Check Your Lyrics

Their sound was polished, the music well-done. But something felt wrong.

The worship band was singing about God, even incorporating Scripture into the songs. The chanting, applauding crowd seemed oblivious to what I was seeing and I noticed that I was the only who had sat down after the second song.

The crowd was on its feet, responding as the band wanted them to, but something was wrong. My spirit began to rebel.

I was attending a Night of Worship with one of my favorite worship leaders, Kari Jobe. I had not known another worship band would be leading off--one I'd never heard of--but I had eagerly prepared to enjoy them too.

I hadn't expected this internal resistance. Spiritual resistance.

"What is it, Lord?" I asked over the noise of the place. "Am I being overly-critical? Maybe they're just not my style."

That wasn't it.

I began to study the lyrics beamed high on the screens. Nothing wrong with them, exactly. Or was there?

Was I being too harsh? I didn't want to be. I had come expecting to worship the Lord with a group of strangers who were my brothers and sisters in Christ. Instead, my heart thudded uncomfortably as the first band charged into their next song, whipping the crowd into a lather.

It wasn't just the first song. Or the second. Song after song, the theme became painfully obvious: The focus of the entire hour was about harnessing the power of God for MY purposes rather than seeking the person of God for His purposes. God was presented as a genie, obligated to respond to my requests because I had faith.

I began to pray against the spirits that were present. Some of them were not from God. I prayed for the gullible people who may never realize the error in their theology until the god they thought they were worshiping let them down one day.

When Kari came onstage an hour later, everything changed. The whole spirit of the place calmed. Her very presence seemed to usher in a new kind of Spirit. Though some of her songs were upbeat and the crowd responded with excitement, the evening was spent exalting the name of Jesus rather than what He could do for us. Her focus was on lifting Him high, worshiping at His feet, praising Him for who He is.

I continued to think about it for days afterward. Was I correct that the first band was not what God had in mind when He commanded us to worship Him in spirit and in truth? Or was I being hyper-critical?

We can worship God in a million ways, not all of them understood by everyone else. We have different styles, different needs, and different ways of expressing our hearts to God. But the end result of true worship is always the same: exalting and glorifying the Lord--not demanding that He bless us, favor us, and demonstrate His power to us when we so desire.

Sometimes we can get a little too familiar in our relationship with God and we start to believe the cart is pulling the horse. We get pumped up on sermons about "faith that moves mountains" and start to worship the power of our faith rather than the Bestower of it. It's a subtle deception that Satan enjoys, because it robs a Holy God of all the adoration due Him.

Have you found yourself caught up in this switch-game? You thought you were worshiping God, but now that you think about it, your worship was directed at yourself and all you could be when God finished gifting you.

Are you singing joyfully along with lyrics that command Almighty God to reveal Himself to you? Bless you the way you want? Increase your profit margin? Is the God of your worship being depicted as a genie-in-a-bottle, there for your personal use?

Satan is the father of lies and will not flinch at inspiring well-meaning musicians to weave a few into their lyrics if it means robbing his Enemy of the glory due Him.

Check your lyrics. Do they present the God of the Scriptures as He really is or as our egos want to perceive Him?
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Raising My Ebenezer to the Balm of Beulah...

Another rerun due to extreme busyness. Be back soon.

There is a quiet but often strongly-felt division among Christians in the area of worship music.
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With the upsurge of worship/pop bands---many of whom have taken the concept of crossover music to new lows---some worshipers (especially those over 50) have turned away from the whole concept of contemporary worship music and elevated anything written before 1800 to holy status.
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On the opposite side are the younger people who cannot relate to antiquated verses and plodding tempos and leave the church altogether in search of something that speaks into their lives.

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So who's right? What does God want to hear?

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In a recent church debate over this very thing, one well-meaning lady commented, "Well, I may be a martyr for this, but I love the old hymns and we just need to stick with the Bible. That new rock stuff distorts the truth of God's Word."

. Really? Is it as cut-and-dried as that?

. If it were, I think a whole lot of us would flock to her side. . In the early '70's when contemporary Christian music first tiptoed onto the scene, it was as shallow as a summer puddle.
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"Jesus...ooooh, yeah. Jesus, ooh-ooh, yeah."
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That was about it.

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But in recent years, praise and worship music has exploded with a variety rivaling that of secular. The choice of current praise songs is unending and high quality, both Scripturally and musically. Many are Scripture passages set to music and you can hardly be more Biblical than that.
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I remember as a child, standing in the pew with hymnbook in hand, some of the mental images that flitted through my mind as we sang all five verses of a song I didn't understand were not remotely spiritual.

• "Raising my Ebenezer" always sounded slightly pornographic and it certainly wasn't something I wanted to do in church.

• I had no clue where Beulah Land was, but was certain I didn't want to go there, and as for marching to Zion, it wasn't even lunchtime yet.


• The Balm in Gilead reminded me of war and I wondered who we were blowing up.

Now before you get any hotter under the collar, let me assure you I love the old hymns too. Many were written by stellar heroes of faith under the most adverse of circumstances. A study of the history of some of those songs gives them all the more meaning.

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However, why must we make everything an either/or situation? Hymns were once the "new songs" of their time and many people objected to them as well.

. The answer is clearly compromise. It won't hurt the under-25 set to learn some of those comforting hymns, and those of us past a certain age can learn a lot from the new music as well.
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Times change, people change, customs change. What is appreciated by one generation is often discarded by the next. The key is what's in the heart. If the goal is to show off your new electric guitar and the key changes you've mastered, then it doesn't matter what you're playing. It isn't worship music.
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Likewise, if you insist on leading all five verses of a Gregorian chant, you're going to lose the majority of your congregation to boredom. Pretending we're all still living in the 1600's just won't cut it with the Nintendo-crowd. Outdated concepts and terms don't speak into the lives of the ones singing them and leave the impression that God is also out-of-date and out-of-touch.
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So what's the answer? Many churches have gone to two or more services to try to appease the different tastes, but I hate to see that. If we're all worshipping the same God, there's no reason we can't do it together. If the younger crowd can't worship without blaring synthesizers and screaming vocals, there's something wrong there. It begs the question: Exactly what or who is being worshipped?
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On the flip side, if the older folks get their hackles up because some of tonight's songs will be sung with guitars, they need to loosen up. Where does Scripture dictate a piano and organ? If you want to really rile some feathers, mention that Psalms also instructs us to "praise Him with the dance!"
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The bottom line is that worship is a personal thing between you and God. Jesus said it must be done in "Spirit and in truth." Without that, you may as well be singing "Boomer Sooner."
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When we start dictating how another must worship the Lord, we've just gone legalistic. King David's wife, Michal, was mortified to see him dancing before the Lord.

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I wonder what some of us would think if we saw the same thing?

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What's on Your iPod?

I just got my first iPod. (Okay, quit smirking. I'm slow.)

Now when I walk around oblivious to anything but the worship music crashing into my ears, my kids give me the same looks I used to give them. Let them roll their eyes. I've earned it!

I've been on a downloading frenzy, discovering praise and worship bands I hadn't heard of before. LOVE Kari Jobe and Gateway Worship, Encounter Worship, and the Women of Faith. This constant access to uplifting, worshipful music keeps me in a good mood. My thoughts are constantly where they ought to be--on the thrilling majesty of God. And when your thoughts are where they ought to be, the rest of you is going to feel better.

But when I see the zillions of people walking around with the telltale cord running from ear to pocket, I wonder where their thoughts are. If the constant presence of worship music lifts my mind and spirit, where would my heart be if I was listening to something else?

Scripture says "as a man thinks in his heart, so is he." And nothing thinks our thoughts for us like music pumping directly into our ears.

We all have different tastes in music. What I find uplifting bores my daughter, and her favorite bands annoy me. My 20-year-old son feasts on a steady diet of Weird Al Yankovich!(Weird Al is actually very funny!)

Music itself is neither good nor bad. The test of good music is what it creates inside your spirit. Where does it lead your heart? When you listen to your favorite songs, where do your thoughts go? Does your music stir up dissatisfaction? Restlessness? Does it take you back to a time you'd do better to forget? Do the words paint an alluring picture of something God disallows? Does the artist flaunt evil and dare you to do the same?

Some of what the world calls music is clearly offensive and anybody with a shred of sense avoids that stuff. But what about all the other? All the secular or even some that is called Christian?

I hear your "humph!" Okay, so it's not overtly about God, what's wrong with that?

Nothing's wrong with it if it leaves your heart in a higher place, thinking right thoughts, desiring Godly attitudes. If it turns your mind toward doing right, inspires you to live better, fills you with hope, and thrills you with promise.

But so much of current popular entertainment focuses on darkness, even some Christian music. It's depressing. It points out all that is wrong, hurtful, angry in life, and gives no solutions. When the song ends, your thoughts go on...and on... Mulling over dark feelings, agreeing that yes, things are bad and life is meaningless.

Okay then, what about light pop music? Nothing wrong with that, is there? It's just fun. Harmless.

Maybe. Most Top 40 songs have one theme: romance and getting "my baby" back. Some of that is fine, but what is it really saying? What ideas are pumped like oxygen directly into your spirit? In a large percentage of popular songs, the singer is pining to spend the night with the current object of his lust and is wailing about it, accompanied by a lot of synthesizers.

If the music doesn't move you, stir you, connect with something inside your heart, you probably don't like it and it won't be on your iPod. So the fact that it's on there says you relate to it. But what part of you relates to it? Your worldly side or your spirit?

This is not a rant against secular music. I've got plenty of that on my iPod too, but I notice that the closer I draw to God, I don't care to listen to it much. It doesn't do anything for me. Seems empty somehow. Pointless.

Think of this post as a checkpoint, a little stop along the way asking you to rethink some of your music choices. What is going into your ears does affect your spirit. If you rely on your iPod for little time-outs during the day, little escapes from daily stress, then be careful what you're listening to.

When you set the headphones aside, is your outlook more positive, your attitude more pleasant, your spirit calm? Or are you feeling down and don't know why? Have your thoughts ventured into areas where they shouldn't go? Are you having trouble focusing on your spiritual life the way you want to? Do you find yourself humming lyrics that, were you to write them down and show them to your pastor, would mortify you?

Maybe the answer is as close as your iPod.

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