Can We Depend Upon Something External to Bring Us Before The Throne of God?

Music has always been a HUGE part of my life. Heck, I first came to Christ, not during a sermon, but during a song. I most easily, most quickly feel God’s presence through music. I imagine that is rather typical as every church I have attended, and heard of, has music in some form. Indeed, music certainly has a place in our lives and in our churches, but it seems that we, as believers, have developed a dependancy on music. It has become a crutch to us. We seem to NEED it. And the church leaders want people to feel something. They want you to enjoy church so that you’ll come back, and so they go for the gut.

Going to church is an emotional experience a lot of the time, and that seems to be the way we like it. We put on dramas and skits during service to entertain. We show emotional clips of children to soften our hearts. The sermons are geared to make us leave feeling great. Is it, then, any wonder that music is such a focus in the modern church? Is it any wonder we often can walk out of the church and not remember a word the pastor said but we can remember the set the worship team played?

Music is a very useful tool, but when people argue that we aren't allowing the Sprit to minister to those in attendance because we end the music, well, that could be argued as bordering on a dependancy. We should be able to feel God's presence without music. And even if we don't feel His presence we can still worship Him. We don't, necessarily, have to feel it for it to be worship. Nor do we have to sing to bring praise to God's throne.

Take for instance in a normal Sunday service. You get up sing three songs sit back down take an offering and the pastor starts his sermon. That barely gives any time for the Holy Spirit to minister to people. And if it is ministering to people they get cut off because worship is over and it is time to sit and do offering.

From Frenzyboard(emphasis mine)

What you are saying here implies that the Holy Spirit is unable to touch people, to stir their hearts, without music. Worship isn't 3 songs. Worship is our lives! Everything we do should be an act of worship. When we wash the dishes, mop the floor, do the laundry, change the baby’s diaper, or make love to our spouse, these are all supposed to be acts of worship because our lives are to be spent, every moment of them, worshiping Christ in all His Glory.

Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the Spirit.(1 Thessalonians 5:17-19)

We are to give thanks in everything, and not quench the Spirit. So, why is it so many of us walk around with this gapping void inside of us that we think can only be filled at church on Sundays during the worship team’s music set? If that is the only time you’re being touched by God, why is it? What do we do differently on Sundays that allows us to feel Him standing amongst us?

Some argue that church is to “stuffy,”to structured. That when we have a way of doing things we aren’t really allowing the Spirit to move. Structure isn't bad, nor does it really impede upon the Spirit. And, quite honestly, when the Spirit is really moving within the service the pastors and worship leaders tend to go with the flow. I really don't think stopping the singing to hear a message that is delivered upon God's very Word would be stepping on the Spirit's toes any.

More often than not it is after the music has ended that I really get something great from God. The music may stir my spirit, but the Word feeds my soul. And I think a lot of the time we want to feel that stirring, we seek that out and don’t want it to end and we end up putting the Word God has for us to the side so that we can keep the feeling. But then is it really God stirring our soul or is it us creating an emotional response to something because we want to feel something?

If it is God then there (more often than not) should be more than just that feeling. We cannot continue to base our relationship with God on our feelings, nor can we depend upon something external to bring us before His throne. We must willfully, actively submit ourselves to Him. We need to (if only figuratively) raise our hands, we must give Him the thanks and praise that is rightfully His.

Whether or not we feel something is not the point, and demanding that the church not end it’s music session solely because you feel you need that to connect to God is ludicrous. You don’t need a priest to go to God, nor do you need music to worship the King. He has given you everything you need. He has given you Himself.

He has died for your sins, what more do you need than that to be able to worship? Why is that not enough to stir your spirit? Why is it we have become so complacent about what happened on that cross? We can talk about Jesus sacrificing Himself for the sins of us all like we would talk about changing our socks. And that is truly a sad, sad thing. It should put us in a state of awe; we should be heartbroken that this righteous, and pure, and holy God bore our sins and died for us. What more do we need to be able to worship Him than to realize that fact? I dare say we need nothing. Give me Christ and I shall offer up worship to the Lord all the days of my life. Forget the tunes, give me Jesus.