(pic credit: and the stars come out ©2017-2020 by crisbaj. Used with permission)

Worshipers Worship in Quarantine [Dec 2020]

What is Worship? The simple answer IS:

Worship is what worshipers do…

Worship is what worshipers become…

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December 2020: the pandemic rages like a wild-fire, and we are all being thrust into epidemiologic lock-down… again.

The world of US and Mexican churches are, once again, having to abandon outdoor gatherings in the winter months, and close their doors to indoor gatherings. On-line streaming and video-chats are, once again our connective life-line to being together.

Once again… once again…

“Go to your room and don’t come out… until”

Guess it’s a second chance… a re-invitation for us to become worshipers of the Father, and become worship…

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Once again, the whole deal of ‘worship’ is coming up. Pastors and leaders are trying to breathe life into the live-streams, since the number of people who have abandoned this level of connectivity has dwindled since mid-October. From the recent ‘worship bulletin boards’…

“How do we juice up the worship set?”…

“Why can’t our musicians liven it up a bit?”…

“What song-list is gonna blow everyone away on next Sunday’s live-stream??”

Worship… what it is, what it isn’t… is back on the chopping block again in American Christianity.

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Pastor Bill Johnson repeatedly points out that God never commands us to worship or worship Him, but rather distinctly calls us closer to Him, culminated in Jesus articulating this:

23 [Jesus] “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in [the] Truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in [the] Truth.”

Gospel of John Ch 4:23-24 NIV + amplified

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We here at AdoreTheLord Blog have put out a lot of ‘pandemic-lockdown worship’ content… so check it out…

AdoreTheLord Blog has probed the idea that trying to define a ‘thing’ or ‘activity’ called ‘worship’ may actually be an exploration in reductionism, not at all intended by Jesus

https://adorethelord.blog/2017/06/20/worshippers-worship/

AdoreTheLord Blog has also explored a prophetic word regarding how worshippers (John 4:23-24, Romans 12:1-2) actually become worship

https://adorethelord.blog/2019/08/21/worshipers-become-worship/

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December 2020: the next 6 months are going to be our chance to re-capture many of the missed opportunities we have had Mar-Nov 2020, to become deeply connected with the Father, become true worshipers in the Spirit and in the Truth, and see a radical, transformative change that will affect us for all eternity.

TAKE AWAY:

Every time I go to prayer this last week, this keeps coming back: F2F

God clearly expresses that He wants us ‘up in His face’. Ancient Hebrew didn’t have a distinct word we would call ‘presence’, and when you see it in your Bible translation as ‘presence’, it’s really the word for face (Strongs 6440, panim or paneh). Translators chose ‘presence’ or ‘before Me’ because the use of the ‘face’ word posed awkward/major grammatical problems.

It is a ‘scholarly-correct’ translation of the first of the Ten Commandments (Ex 20:3) that we all learned as ‘you shall have no other gods before Me’ to actually read,

“you shall have no other gods (small g) between My face and yours”…

Fortunately, no masks are allowed between us and our Heavenly Father, and distancing is not allowed in the Presence of God…

written by crisbaj

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All Scripture references from New International Version unless otherwise indicated.

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