Tag Archives: worship

Reasons and Excuses for Worship

Posted on by Olivia Mancini
07 Apr

Reasons To Not Worship

“Too Shy”

“I am too shy for worship… I don’t want people to stare at me. What will they think of me? I look ridiculous.”

These are what I like to call excuses for not worshiping. For not lifting your hands in praise to our King. One thing we have to get straight is WHO CARES? When we worship, it should not matter what others think about you. You are not worshiping for their sake, so they can see how “holy” you are. The only reason for worship is to lift up the name of my King, to let His praise ever be on my lips! Why are you shy? Why does it feel like the world is looking down on me when I lift my hands? Why is it that all I think about when I lift my hands to praise is shame and embarrassment? These are questions I once had before my true encounter with the Lord.

Why Is It So Hard?

What I want to point out is, it is not hard. All the feelings you have of fear is not God. All the shame, not Him. You are thinking too much about pleasing people and not about what the Lord sees in you. He delights in YOU. He delights in dancing over you and seeing you sacrifice yourself for Him. When we lift our hands in praise it is a sacrifice to God because we are denying the feelings of embarrassment and pleasing others to worship Him. When you lift your hands things happen. When you deny yourself chains inside begin to break and you begin to feel His presence, you begin to feel set free. ‘

Reasons To Worship

Why not worship? He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords! Why not praise Him? He deserves it. He is worthy of all our praise and worship, isn’t He? Worship is like showing your affection to Him, showing your commitment, showing your love for Him. When I worship I just begin to thank Him for all He has done for me. He fights for me everyday even when I am having a bad day and I do not talk to Him at all, He still blesses me, He still loves me, so how can I not praise Him? Worship is the closest thing to Heaven on earth. That is what I can compare it to. I love the lyrics to this new Hillsong song called, “What A Beautiful Name”. It reads, “You didn’t want Heaven without us, so Jesus (Yeshua) You brought Heaven down. My sin was great, Your love was greater, so what can separate us now?” I just love that verse. Yeshua did not want Heaven without us and that is why He died for us, He wanted to be close to us because He loves us. When we praise Him we are thanking Him for the things He has done, for what He did, and what He is going to do in the future.

Worship In Everything

I was listening to a interview the other day with Jenn Johnson and was talking about worship. Her father in-law was in the car with her and she was frustrated with her kids and she said, “Mommy hat off, worship hat on.” In an instant her father in-law replies, “The problem is, is the worship hat never should have come off.” I love that. No matter where you are, you are always in a state of worship. We do not just wait to be in His presence when we go to service once a week or a prayer meeting, the worship NEVER ENDS. I talk under my breath constantly… I am always praying. I am always communicating with my King because I do not know what to do without Him. I come to my church expecting to meet with Him because on the Sabbath our level of holiness is lifted higher than any other normal day and the Father has a meeting with us. So when I come, I come ready, I come already filled with His spirit, I come expecting to be healed, to be set free, to be filled with the joy of His presence. In everything, praise the Lord. When I wake up the first thing that should come out of my mouth is “Thank You for waking me up this morning and breathing Your breath into my lungs.” Let your day be filled with thanksgiving for the things God is doing in your life. He is always dong something for you whether you know it or not.

Worship Setting

There is so much joy involved in being apart of a worship service with other people who are expecting to meet with God the same as you. The most beautiful sound in the world, in my opinion, is the sound of a new song being sang from Gods people in a state of worship. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, a new song is a term used for a spontaneous song from the Holy Spirit. It is the stillness between songs, the moment when the music continues but all you hear is new songs coming from peoples hearts as they lift their praises to the King. It is so beautiful. Worship changes your life, your attitude, your mind… Everything you do will change because of worship. Your health will even be changed. When you are in a constant state of joy and peace you will physically feel good and healthy. If you’re always sad, always down cast, not full of hope, not full of joy, your bones will ache and your heart will sting with bitterness and depression.

Worship Sets You Free

Worship will set you free, because Yeshua is invited in, the Holy Spirit is flowing through the place you are worshiping and touching people. Have you seen altar calls? People who go to the front of the stage and bow down to God to give up things that is not of Him because they desire to be closer to Him, they desire to be set free. Usually others feel led to bow down, or someone will feel led to go up and pray for those who are asking. As a body of Messiah we work together to help each other to be set free from bondage. Yeshua can set you free from sickness, depression, anxiety, fear, worry, sexual addictions, lust… All these things you lay down at the feet of Yeshua. My father in-law told me something that I will never forget. He said this,

“When you meet with Yeshua face to face are you gonna shake His hand or lay at His feet?”

That line says it all. This is how we need to treat worship. When you worship you are coming to meet with Yeshua, to lay yourself down in surrender. To not think of what everyone else thinks and think of what God must feel to see His children laying at His feet in awe of ALL that He is and thanking Him. What joy He must feel…

Scriptures About Worship

“Lord, you are my God;
I will exalt you and praise your name,
for in perfect faithfulness
you have done wonderful things,
things planned long ago” Isaiah 25:1

“Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you.” Exodus 23:25

“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.” Psalm 150:6

“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4:24

“Praise the Lord, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.” Psalm 103:1

“You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1

“My mouth is filled with your praise,
declaring your splendor all day long.” Psalm 71:8

“Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.” Habakkuk 3:17-18

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

“How great you are, Sovereign Lord! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears.” 2 Samuel 7:22

 

Music Destroyed Me

Posted on by Olivia Mancini
27 Aug

MUSIC DESTROYED ME … AND SAVED ME

So today I’m going to talk about, music.

Yeah, I know a lot of you won’t want to hear about it because music is awesome right? I love music! I grew up in a musical family, and I was always listening to it, even as a baby my Mom would put music on to help me fall asleep. Well I like to call this “ Music DESTROYED me.” But then, Music saved me. How can music destroy you? What does that mean? Well, when I was about 13 I started to get really interested in listening to the radio and looking up new songs and artists on youtube, and I became just, I guess the right word would be “ Obsessed” with music. I would constantly think about it, listen to it, spend all my time just watching celebrities and just obsessing. I really liked Taylor Swift, and I loved John Mayer. Yeah, I still do, but I now have a healthier perspective on music. So why is music bad? Well, it depends on what kind of music you are listening to. I know that I would listen to a song and if it had swear word in it I would just over look it and not care. But I would listen to that song more than once, and if a song is talking about something inappropriate, my excuse would be “ I just like the beat, I don’t know the words.” Yeah, okay. No I knew the words, they were bad. And when you get that song stuck in your head, that’s all you hear and you meditate on it! I knew that what I was doing was wrong, I hid it from my parents, I even used it against God. The level of obsession was bad. I know some of you will go “ Oh well that’s not me, I don’t always think about that when I listen to music, I’m not convicted to stop.” etc. There are a lot of excuses, and I know because I’ve used them all. Music shouldn’t be bad.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Colossians 3:16

Music is a beautiful thing, and God loves it. But do you think he likes it when people are using it to glorify themselves? Glorifying evil? Not pointing to the one who created you?

The love of God is what you need in music.

According to http://itstheskittlee.hubpages.com/hub/Music-and-the-Influence-on-Society  “The media and parents want blame music for the way kids act. They blame it for the gang violence, murders and suicides. They believe the music kids listen to changes their perspective about life. Then they start blaming the artist for singing about such vulgar, melancholy, morbid music. Along with that, kids start judging each other by the music they listen to; they stereotype each other into certain cliques and they laugh at them because of it. If kids took the time to notice and listen to others, they might find out that there will be a couple common songs between them. When kids are grouped into certain cliques they might feel like they only belong in that group. When did the music go bad? Music use to have a meaning, it use to symbolize a feeling and have heart filled messages being sent out. Now all you hear music talk about is drinking, guns, murder, drugs, rape, and suicide. I’m not just talking about rap music, it’s in rock and metal too.”

So music has a powerful influence on us. Music went bad the moment you took God out of it, the one who deserves our praise, our all, our music is supposed to be for him.

“Now if you are ready when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands?” Daniel 3:15

It says to fall down and worship the image that I have made. When you listen to other artists and go to concerts, they become idols. You worship that person, I know that sounds extreme but you do. By putting your focus on the person above God, then that is wrong. He says “ Thou shall not have any other gods before me” but we are breaking one of the commandments.

An awesome worship leader named Kim Walker once said, “Without the love of God, it’s like we are  up here just making a bunch of noise, but the love of God changes us and we are never the same after we encounter the love of God.”

So what are famous people doing? They are just making a bunch of noise. Noise that God does not enjoy, I’m sure it’s like a little kid banging on pots and pans, screaming.

That’s how music destroyed me. Music, changed my understanding in two different ways, It made me question Gods existence, and it taught me things that I didn’t need to know.

While I was listening to that type of music I fought with my parents a lot! They didn’t like what I was listening too, and I would get irritated because I liked it and I wanted to do what I wanted to do. That’s not Gods way. I would start to ignore my dad’s teachings at synagogue; I would put my ear buds in while in the car when my Dad had worship music playing. I didn’t even worship, I’d just say the words. They weren’t coming from my heart. Little by little I was growing further and further from God. And the sad part was, I didn’t even care or notice. That’s pretty crazy that music had that much power over me. My Dad would tell me to stop putting in my ear phones on, or he would turn the worship music up so loud that I couldn’t even hear my music so I would just turn it off. And when I would hear the words from that music, a different feeling overtook me, not like that satisfying feeling my soul would feel, but my spirit was being fed.

At that time I didn’t read my Bible either. My spirit was hungry, but my soul was so full, it would overtake my whole being. When I heard the words of my King, I began to change, my heart was full of pride for my music, but it was melting. One night, I was in the car with my family and I didn’t have my ear buds in because the worship music was too loud. So I gave up, then I heard this song, It was a Jesus Culture song and I looked up and I really liked it, then I said, “Can you turn it up?” I’m sure my Dad was a little surprised! I really liked it, and the message was amazing! I went home and took the laptop and looked it up and listened to it for about a week. I just played it over and over. I also still listened to secular music, but I was starting to like worship a lot.

I played guitar and sang mostly Taylor Swift and attempted to learn some John Mayer songs, and I would write “ Love songs” but I didn’t know much about that anyway, only what I learned from other song, another example of what music was teaching me, that wasn’t the right understanding of love. God’s love, is the love we need to have for each other.

But anyways, I played those types of songs still. I played on our worship teams sometimes, but my heart still wasn’t there. I started praying more, but still not enough. I needed God. I started to get convicted I guess you could say. I started to feel guilty while listening to that music. I didn’t fully stop until beginning of this year. I deleted all my secular music; I just couldn’t listen to it anymore. God just hit me hard, and I’m so incredibly thankful that he did. Music destroyed me, but then music SAVED me. But God saved me through the message of worship music, and teaching me to let go of my obsession. Sometimes I still have a hard time with music that someone else has on, but I am able to stay strong because “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”  Ephesians 6:10

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