I think every believer knows that
the way of God is not compatible with the way of the world. In bible parlance
the Spirit and the flesh are always at war. The flesh always wants to rule even
in places where the Spirit of God is legitimately in control. Meanwhile the
Spirit of God Is not unruly; He waits to be invited and given room to take
charge but when He is in charge, He is absolutely in charge. No wonder the
bible says when light comes, darkness has no choice but to leave. The truth is,
darkness hates that and is consistently trying to return. Unfortunately, unlike
light, darkness is not a gentleman and will go as far as it can push. It does not
wait to be permitted but tries very hard to force his way into every life,
space or anywhere he finds room. The life of a believer is therefore one of
consistent struggle to ensure that He is permitting light into His life and
exposing Himself fully to light. As we yield to light, He increases in us and
impacts our life even more; but darkness is consistently trying to bring us under
his control attempting to enslave us. Darkness is a mean slave master.
John 1: 4 – 5 “The word gave life to everything that was created, and
his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the
darkness can never extinguish it.”
The last time I checked, worship
service is church organized gathering of Christians and unbelievers for the
sole purpose of fellowshipping with the light. It is a time when our sole focus
is to worship God who is Spirit in the Spirit thereby exposing ourselves to the
light who is God so that our spirit man is empowered and our flesh is brought
under control of our spirit which is controlled by the Spirit of God. God
clearly demands to be worshipped in the Spirit and we Pentecostals lay strong
claim to doing that very well: also accusing non-Pentecostal churches of not having
the Spirit of God. It is therefore getting a little confusing to me when
instead of exposing our spirit man to the spirit of God, in some of our worship
services we fan the flesh. The excuse we often make give for this is that we
feel a need to do everything during these our worship services because that is when
we catch everybody so every and anything is allowed during these services and by
the time we are done, we leave church even more carnal than we came in. It is
not possible to leave a worship service filled with the spirit when all we did almost
through it all, was feed our flesh. Could it be that we have lost sight of the
purpose for this gathering? Believers came together for a purpose which certainly
did not include feeding the flesh. Is it really correct to assume that the two
can flow together despite that the spirit and the flesh war against one another?
Ephesians 5: 18b “Instead be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the
Lord in your hearts.”
Romans 14: 17 “For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or
drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
Some leaders argue that congregation
have very short attention span these days so they need to be engaged fully with
activity during the service. It is interesting to note that we are talking about
adults who should be controlled and disciplined enough to sit through these
things. If this is a real problem then maybe we need to look inwards with a view
to ascertaining whether or not God is still in our services. Unlike many would
like us to believe, God is not boring; but if we must indeed do something to
arrest the situation urgently, it would probably be wiser to spend less time in
these services than to engage worldly means bearing in mind that these ways do
not align with the ways of God and if anything, will make the Holy Spirit
leave. If we so desperately want activities, then we must choose godly ones instead
of the ones that make it difficult for the Holy Spirit to remain and definitely
fan our flesh. Very often, the same people that complain about the length of
worship services, sit for hours without end gossiping or doing other ungodly
things feeding their flesh. Worship services must remain what they are and if
we must entertain people then we must do it outside of these services. It is
disheartening to see the way the church is going today even to the extent where
comedians albeit Christian comedians are invited to minister. Please do not misunderstand
me, I am not opposed to godly humor and have nothing against the comedians. I
am only saying that they would serve their purpose in other church functions and
events or Christian events. We appear to be getting everything mixed up and
need to sort them out. As it is often said, the line between the flesh and the
Spirit is really thin making it easy to crossover from the spirit to the flesh
without really meaning to; we need to check to see if we have not crossed that
line.
James 4: 4 “Ye adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world
makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: if you want to be a friend of the
world, you make yourself an enemy of God.”
The traditional churches which we
often refer to as worldly appear to be doing better. They even understand about
creating the right atmosphere for God. One enters these churches even when there
is no service and one feels the presence of God; this is no longer a common
experience in our Pentecostal churches. I understand that God loves us all with
all our different personalities which He would have us express, but the worship
of God has not changed. It could be done with a lot of noise or solemnity but
it is still worship of our God and has to be spiritual for He whom we worship demands
that He will be worshipped in the Spirit. I know that churches struggle to keep
people in church but the longing of man will not be satisfied carnally. He will
only get worse because He will yearn for more and more and would need to be entertained
with even more carnality as time goes on. Any satisfaction carnality may appear
to provide is very temporary; such people soon become restless again because this
craving is for something deeply spiritual and can only be satisfied by the
Spirit. Worship services must remain what they are - worship service; otherwise
let us call them something else. We can’t claim to worship God applying the
things He hates so much.
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