How Do You Prove God Is Real?

In a word: Worship.

Bear with me because I feel right now as though this entry may be all over the place for a bit as I try and get all these thoughts laid out. The first thing I believe needs to be established is a proper definition of “Worship”. Music and singing are not the all encompasing facets of worship, but rather an expression of our worship. Our lives, our very existence on this earth was for the sole purpose of worship to an all powerful, immeasurably good, uncorruptably just, and infinitely loving God (The ONE true God – the Alpha and Omega, the Great I Am, the Creator: Yahweh…not Allah, not Buddha, and no other gods not even worth mentioning). Obedience to His perfect will in our lives is the ultimate form of worship. Now then, let’s get down to details:

A pastor I was under a few years back who preached many conceptual messages once said to his congregation after a particularly powerful praise and worship set that didn’t really stir much of a response from them, (and I’m paraphrasing here) “What is wrong with all of you? Do you even know how to discern the presence of the Holy Spirit? If you don’t get deeply involved in your worship, then there really is no point in you being here!” (Now I’m quoting) “Let me say it in another way that perhaps you’ll understand: praise and worship is the only thing that God gets out of this service. He doesn’t benefit from me speaking a good message…He wrote the Book!!! That’s for your benefit, but your worship is your offering to our Savior!”

And another amazing youth leader by the name of Justin Landry said it another way, “This is where most Christians experience their epic fail. Right here! If you come here looking to be entertained or just to hear good music you’re missing out on one of the most crucial parts of being a Christian: the ability to experience Christ on a personal level. This is your chance to really get intimate with God so He can begin to heal the innermost parts of you.”

And countless other pastors and leaders have spoken words to inspire me to leave my own comfort zones, casting inhibitions aside and to fully immerse myself in praise and worship. The concept being: the more inhibitions you have during corporate praise and worship, the more distracted you are and the easier it will be for you to completely miss it. (What’s “it”?) It is the “move of the Spirit”. (What’s that?) A move of the Spirit is simply a phrase that attempts to explain the manifest presence of the Almighty among His people. He never created man to be some kind of science project! We were made to commune with Him, to speak on a personal face-to-face basis, but we messed up. We’ve become fallen man with sin natures rather than the intended holy nature imbued within Adam and Eve at the start of creation! (How do you know that?) God walked with Adam in the garden in the cool of the evening. They talked and fellowshipped. God delighted in the conversation He had with man…then the fall – the one act of disobedience that was available: the sole choice set before Adam and Eve which gave them the freedom of will, was taken. Our first forefather made the wrong choice and we all suffer for it to this day, until the end of days and the final judgement. (Well I don’t believe that…) That’s okay, I pray that you get a revelation! But even if you don’t, you’ll find out either way. There’s no escaping it. (Heb 9:27-28) But all that being said, here’s the gist of why: God STILL desires to commune with us, and though He can’t do it face-to-face anymore (because His glory would kill us Exo 33:20 ) the Holy Spirit can touch us AND speak to our spirit as well. Until the day we receive our perfected and holy bodies, we can only dimly perceive the glory of our God. Praise and worship is one of the ways we can bring such delight to the Father of Lights that He can’t help but give us a taste of His glory (one day in His presence and seeing even just a part of His glory is worth more than a hundred lifetimes – Psalm 84:10).

I’ll take it even further with another form of worship and agree with what many pastors have truthfully said over the years: God doesn’t NEED your monetary offerings. And to take it even further, tithing is an Old Testament principle and no Christian is under obligation to give a dime (2 Cor 9:7) there’s no curse in the new covenant cast upon you if you decide to be selfish with your money, but you better always keep in mind you reap what you sow (Gal 6:7-9). The point being, it is not the offering but rather the heart of the giver (the worship offered to God from trust in one’s finances towards furthering the gospel) that brings joy to the King of Kings. The God who spoke the world into existence couldn’t care less about a dyed cotton rag with a dead man’s face on it or a shiny coin fresh from the mint, it’s in the heart of His children He finds His satisfaction. Giving is a byproduct of a properly aligned heart. A heart of worship. If you have a properly aligned heart and are spiritually mature, you will desire to give! You’re blessed to be a blessing – (Matt 25:23)

But alas, I feel I have already digressed. As I was saying before, God’s existence is proven through worship. And no I’m not talking about a group of people getting together and singing the same song, I’m talking about true worship where you don’t sing the words because they are on the screen and want to keep up with everyone else around you, but you truly understand exactly what you’re reading and actually mean the words that leave your lips. But even so, for the next paragraph or two I want to focus on the musical form of worship: lifting our voices in declaration of our adoration.

Let me help myself by giving an explanation: When corporate worship is truly worship and not “choir practice” you can literally FEEL it! The room gets heavy, the air is filled with energy, your senses sharpen, and emotion begins to flood out in it’s most raw form (not necessarily experiencing all of the above but at least one). The next thing that happens is an undeniable freedom where people start laughing, crying, dancing, jumping, sometimes all of the above, and then there are others who fall to their knees…basically forgetting there is anyone else in the room with them as the intimacy that we were intended to have with our Savior is experienced. (I pray that everyone who reads this has experienced this at least once…if not I’m so sorry you’ve missed out thus far but hopefully this can help lead you to experience such an intimacy with God through worship.)

In that time, in that moment when the “fog”, “blanket”, “cloud”, or however else you want to explain the full presence of the Spirit manifesting, non-believers experience it too. Just being in the same room will scare the wits out of many of them because they never experienced anything like it before. Nothing on earth can imitate that experience and its undeniable power will “traumatize” the unbeliever’s spirit because it just had an encounter with the living God without yet knowing how to respond. Many of them will weep, but most of them will fear (and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom). But not a terrorizing fear, like that of being held at gunpoint or the endangering of your life: it’s the fear of being in the presence of ultimate authority and knowing you are unworthy. Such as the fear of being brought before a king or a president, etc. and not knowing how to even address such a person…only much greater because this King never dies and rules everything. It’s a scary place to be! I’ll explain it in another analogy: You’re with a friend and this friend has an appointment with some powerful individual with incredible authority. Your friend takes you along and soon you find yourself in the presence of this awe inspiring authority. Your friend falls at his feet and begins to adore him, weeping and laughing at times, but expressing joy and awe…then there’s you, not knowing what on earth is going on or how to respond. The man then looks at you and you know you should be doing something but you don’t know what. That fear…that’s the same kind of fear, except in this case the man is God Himself.

But let me also add that worship isn’t just songs and music…noooooo no no, far from it. That’s only one dimension of worship. There are SO many and to list a few: living according to the Word (Heb 4:12), denying yourself to help others (Matt 25:40), giving (2 Cor 9:7), and of course music and singing and offerings of praise (The entire book of Psalms).

Preaching convicts, prayer comforts, the Word instructs and guides, but praise and worship proves God’s existence when nothing else can. A heart of worship allows a physical encounter with the Most High. I’ve heard more testimonies about how eyes were opened to God’s true existence through worship than through anything else. “I could feel it…something powerful that I can’t explain or describe,” are familiar words to my ears concerning a worship inspired encounter with God and I’m sure I’m not the only one. When the manifest presence of God fell on the Tabernacle in the Old Covenant, it was referred to as “the Shekinah glory” or the physical presence of God. The power inherent in even this most minute manifestation of God’s true glory (as proven due to the fact that men could look upon it without falling dead) was enough to allow David and his “worship team” to see the future, things happening in the heavenly realm, and receive prophecies like water.

From Genesis to Revelation the Word speaks more consistently about worship than almost any other theme, and an entire book was dedicated to this foundational element of a relationship with God in Psalms. Don’t you think that perhaps we should take worship a bit more seriously?

Hebrews 12:28-29, “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ‘God is a consuming fire’.” – I don’t see this as an excuse to hold back in worship but rather the opposite, to fully let go of our worldly inhibitions and approach worship with reckless abandon for the Savior who gave His life for US. These two words have been misinterpreted by critical and legalistic Christians who fail to understand the true purpose and meaning of worship.

Reverence (synonyms: adore, deify, glorify, revere, worship, venerate)

1: Honor and respect felt or shown / profound adoring awed respect

2: A gesture of respect

3: To regard highly

In the Greek this word is translated with two separate words: Deos (dee-os), meaning “of awe and Godly fear”, and Shachah (sha-khaw), meaning “falling down”.

Awe (synonyms: admiration, astonishment, amazement, wonder) 

1: An emotion variously combining fear, veneration, and wonder that is inspired by authority or by the sacred or sublime.

Neither of those definitions say: “To remain in place and contain oneself so as not to distract or offend anyone”. How does one show awe and reverence to the God who created all that is in existence by standing still, worrying about what others may think? Since when has it been about everyone else, all the other people in the room? Now I’m not saying we should all fly off the handle and start sprinting around the sanctuary with occasional cartwheels and flips, but I see absolutely no scripture to the contrary of getting excited about worshiping our God, dancing and or jumping around, and pouring energy into our worship. In fact the man after God’s own heart danced his clothes off in the streets (2 Sam 6:14-22)…(please don’t do that in church though…belts and buttons are lovely inventions for preventing such a scene!)

John 4:23-24 – “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Single Post Navigation

Newer Entry →