Spiiiiiiiiritual Warfare!

Open up the doors and let the music play

Let the streets resound with singing
Songs that bring Your hope
Songs that bring Your joy
Dancers who dance upon injustice

Do you feel the darkness tremble
When all the saints join in one song
And all the streams flow as one river
To wash away our brokenness

Open up the doors and let the music play... Let the streets resound with singing!!! Wow! I never realized the beauty and importance of those lyrics until I spoke with a friend from Life Pacific College. He and I got some coffee one day and just soaked in each others spiritual "steak," and that day he shared a vision with me which I then payed it forward. I wont share his entire vision, but I will share his statement that relates to this blentry (blog entry... (c) Joey Salas, 2009).

He said (paraphrase) that he wishes that we, a body of Christ, would wake up, not get too strung up about the perfect structure for recruiting more students and so fourth, but that we would get.... "strung up" about having our campus chapel imitate the tent of meeting in the OT (God's presence would chill over the tent for forty days-forty nights and that entire time, people would praise and worship God). And that alone would draw people near.

What a blessing!!!! To be so close to at least some sort of physical contact with the Holy, Powerful God. What a blessing that is.... right?

I attended church this past Sunday (1/25/09) and I was so excited to be there. It was my first time there in a few months and I was so stoked to see the significant growth of the church. In fact, the church was so packed that a few others and I was asked, by an usher, for the first time in my experience to scoot the boot down a couple seats so that we could accommodate another family to sit down. Seriously so amazing!

As the worship continued second after second, I continued, second after second, to humble myself before the Lord so that my spirit would be sensitive to the Spirit, which then I would be able to worship at the throne.

Second song came and I was gone... "Our God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save..." Man! The worship band was kickin' it that day... together, sounding good, sounding loud. That song ended and we were asked to sit down. I don't like sitting and standing and sitting and standing because it reminds me too much of Catholic service. That's an entire new blentry on its own. Anyways, the worship band started playing the third song and I started looking around due to the intense pilates exercise. I was truly thrown off because I was seriously so stoked about the number of people at that service, but also, I was just people watching.

Here we go... I asked Churck Norris to give you all a swift kick in the face. As I was people watching during worship, that's when it dawned on me (Norris swift kick now!) ... spiiiiiiiiritual warfare was going down. In my opinion, spiritual warfare is anything that is not of God. Lying, pornography, idolatry, pride, etc. And, in relation to my revelation at church, numb-ness. Nearly every person that I saw was numb. Numb to the Spirit. Numb to the worship. Numb to the last commandment that Jesus gave in Matthew- the great commission. Dumb... whoops. Numb!

But on a separate subject (sort of related)... I've always been kind of at a pickle with worship. I think if we're truly in submission to the Spirit, we would automatically praise and worship ecstatically. That could either be dancing, hands up, kneeling, lying, or resting. I'm not the judge of people's passion and authenticity during worship, but as King David worshiped, there was dancing and rejoicing. In Samuel, soldiers were sent to kill David. The soldiers found David worshiping (I'm assuming with others) and the soldiers started praising the Lord.

I'll end with this thought. There is numbness during worship and charismatic worship. I agree that what matters is the heart and I believe that one CAN worship in all circumstances (dancing to laying down in complete silence). But from personal experience and talking to others about worshiping in complete silence, if someone is truly pressing into the heart of Jesus and submitted to the work of the Spirit, we will be drawn to worship in other ways just as David worshiped Father God.