The Ministry of Worship: Not a Worship Service

Dear Beloved Readers,

Last night at our Encounter God meeting, the Lord came in a very powerful way. He came using a double-edged sword to separate the soul from the Spirit. I hope you can watch the Encounter God Meeting last night on our website link at www.flameoffire2007.org. Click on Encounter God Link on the left.

There was much for us to learn last night for those Pastors and Leaders who have a heart to enter the "3rd day" and present work of the Holy Spirit. I have been teaching for more than a few years now that the "order of service" is a type of the "holy place" ministry found in the Tabernacle of Moses. In it, the priest do their "ritual acts of worship," but the hearts of the worshipers never really change. This if found in Hebrews chapter 9 (read in the amplified).

If we had a "holy place" order of worship last night with 7 songs, 3 fast, 2 medium, and 2 slow songs added with 20 minutes of announcements, 10 minutes of tithe and offering, a special song, the choir to sing one more song, and 45 minute "messageette" we would have so missed God.

The ministry of the psalmist is a necessary ingredient to bring forth pure worship to the Lord. This Ministry makes the Lord Himself our object of love and affection alone and sings " a new song" to Him. The psalmist takes us past time and space, ritual and religion, into the very presence of a Holy God.

Last night, when I came into the building, I had asked that we would just stay in His presence and worship Him, what I found was not that. So the Lord began to have me go to the keyboard and sing His heart. What He saw. I began to sing about the condition of the hearts that were like stone and his desire to come and break them.

Tell my beloved, what "christian contemporary song" could have done this? The Lord immediately took me behind the veil to hear His heartbeat. Before I could go, I knew the demonic strongholds over our region and over the people were not willing to allow me to minister to the Lord as He desired. The Lord directed me to sing a song for God to Hide me, protect me, under the shadows of His wings. As I sang, I know the Lord lifted me up higher and higher and protected me as I cam into the place of "seeing" from the Lord's perspective.

In this higher place, I was now able to sing what I saw. I sang about the hard hearts in God's people. I sang about God's desire to break those stoney hearts in two. I sang about some of God sheep being lost amongst the goats, and these lost sheep being amongst the wolves in sheep clothing.

I guess you would say this was not an "ordinary song service." As I sang, I saw those hearts that were deliberately rebelling against God and His authority. They actually hated it. They had an appearance of being sheep, but as I gazed longer they were half sheep and half goats, and were becoming goats more and more each day. In the midst of them were other sheep but they had wolves eyes. They had one purpose to lead the true sheep that were lost astray and away from the truth of God's word.

As I sang more, the Lord began to overwhelm me and His desire was to expose the motives of the hearts. I sang the "hidden secrets" that were buried in the people there or watching. They were prophetic songs that were "lifting the skirts up" of our true spiritual condition. The Holy Spirit was there to bring conviction of sin, righteousness and judgment.

Near the end of the time of worship, a cry came forth from the Lord, "Do you really want to be free? I sang this over and over again. I began to sing what true freedom was in Christ?  The Lord had me sing an invitation for those who were in bondage a chance to become truly free."

Many people began to truly cry out for this freedom and poured themselves out to the Lord. I sang this song for about 15 minutes and then stopped as the Lord told me to. I then sat down and waited for the Lord to speak. One of the ladies in the ministry got up and testified of the real bondage in her heart and she didn't know what real freedom was, but she began to open the book of Galatians heart cry to us. She declared, "it is for freedom Christ has set us free."

We didn't stop after that to take an offering or do announcements. From there the Lord began to teach us one of the most powerful teaching on the Spirit of religion and spirit of rejection that is crippling God's people. He began to show us how it gained entrance in us and in the church at Galatia. I encourage you to watch it, it will change your life.

At the end of the teaching, I did not give an alter call, but the Holy Spirit said, now choose freedom or bondage. The Lord actually told me to leave so the people could be real with Him alone without me there. Does that sound like a typical "service" to you? Shouldn't we pray over everyone?

Brother's and Sisters, it was a true encounter with the Living God. God used each Body part that He desired. It was not many, but the Lord was so powerfully manifested in our midst with His offer to true freedom and liberty to His people you could not miss it.

This was a meeting where God was in the midst of his people and the people in the midst of their God. This is what our believer's meetings must develop into. Pastor, Church leader, if your goal is to have a "service" that is what you will have, but it may be of little "service" to God because He is not free to speak, lead, teach and minister to His people the way He desires.

I have visited many churches, taught these principles and many Pastor's experienced this mighty move of God in our midst, but in the end went back to doing things "the old way." The Holy place ministry is to comfortable for many Pastor's to let go of. In the Holy place, your own sweat can come in with your ministry to the Lord. The candlestick, the table of shewbread have their purpose in the Holy Place, but they are only types and shadows of what is truly behind the veil. The ministry of the Holy Place can never cleanse of clear the conscious of the Believer. (Hebrews 9)

Beloved, our worship times, (I call them sweat sessions), are not encounters with God, or true ministry to the Lord Himself. I call them sweat sessions because we are "bringing to God what we want, what we practiced, to minister to the people instead of God." It is the fruit of our sweat, no different than the offering Cain brought to the Lord. God didn't except his offering of the "best of what he tended to in the Garden" then, and he won't accept those kind of "our sweat" offerings now.

It is so tempting to bring our sweat when our worth is tied into what we bring to the Lord. Even now, many Pastor's even bring their own sweat by taking "over the microphone" at the height of worship and minister their "sweat" to prepare the people for "their message." This is seen in our churches and even in the meetings on Christian Television.

Saints of God, If the High Priest had one drop of sweat on Him and entered that place behind the veil, He died.That is why he had to change his garments from wool to linen to enter into the Holy of Holies so he wouldn't sweat.  Why? No Flesh shall glory in His sight. Sweat is a type of our own strength, power and ability. It works very nicely with the religious spirit that is over much of the church here in the USA. Here in the States, the sweat is "glorified", our "efforts" are glorified instead of the Lord of Glory who is doing the work being glorified.

Much of our present worship today in the church is geared for "our glory" and "our needs" and not the Lords. Our worship services are geared for people to go home and say, "wasn't that a great worship service." If that is what comes out of your church after worship, you most likely didn't even worship God, you worshiped Worship. You left satisfied and God left hungry for the true love that He wanted.

I write this today to those Pastor's, Leaders, Home group leaders, who will not be afraid to change the way we do our meetings, and desire the true Priestly Ministry to the Lord. The Holy Spirit will lead us ever higher when we pursue the Lord alone as our object of worship. We can't have another agenda, time frame, or any other man made plan  and expect to meet with God Himself.

The Holy Spirit leads where He is welcomed. He leads when our music is not a "worship service" but is allowed to becomes a "dwelling place or habitation with us meeting with the Lord." That is why the psalmist priestly ministry of song must be restored to the church.

I pray Pastors and Leaders will become more aware of the need of this gift in their gatherings. It will require a letting go of the "holy place" mentality and a new "Holy of Holies" understanding of meeting God behind the veil. Pastors, Leaders, if you won't let go of the present structure of the "order of service," you won't experience much of God's manifest presence or know His desires for that meeting. You also will not be working with the Lord to prepare His people for His end time plans.

We must learn once again our priestly calling to minister to Him, and make Him the center of our desire when we meet together or will miss His manifest Presence. We must not approach the Lord with our needs first in worship, or bring strange fire into His presence. This is why we must allow the psalmist ministry back in the place it belongs in the house of God.

Do you want to have a form of Godliness but no power, a ritual religious activity, and at worst entertainment for God's people lacking the power and manifest presence of the Lord that will change peoples lives? I hope not!

God is restoring David's tabernacle. It had a different protocol of approach to God and ministry to God than Moses's tabernacle did. The ministry of worship today through the psalmist is just as different in protocol and approach to God from a a typical worship service we have today in the church.

We must learn this difference in protocol and approach to God as the these two tabernacles represent if we are going to truly become one with Him and His purposes.  I will share more about that in the future.

The real change my dear Pastor or Church leader you desire for your church won't come with a "new style of worship," contemporary or traditional," it will come with a new understanding of what God desires for our meeting together. Remember, David was a man after God's own heart.

God is not impressed with how good the choir sings, or how perfect we sing the song, or how loud we are in our music. I think personally that our Christian music has gotten so loud that it drowns out the voice of the Holy Spirit and replaces it with man's voice of what "we want to bring to God." It is more like a Cain offering of "what we want to bring to God" more than an Abel's offering of "what God really requires."

I know some get offended when I write this, but I won't back down from what we are truly experiencing in the Lord. I won't back down when I see with my own eyes what God is able to do in His church when we throw away the old pattern of a "worship service."

As long as we believe the "man made idea that worship prepares us for the word," we will never truly meet the Lord in our meetings. That is so contrary to what Jesus taught the woman at the well, that God is a Spirit and those who worship Him, must worship Him in Spirit and Truth. The Fathers is seeking such worshipers as these."

Worship is not a "doing something." It is a "becoming something," a habitation for Yahweh! It is a becoming one with the one who made us in true intimacy of our body, soul and spirit with our Lord Himself.  "Where I am, ye shall also be." Worship is not a song service where the people are entertained and blessed It is about the Lord's command in John 15, "dwell in me, and I will dwell in you."

I hope this note will encourage those Pastor's with an ear to hear to allow the ministry of the psalmist back in their churches. I pray we change the object of worship from a "service" to a ministry to the Lord Himself utilizing the gift of the psalmist. We must minister to Lord until He unfolds His desires and lead us "upward" in our meeting with Him to the place where we can "see and understand" what the Lord desires for our gatherings.

Then our meetings will no longer be "holy place services," but true Encounters with the Living God. He will then manifest Himself to those who are truly hungry and thirsty to know Him, and are truly looking for Him alone.

God Bless you in His love.