. We do not want to worship God with anxiety or worry or fear. So whereas these tips are meant to improve our ability to worship God they are not meant to make us worry or anxious or afraid or to feel guilty. We can study these things, pray to be able to do these things, try to do these things as we worship and then not worry about whether or not we are doing a good job as we do it. Don’t let these tips make you more anxious, rather let them give you more confidence that you will be able to worship better and while you worship just try your best and believe that God is pleased and just keep trying to improve over time. I don’t think God will hold a new believer on day one to the same standard that he will hold a mature Christians to, but no matter what phase of maturity were are currently at we can please God by signing to Him right now and we can keep improving.

Philippians 4:9 “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me-put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”

The better of a job worshiping and leading the worship team does in your Church, the better you can learn to worship from them as they lead you and set an example. You may also be influenced by other members of your Church since you may see them worship and talk with them about it later. The better they are at it the easier it will be for you to be good at it too, but it’s still up to you. How well you can do will also depend on how much time and effort you spend studying, praying, trying, and practicing.

Romans 1:11 “I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you to make you strong-”

I believe this shows that spiritual gifts (at least some of them) are imparted under certain circumstances when believers are near each other. Perhaps through landing hands on others and praying for them to have a gift, but I believe this can also happen without laying hands on people (Acts 10:44-46). I believe this can happen by listening to God’s words being spoken by others and perhaps in other ways when we are functioning according to God’s words. So, I think that if you attend a Church service where the worshipers are really doing a good job of worshiping in Spirit and truth (and more so if they are living their Christian lives well) this is likely to effect you spiritually in positive way as you worship God.

I think the reverse is also true. There may be some Churches that had good intentions, but didn’t realize there is something very wrong with the way they sing and someone with discernment of spirits can feel that the spiritual environment is bad. I figure some will disagree with me about this and perhaps even get a bit upset with me for saying it. But we can’t solve problems without revealing them. Every epistle in the New Testament discusses problems in Churches and also provides solutions. Let me give you an example of one way a Church might do a bad job of attempting to worship. Let’s say someone plants a Church in a country where idolatry is very present in the culture and family lives of most people (Acts 17:16). Some of the local people in that country get born again and start going to Church. They used to sing to idols and now they are trying to sing to God. But they still sing to God with idolatrous ideas in their minds without realizing it. They accepted Jesus, but they did not change all their thinking. I believe Simon the sorcerer was like this (Acts 8:9-24). Simon believed and was baptized, but he thought he could buy the Holy Spirit with money. Can you imagine if someone suggested that they buy God the Father with money or buy Jesus with money? What a horrible, terribly irreverent, blasphemous thought. But this man who believed and was baptized was still thinking this way. I believe there are many less extreme examples of ideas we could have unknowingly picked up here or there from people, culture, sub-cultures, trends, movies, games, songs, books, essays, ect. in the world that may be stowing away in our minds degrading our worship and service to God. Whether such ideas may interfere a lot or a little I think the biggest part of the solution is to spend more time reading the Bible and understanding it by the Holy Spirit and changing the way we think to adjust to Bible.

Romans 12:2 “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-his good, pleasing, and perfect will.”

The world tries to fill our heads with bad ideas that displease God as we grow up and live our adult lives. The world tries to shape us so we live, think, and act in ways that are contrary to God. In a number of cases we end up getting ideas and behaviors in us we don’t even always realize are wrong. Simon the sorcerer didn’t seem to know how wrong he was. He was straightforward and told Peter he wanted to pay money to be able to lay hands on people to receive the Holy Spirit. I think we can gather from this not only how important it is to worship in truth, but to not worship with ideas that are contrary to the truth, nor to live our Christian lives with ideas that are contrary to the truth.

We may think of these idolatrous cultures as far off and distant, but we can also get influenced by bad influences that are present in the world around us in our own culture, on television, in music, in books, in essays, in the media, from coworkers, ect. that can that can sow bad things into us as well if we are not careful. I don’t necessary say that Christians should never watch any channels or any shows on TV, but discern whether or not something is harmful to their faith lives and if it’s harmful resist. In some cases you can’t get away from bad influences. Your spouse for example, might not believe and you may otherwise get along with her or him pretty well, but sometimes they say anti-Christian or idolatrous things. Your boss and coworkers may sometimes be a bad influence, but that does not mean you should quit your job. Paul went to cities where there was a lot of sin to evangelize and build Churches. He did not hide in a forest away from sinful big cities he just kept himself pure as lived among them and he tried to be at peace with everyone without conforming to the world himself and while still carrying God’s will.

 

These things may not interrupt our spiritual lives as severely, but they can interrupt it. One way I can think of is, some people used to like to make Neo from that movie the Matrix a metaphor for Jesus

 

*Some might think this teaching is way too rigid, ‘Oh, really! Is this how theologians worship?! Just keep it simple! God care about your heart, not your head!’ Scripturally speaking, God cares about both (Luke 10:27). Why do we put so much time and effort into our complicated jobs and our secular education and  so little into our faith? The way we worship and live our lives of faith will effect our spiritual state and the spiritual environment at our Churches. The Holy Spirit works upon God’s words and other spirits work upon ideas that are contrary to God’s words. Even if I get persecuted a bit and some people like me less, I will post this anyway.

Many Pastors, Bible teachers and worship teams are doing a great job teaching about singing to God in worship and there are many things to teach about it-far more than what I mentioned here. I brought up some things that I think are important, often neglected or unnoticed, and useful-by God’s grace these are topics I know how to explain better, but there are many other important topics about signing to God in worship that I did not mention, and frankly I am not as good at explaining some of them as many others. Each one has their own gift from God (I Corinthians 7:7). Let’s not despise each other.

 

 

 

Notes for next part..

By the Holy Spirit

If you are around people who worship well it will likely effect you because you will learn from them impart maybe ect. Don’t worry if they do a bad job, but it might

How do I do it? Pray all all kinds or various prayers and requests about it until you get answered. \

Now let’s pray and list prayer you can pray this prayer if you want to

(to be continued…)

 

Everything in our lives of faith and in our lives can be a form of worship to God, but…

Some worship vaguely…

 

It’s important to make a clear distinction in our minds about honoring our mother and father as our mother and father, respecting our Church leaders as our Church leaders, honoring government leaders where honor is due, and only honoring God as God. We all know this, but as we move quickly from one activity to the next we might not be focusing on the differences enough. During a single worship service that occurs on say, “Father’s Day” or “Parents Day” (maybe in some countries) the Pastor might take a moment to acknowledge fathers, then we might sing worship songs to worship God and then a Pastor’s child might come out to show respect for their dad who is the Pastor of that Church and get us all to acknowledge his work and service to God as a Pastor and his service to his family as a father. Then we pray to God and the service closes. If 500 people kind of mindlessly move from one activity to the next during this service. Some are likely to not be clear in their minds about honoring each one with the kind of honor that is due them. It’s important to honor parents, government leaders, and Pastors with one of kind of honor for each and God with another kind of honor that is only for God. We all know that, but when we kinda move from ‘honoring activity’ to the next without being clear about each one in our minds I think sometimes a stray thought or inclination in our hearts kind of inadvertently get’s misdirected. This might sound too knit-picky or strict, but I think this helps created an environment where the Holy Spirit works more powerfully. The Holy Spirit works more when we are in more in the truth of God’s words and less when we have thoughts or inclinations that are contrary to the truth of God’s words. Let’s be clear about the different kinds of honor in our minds and who we are honoring. Make a little more effort to stay focused mentally and be aware of scripture which participating in each kind of honoring.

The world is full of ideas that are contrary to God’s words and we some into contact with them all the time. The more we learn to enjoy studying God’s words often and meditating on them often (while understanding them by the Holy Spirit) the easier it will be to stay in all of God’s words rather than get temporarily diverted here or there as we go along. Yeah, some could be diverted longer at certain points, but hopefully not.