"And the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near Me with their mouth and honor Me with their lips but remove their hearts and minds far from Me, and their fear and reverence for Me are a commandment of men that is learned by repetition [without any thought as to the meaning]," - Is 29:13 AMP
We say we love God but our hearts are far from Him, instead distracted by our phones and our dramas, and our constant state of alert to what other thing we might be missing. There's no practice of stillness in our lives. Every moment is full of doing something or being late or almost late, or rushing from one thing to something else, all the while being protected from thinking or being overly stressed by the sweet release of the constant buzz of all our digital media.
Where is quietness...?
Where is worship...?
There is no worship without the time to meditate on the beauty and splendor of our King, yet we seem to "lose" the time to set our minds on Him and our thoughts on His beauty. Contrary to popular Christian thought, worship is not what we do with instruments or more often, what we listen to others do with instruments and sophisticated mastering.
No, Worship is the state of our attention. Worship is the state of our heart's affection. It is to where our focus is trained. It is in the quiet awe and also in the roar of our passion. It is our heart's absorption and our easy distraction. What is it that easily takes us away in our hearts? Are we easily distracted by the thought of our Jesus' goodness or do we find ourselves ruminating on offenses of others? Are our energies spent on fuming at what slight was done to us or are we captived and utterly distracted by the wonder of the beauty of Jesus' promises and love for us?
By this criteria, most of us actually are bent towards the altar of sports or the next sweet buy. We yield ourselves towards the latest gossip so that our hearts can no longer hear the quiet whisper of the Love that longs to not only save our souls but cause us to live our present life in joyful exuberance.
There's nothing wrong with putting our worship to music but music isn't the essence of worship. Worship is tied up within the thoughts and intents of our hearts.
Our Jesus sees our hearts. He redeemed our hearts. He wants to fill our entire view with the vision of His love for us. It is so interesting that the Psalms are filled with these kinds of exclamations:
But his delight and desire are in the law of the Lord, and on His law (the precepts, the instructions, the teachings of God) he habitually meditates (ponders and studies) by day and by night. Ps 1:2
One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek, inquire for, and [insistently] require: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord [in His presence] all the days of my life, to behold and gaze upon the beauty [the sweet attractiveness and the delightful loveliness] of the Lord and to meditate, consider, and inquire in His temple. Ps 27:4
When I remember You upon my bed and meditate on You in the night watches. Ps 63:6
I call to remembrance my song in the night; with my heart I meditate and my spirit searches diligently Ps 77:6
I will meditate also upon all Your works and consider all Your [mighty] deeds. Ps 77:12
Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; meditate on and talk of all His marvelous deeds and devoutly praise them. Ps 105:2
I will meditate on Your precepts and have respect to Your ways [the paths of life marked out by Your law]. Ps 119:5
Princes also sat and talked against me, but Your servant meditated on Your statutes. Ps 119:23
Make me understand the way of Your precepts; so shall I meditate on and talk of Your wondrous works. Ps 119:27
My hands also will I lift up [in fervent supplication] to Your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on Your statutes. Ps 119:48
Let the proud be put to shame, for they dealt perversely with me without a cause; but I will meditate on Your precepts. Ps 119:78
My eyes anticipate the night watches and I am awake before the cry of the watchman, that I may meditate on Your word. Ps 119:148
I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Your doings; I ponder the work of Your hands. Ps 143:5
On the glorious splendor of Your majesty and on Your wondrous works I will meditate. Ps 145:5
As the Isaiah 30:15 tells us, "For the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel has said this, 'In returning [to Me] and rest you shall be saved, In quietness and confident trust is your strength.'”
Until our hearts settle into Him and yield to His great love for us, there will ever be a striving and a seeking in our hearts. We will be easily distracted by all this world has to offer. The author of Psalms 119 settled in heart that no matter who is speaking of him or trying to get him, he won't be distracted from his passion and meditation on the love of His God.
Until our passion for Jesus takes this bent we will like the one James 1:8 speaks of who is double-minded and unstable in all his ways.
Paul says it even clearer in Ephesians 4,
"14that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love
17 This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as [f]the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; 19 who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
20 But you have not so learned Christ, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: 22 that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, 23 and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness."
Until we settle that our undistracted focus should be in Jesus, we run the risk that we will decend into the futility our unredeemed nature so easily lives in.
Our worship must be with the clean hands given us by the redemption of the cross, and the pure heart of a single-eyed focus of faith.(Ps 24:4) Until we let all other distractions go, lay aside every other weight, set our eyes like doves eyes, single-focused on our Love, we only rob ourselves of the bliss of worship and intimacy our own hearts are craving.
It is ours to choose what or whom to set as our first Love and once that is settled we will easily live daily in the joy of worship.
