worship

entering into what He's already doing

Hey friends,

I finished reading Revelation a few days ago, and I want to tell you about part of it that has clung to me for weeks. But also, I’ve been hearing this theme of worship for months, so this is sort of a two-part newsletter. Let’s talk about one, then the other, and we’ll see how they tie together.

In the last month or so I’ve started to understand worship better than ever before. We’ve known all along that it’s not just singing, not just words, not just hitting the right notes or raising our hands or clapping. But I’ve needed God to reveal it more clearly to me. And He’s been doing that, letting me experience worship in ways I’ve heard other people talk about before that seemed foreign.

And even that phrase “experience worship” kind of catches me, because I’m learning that worship is not really about an experience. It can be (and often is) something we experience, but probably a better term is “participate in,” because experience feels like something that’s more about us and what we’re doing, and worship is more about leaning into something He is already doing.

So I’m still learning, always learning. This isn’t a comprehensive deep dive (a newsletter doesn’t lend itself to that) but it’s foundational to how we partner with Him in what He’s doing in these days.

I’ve shared this quote before:

I first saw that back in November and I think that’s when my eyes started really opening about this. There’s a reality going on that we’re completely oblivious to in our day to day lives unless we shift our focus and ask God to help us see it. We are, in reality, in two places at once. We are really here – on our couch, in the car, at the desk, wherever on earth – and we are also really seated in the heavenly places.

How does that work? I dunno. No clue. I know that He’s God and I’m not, and I don’t understand a lot of things – like how sound travels through radio, or how the collision of sperm and egg create a baby, or why the printer will take commands from Vince’s computer but not mine. I don’t understand how I sit at the desk and hear His words, or how sometimes His music is playing and all the sudden lately, tears start pouring out of nowhere.

I don’t know what’s going on, only that He’s doing something. I’m okay with believing and knowing without always understanding.

But here’s what I’m coming to understand through recent times of worship:

He is the crush we long to see more of and know more about. But He is also the faithful, steady spouse whom we share our home with and light up for after a long day’s work.

He is the fascinating new friend; the one we want to share all the stories with and find all the things we have in common. But He is also the old friend who knows all our history and where we keep things in our kitchen, and the one we trust most with our children.

He is the beautiful person we can’t stop looking at. He’s also the strong one we feel sheltered with, and the one who loves us with such overflow that we don’t want to disappoint Him. He is the tender healer, and He’s also the warrior whom no one has surpassed in battle.

But in all these things, He is also the King we bow to in sober, dangerous reverence.

Our eyes are on Him, we want to know more about Him. His presence brings immediate comfort, safety, anticipation, and joy.

I don’t think we can really seek first the Kingdom unless we’ve seen the King. But when we’re seeing Him and the things He wants to show us, seeking the Kingdom naturally follows.

I’ve mentioned to some of you before that I often hear the Lord in song lyrics that start playing in my head – sometimes I’ll wake up to them, or hear them suddenly in the middle of the day. And as I was starting this newsletter, this chorus of an old David Crowder song started playing on my internal speakers:

He alone is holy/He alone most high/To God be the glory/To God be the glory/Spirit, Father, Jesus Christ

And I thought, Well...yeah, that’s definitely worship. But I couldn’t think of what song it was and I knew there must be more of a message in the rest of the lyrics I couldn’t remember.

I spent the next thirty minutes searching the internet to find it. But do you know how many songs have those lyrics? Kazillions. So I asked Vince and he found it...an hour later. (The lengths we go to for you guys. You’re welcome.)

It’s this song and here are the lyrics, and it’s a perfect illustration of our worship in two places – on earth and heaven – and what it does. I guess I could’ve just saved myself 1000 words of writing and sent you the song, but like I said, the lengths we go to, yada yada. ;)

Back in May I posted this:

His holiness drives out the things in us that we know are there, but we don’t know how to take care of, get rid of, or what to do about.

Our focus on Him is when it happens. Not when we’re focused on our own insecurities or looking at the other people around us, or consumed with bitterness and resentment, or wondering if so-and-so is paying attention.

It happens during worship. The Consuming Fire burns it off. The Living Water washes it out. He brings repentance. He brings revelation. He brings conviction, healing, and peace.

And if you were distracted during worship yesterday at church, you might feel like you missed your chance. But you didn’t. You missed a chance, but He’s continually giving us new opportunities to put our eyes on Him.

And I think this is why He has me pairing worship with Revelation right now, because He is up to something – but we need to purify our focus and worship in order to see it and join Him in it.

So let’s shift that way and look at this section in Revelation 8. It’s where the Lamb – Jesus – has opened the seventh seal, and seven angels are standing before God with seven trumpets. And then, this:

And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.

Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

– Revelation 8:3-5

A censer is a vessel for burning incense. So the prayers go with the incense into the censer, the smoke of them rises before God, and the censer (filled with our prayers) is thrown to the earth, which is lit up and shaken.

Here’s what struck me: The prayers of the saints affect how the censer impacts the world. How we have been praying – and how we pray from now forward – influences the censer’s collision with the earth.

Every time I’ve read Revelation, I’ve thought of the events as already written in stone. As in, they are predicted, it will all go a certain way, it will be disastrous and tumultuous, and the saints just have to endure.

And that’s sort of true. We tend to think of these as scary, dreaded things, and some of them are. But if we are praying from authority and victory, in agreement with Jesus for “on earth as it is in Heaven,” can we trust Him to bring great things from what feels scary to us?

Because He’s telling us here that our prayers are thrown at the earth, and they impact those events. And then He lead me to this scripture:

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them….

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

– Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-24

The earth does need lit up. Things do need shaking. We are partnering with Him in the process of earth becoming like heaven, and it is violent. Our prayer and worship do violent, powerful, forceful things. Not just in theory, but in reality.

But simultaneously, we are of the Kingdom that cannot be shaken:

At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

– Hebrews 12:26-29

There is a great purification happening, and for us to participate in it, we need to throw ourselves on the altar as the living sacrifice and let Him start with us. Those who are refined will be the ones who show everyone else what He looks like, and all eyes will be drawn to Him. Every knee will bow, but our prayer and worship affect how many will bow willingly, and how many will be shaken to the ground.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, and would love to follow-up on it in the next q&p if you have questions or ponderings you want to dive deeper into. I’m honored to be in the deep end with you.

Praying for you,

Shannon

P.S. A few more worship songs I recently rediscovered: This one, and this one, and this one, my favorite lately that we sing in home church.