THE HEART OF WORSHIP

THE SPHERE OF HIS LOVE EXPERIENCED THROUGH WORSHIP

John 15 speaks of the living communion with Jesus that all Christians maintain.

Jesus starts out telling His own disciples, “As the Father loved me, I also loved you.”

This is the heart of worship… being able to come into that love and experience Jesus taking in His very presence. Living communion speaks of our relationship which requires our soul be entwined with this intimacy, which Christ speaks of His vital relationship with us. Then Jesus says in the same passage, “Remain within the sphere of the love which is mine and keeping my words keeps you in my love and you will remain within the sphere of my love.

It is that sphere which He makes the center of a Christian’s universe, of which, much of that universe, consists of us giving our love to Him in worship as well as Jesus bringing His love into our hearts through that same experience.

HOW BIG IS GOD AND HIS LOVE

Because of this Paul writes in Ephesians chapter three a special prayer for all those who would desire to come into this experience, saying,” …that He would grant to you according to the wealth of His glorious grace, with power to be strengthened through the Spirit in the inward man, that the Christ might come to finally settle down and feel completely at home in your hearts through your faith; in love having been firmly rooted and grounded in order that you may be able to grasp with all the saints what is the BREATH and WIDTH and HEIGHT and DEPTH, and to know experientially the love of the Christ which surpasses (natural human) experiential knowledge in order that you may be filled up (to the brim... even to overflowing) to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

The prayer here that Paul is praying is the unlocking experience which comes through our worship of Jesus! Notice here that aim of our worship is to target Jesus as our object of complete love. Paul says that he is asking God for us to experience... for us to grasp what is this sphere – The Breath, the Width, the Height, the Depth of knowing Jesus experientially and this great love as it floods our soul and fills us with His awesome presence. The sphere is the love of God shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Spirit (Rom.5:5). The goal of worship is to take us there... into the very heart of the high praises of God reaching that love.

RELEASE AND BEING FILLED

I want you all to know that I have been to this place again and again and it never gets old. Experiencing the sphere is a lifestyle priority!!! I must be clear here, it is never a one time experience... as Jesus puts it, it is the place of intimacy with Him, where as a lover we come to worship Him with a heart full of adoration. I have gotten there through worship as well as in prayer. I’m talking about to the sphere (the place where He pours out this love into our heart) which is so vast and virtually measureless like that of an ocean. God’s love is so vast that it is actually overcoming to us just like seeing the ocean on the coast for the first time. You are just swallowed up by the proportion of its magnitude. You just open up your mouth and go shout from you spirit in worship back toward Him, YOU ARE AWESOME, JESUS, SO AWESOME! Now this is where you get some revelation and perspective of how all this time He was lovin you, but you weren't lovin Him. That is because He loved us first... we just had no regard for Him or proper reverence of Him for who He really is until this worship experience changes us so deeply.

Now your head is still attached, but it is swimming and on tilt!!! “Ding, ding,ding…TILT! God’s love is so BIG… I just can’t take it in.” "Why me and all your love for me, Jesus?" "Because I loved you from the foundation of the world and died on the Cross to save your soul, that's why." "Because I made you for a relationship with me, and I value that when you experience knowing me and my love for you, you'll want to be with me now and forever!" This is when the infinite God is filling us the finite human heart. But He sure does it, fill us, again and again in every worship experience all we need do is enter in. WOW, say it backwards. Yeah, your eyes are going to open when you experience the living God in worship!!!!! 

JESUS COMES IN CONTACT WITH US THROUGH WORSHIP

When Jesus comes into us it is through His Spirit. We experience Him through coming in contact with Him by our human spirit. Many understand the experience of the five senses and understand that there are also gates into the senses. When we experience the Lord's Spirit He comes in contact with our human spirit, and that is through the seat called our conscience. This is a sense that everyone admits that they have but don't pay much attention to. It is here, in our human spirit that the Spirit of God makes us to experience Him in worship. In the beginning, when man was created He had a daily experience with God as a result of this same his worship of God in the garden. Man is made up spirit, soul and body. We experience God through our spirit being flooded with the Holy Spirit and His love for us through Jesus!          

ALL MUSIC WAS CREATED FOR WORSHIP

I named the band (as band leader) “Region of Awe” because this is the goal and mission statement of our band to take people into that sacred place where the heart of man is completely exposed to the heart of God! It is my desire as well as the other members of our group to bring people into that place each time we play and people worship. 

All music was really created for worship. Someone can play music and it is in reality worship even when they don’t intend it for worshiping God. These play music and either intend to seek worship for the singer, songwriter, the players, the artist soloist, or the worship of their common creed stated in the song (the lyrical contents). People will worship the people who bring this type of music because they are reinforcing the crowd’s lifestyles no matter what it is. So that is where we see all the counter culture movements and trends get their influence from. Some call it guitar hero, or musician hero but it is worship no matter how you spin it.

MUSIC HAS ONE ORIGIN AND PURPOSE - WORSHIP

We have to realize music's origins from God and what is was created for. Plainly worshiping the Godhead…is the main theme to all music, to worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit!  On this origin and ground we see the intentions for its creation; to be the channel which people experience to connect with God. When worship is played in church, or when played by Christian artist it is all about THE LORD OF THE MUSIC. Its not about myself, my emotional experiences upon earth, we must press much higher into His Spirit and get out of Dodge and passed all those things that hold us captive and press us down. The experience of worship is where we can set behind us all these areas of this world, and as the music is played and His sweet presence fills the room where we are, we ascend by His invitation into the sweet communion which our heart longs and thirsts after. Worship music is the means to this end. It is about “God in the music!”For God inhabits the praises of His people (Ps.22:3).

THE BLISS OF HIS LOVE IN WORSHIP
Some of you I really don't need to tell about this, because you have yourself been there so you know what I'm talking about. Heaven is is filled with the bliss of His love because the Holy Spirit is in the atmosphere there. Now when we worship and praise God He fills our atmosphere with His Spirit so that He can touch people at there point of need whatever that may be. Some may feel so overwhelmed that they may be overcome with joy and bliss due to God's glory. Bliss isn't something easily ignored. In this fallen world it is a resource that sets free the captives and restores and heals people's lives. God's Spirit is penetrating, bliss it carries a peace that passes all understanding. The peace comes by God's blissful radiance in His worship. I have seen bright clouds fill the auditorium as this presence drifts in among the worshipers. I have seen the Spirit of God roll up like a wave of the sea and begin to roll out over the crowd. I have seen flashes of light splash across people as God touched them with His Spirit. Naturally there is a reaction to the Spirit of God when He is in the house. Some people react differently than others. But here I'm not talking about people who try to get something going, trying to help God out, I'm just talking about when God does what is normal for Him when He comes into a church service. You see the supernatural is normal to heaven so it should be normal to every church service. One thing when you see the Lord coming forth in a service is you must know He is in control not man. A point to remember when all these supernatural manifestations are happening around the church house is to think about how much compassion God has for us all, to see that are needs get met, and that are lives are changed under His compassionate plans.  

SPECIAL MOMENTS WITH JESUS
I think the biggest thing is to just be sensitive to His leading and co-operation with what He has planned to do right there in that moment. You shouldn't wonder why the Psalmist David says that he is panting and is as a thirsty deer longing after the water-brooks of sweet communion with Jesus. David is talking about the addicting bliss of His love that worship is filled with, the very one thing once experienced that no one can never reproduce or counterfeit... its the anointing of God. No other music on this planet can top worship, it is the highest honor to play for the KING!  It is the loving hands of God that come and wrap themselves around you in worship and when you feel His Spirit assuring you of that, you'll know that He is there with you.

HEAVEN'S NORMS - THE ATMOSPHERE OF WORSHIP
Heaven's presence is the norm of music, the abnormal is when there is no anointing on it because it is completely dead. I have heard great voices run the scales that didn't have a lick of anointing and it was dead, and then I have heard people who couldn't sing all that well, but after the anointing came on them they sounded so with it, it was amazing, and these people moved me into His presence the moment they opened their mouth. I know a pianist who is anointed of God that the moment she touches the keys... the power resonates down upon the listening people. We want Christian musicians who are anointed by God in order to bring us into His presence on the worship team. More is done through anointing worship than we know, and even the angel ride on the wings of praise!  

LET ME IN THE SOUND

When listening to Bono sing on his No Line CD there is a line sung…”Let me in the sound!” I’m sure most musicians want to be there, in the sound, but Christians musicians need to make sure they aren’t crowding God out of His own worship music by placing too much focus upon themselves instead of the on Him. The sensitivity of a person's spirit knows what fits and when to play things that will produce the flow that people need to enter into His Throne room. Some church worship bands think their in a concert mode ready to dazzle their audience with their unique artistry. Some church members just go to church to watch the worship band play a concert of songs that they hear on the Christian radio.  There is a point where we need to focus not on the worship band…but on Jesus Himself.  We aren't here to entertain people, we're here to minister to the Lord IN WORSHIP! So we need to magnify Jesus the very experience of worshiping Him alone, where the worship musicians become Jesus’ backup musicians and not try to take center stage away from the King of kings. Jesus is the band's lead-man... so He always gets all our attention in our worship! 

"God is already in His worship music"… and it is about connecting people into that experience with Jesus that is what the Christian musician is to be about! 

CHRISTIAN MUSIC TWANG THING

Now the Christian radio plays some fine tunes out there, most of them can draw us into a relationship with the people who are the writers or singers, and we can relate to it and think about them as people and such, but which of those songs connect you with the higher experience, where you listen and then you enter into worshiping and adoring your God who has given you everything, that is what true Christian music was meant to do. 

TAKE ME OUT OF THE GRIND OF CHRISTIAN BLUES

I appreciate the song writers that lift us up, to help us enter in not grind back into our emotions about all the problems we've had. Writing the Christian blues about how they are having such a hard time in Jesus serving Him, isn't really helping anybody. PLEASE TAKE ME UP HIGHER WHERE MY VICTORY IS! The very fact is that if they were connecting bringing people into the realm of His Spirit through worship they and others would get there minds off themselves and their problems long enough for God to supply all of their needs by meeting with them in His glorious praise and worship. Hasn’t the church listened to and sang enough “Crying in my beer and potato chip songs?… I thought we got over that, but they just recycled them, and Christianize them, and well, they just call them sanctified now you see? None of these type songs get me where I’m wanting and needing to go…and that is into that place where I can get connected with that living communion and that life which comes from His presence, where I experience the sphere which is the out-poured love of God down into my soul. We all need help getting God’s love downloaded into our hearts. The worship musicians are key in bringing people into this connection. You Better Know it!

I REALLY WANT TO BE APPREHENDED BY EXPERIENCING JESUS

"May you be apprehended by Jesus' love! 

May this love of Christ be your ever longing, desire, and experience.

May this love be ever your song before God. May you be filled with His refreshing again and again. 

He has placed a way into His sacred presence so that you might know Him intimately. Our lives are to be filled with worship, refilled with His love again and again. Worship must not be set aside or be given a second place in out lives.

As food is for the body, so is worship to the soul, it is the soul’s spiritually renewed breath! Worship is the channel where the impartation of God’s love, joy and life comes to us, and comes in us. The person who remains in worship of Him remains fresh, filled, and refilled.  It is time to take in His presence, and make that time we Him precious to you. Fit worship into your everyday schedule and then bring His presence within you to church on Sundays. Worship is the way that Jesus manifests Himself into people's lives and that's why I can't ever get enough of it, because I can't get enough of Him!

THE LORD COMES TO HIS TEMPLE -VISITATION & HABITATION

There is a big difference between a visitation... having some mercy drops fall down upon the people of God, then having God move in with you. When you have company come over there is always that point where the company has to leave, that is a visitation. However, when Jesus comes and you decide that you're going to allow Him to co-inhabit your life and church, that's when He decides to move in. Now that is a habitation.
Peter in his epistle speaks about the living stones that corporately made up His dwelling place. Do you want that at your church, cause you can have it! Habitation is where God goes with you cause you because you are His temple and when you get together with the other members of the household of God and they BRING IT... then you got a HABITATION. Habitation is where Jesus lives in those lively stones... He does is some awesome stuff when the congregation has determined to hang out with Jesus all the time. This can happen by increasing the prayer and worship life of each of the individual believers in the church. BE THERE...my friends! Of course, Christian musicians should try worshiping God in their private time before they bring it into the sanctuary and see how much more power comes with them into that place and into their worship service. This is also true for all Christians in general who attend, they too should privatize their worship all week and then bring themselves into the sanctuary, into corporate worship, and see what kind of increase the Lord does into their midst! The increase of God’s presence isn’t really hard to receive. If those prayer warriors pray for the service God answers with a strong hand in mighty exploits! This time with all this worship added, there will be a clear way an open up if you would of the heavens themselves, to the grand utterances of God in the midst of His people. I’m speaking to the gift of prophecy and to the prophetic proclamation of tongues and interpretation of tongues.

You now understand that the heart of worship is about His love for the church, and how close He wants to be with us all the time, in every part of our life. 

by Rod Lambur

Let The Drums Do The (Prophetic) Talking!

Instrument Conversations

Drums have a voice so you can let them be an extension of yourself and express

what you feel. Many musicians today are closed in, mostly in their own world when they are playing. Yet some feed off of the other players around them listening to what is going on and the phasing of the song itself to add taste fills. I know however that some drummers over play when they are not listening to what is going on around them. This may be because they are trying to impress rather than add and finesse! The musical atmosphere around us and what is currently happening is important not only to you but the other players you play with. What if your bud just played a fantastic number of measures on their instrument, and without listening to what was flowing their, being in our own little world, you play in an outburst right over what he has just laid down in the song? Well, my friend just may have cluttered over his expression, instead of flowing along with the musical conversation. Have you every been standing with a group of friend day dreaming? You think you know what they have been talking about, when one of them asks you a question about the theme? Suddenly you realize you only heard the first of the conversation and haven’t a clue about what they have been saying. You blurt out something about what the conversation was about, just to find out that they aren’t talking about what they were saying. Then they all look at you like you’re an idiot.  Musical conversation requires concentration.  Music often changes from one expression into another, so if you’re not paying close attention you won’t hear the changes and you’ll be left behind.  Then there are the players today that try to fake the conversation (like the example just given) by reestablishing the beginning of that conversation. When this happens the band may start over but everyone knows who was in their own little world playing their instrument.

Musical Conversations With God Through The Prophetic Stream

Musical conversation is fundamental to all music forms and especially to prophetic music in worship mostly because it is not what just one player is saying, but about what all the players are saying together. Musical conversation has a central theme as does the prophetic stream and when it comes through a time of worship and praise it is purposed to answer the needs of persons in that congregation. Conversation in music is a two way street. In prophetic music it begins with a delivery from heaven in song and lyric and jumps into a conversation. The instruments express this conversation as well as the deliveries which come from the singers. There are two different ways that prophetic music delivers itself. First because it starts in the realm of worship it is our conversation with God. Secondly, the conversation begins as heaven drops into the worship team the theme which is intended to happen. Thirdly, the singers and instrument in the worship group may have either and exchange with God in these expressions or with the congregation.

One area of prophetic is in the form of prayer and intercession which is inspired by heaven, the other diversity of this form is directed to the congregation individuals or the whole as to divine words proclaimed to set the people free! Either experienced results in an amazing and powerfully mighty time in the realm of the Spirit. The anointing is turned up as the mind of God is revealed directly. Scripture tells us that this type gathering experience is not for the timid.

1Corin. 14:25 And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.

The Prophetic Stream Bursting Out And Soaking In The Intercession Prayer Pool

The prophetic stream in worship causes amazing deliverance, healings, guidance, edification, as God seeks out those who have been waiting upon the Lord for help.

This form of music is a channel by which God causes a spiritual delivery of answers to many questions. There is another side to the prophetic stream. That side is the intercession prayer soaking side. We really don’t realize our need for the Spirit of the Lord just to minister to us. Just as the Spirit of the Lord hovered and brooded over the earth, forming the earth, it is necessary for us to sit and soak in His presence under the creative restoring anointing. Healings come through recreation, so under His anointing brings about what is necessary for regaining our health and wholeness, spirit, soul, and body.  

There are times when the Spirit of the Lord just wants us to sit under His presence breathing in everything of the Spirit of God. There is great perspective to know sitting at the feet of Jesus and giving Him total control of our lives. So you can gain this by sitting in the pool of prayer after this intercession. You don't have to do anything there but gaze into the Lord beautify presence!!!  There time in the prophetic stream of worship where this is made possible. The worship band plays interludes of music in the background while His people just soak in His presence. Doesn't that sound good. :-) It is! The Psalmist David had this in mind when he wrote his songs and we see the word "SELAH" which means meditate upon, focus upon God, or reflect upon God's goodness in worship, and in His presence.  Wow... this is exactly what everyone needs out there. 

The wonderful thing about this is some folks become addicted to the presence of the Lord, because they see their need for these special times of ministry. For these they can take with them and audio recording so they can continually be ministered to by the Lord and His same Spirit again and again. I have found that recording these songs from the Lord can be captured by just turning the recorder on and allowing God to have His way in that time period. Then when going back over the recording I edit toward the highlights of what God’s Spirit did in those sacred minutes.  

Flowing In The Stream Of Prophetic Delivery

The development of the worship team individuals to privately ministry to the Lord in song is key. What develops through private times of intimacy then is carried into the congregation by those same worship team players or singers. What they become privately before God in their times intimacy is what they are when it comes to the prophetic stream and ministry before the congregation. Private ministry to God by them is the same level of intimacy in the congregation when you ministry to the Lord all the time in worship! When one privately ministers to the Lord and receives prophetic songs from the Lord there, it isn’t difficult to receive them from the Lord worshiping Him before the congregation.

The goal of worship is focusing upon our object of affection Jesus Christ! Since He receives our affection, and because He loved before we loved, He is already to pour out His Spirit and love upon us. What comes out from this time of intimacy is our interactions with Him. The same is true when we are focused on Him in a worship team.

What comes streaming out toward us is His love and care for us which takes the form of the prophetic stream and moves toward all of our needs.

Rom. 8:32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

He doesn’t withhold from us. So we know that His character delights in responding to us and toward all of our needs no matter what they are. This is why the worship team players and singers position plays us a important role in ushering in the presence of God’s anointing to meet people at their special point of need with His touch or direct word to them!

Jesus Is The Band’s Leader

Something to remember here is that Jesus is the orchestra leader and because of that the music we make for Him is much more than other own expression when it is accompanied by the Spirit of the Lord to minister to Him, or when we are in a receive mode in expressing the “Song from the Lord.” If you’re a prophetic musician you pay attention to place an emphasis where the band leader directs you. I think that this the foremost point is the main difference in prophetic playing, the different between playing for yourself and playing what Jesus wants.   

The Result Of Prophetic Playing In Worship

What comes forth from this specific type of prophetic stream in worship is a beacon!

The intensity of light is great… and the truth shatters the darkness and obscurity.

1.) Jesus is the Light self disclosed to those in the darkness, those who have been caught in the storms of life and need the light to guide them successfully in their navigation.

2.) Whatever is obscure it is penetrated by the light beaming from the Savior, and clarity is the result. This cause a overthrowing of the darkness in ones life and the dawning brightness of the morning star to govern us!

3.) The songs are created by “the Spirit of Prophecy.”

4.) The dynamic of delivery of such songs come spontaneously while worshiping the King.

5.) The “Song from the Lord” always carries the breaker anointing in setting the captives free!  “For where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty.”

6.) The prophetic songs always speak to the point of need; where the person or persons are spiritual at. In other words the songs speak forth the crucial link between the person’s need and the person’s freedom, and when they are received they bring the fruit of having the words of the Lord spoken directly toward that area.  

7.) Prophetic songs which come forth reveal the testimony Jesus Himself to everyone present in the worship, because it is the Spirit of Prophecy which reveals Jesus to us!  

Rev. 19:10b …for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

8.) For the Christian musician... it means seeing and hearing an amazing new flare of creativity which comes from the Spirit of the Lord into the worship music they are playing. Without a doubt Jesus and His Spirit are the most amazing creators of musical expression known to mankind. If you don't believe that just listen to Handel's Messiah sometime... and know this all came to the composer by way of him receiving divine inspiration. Now who doesn't need that?   

  

by Rod Lambur