The Great Tornado Outbreak of April 3, 1974 was a day in America which many will not forget. One town in particular, Xenia, was about fifty miles from where I lived as a child and if you are a student of weather history, you will have no problem recognizing the name of that city as it became known for enduring the most powerful and deadliest tornado in history. Thirty-three people died in Xenia alone with thousands injured. A wave of mass destruction was all that was left in that town. Although nothing could have prevented the obliterating damage in the wake of the aftermath, the thirty-three people who lost their lives possibly could have been saved. The most amazing part of Xenia’s story for me rests in one oversight by community officials----there were no warning sirens installed. Image how different things may have been for the families of those who had lost their lives had someone been able to warn them of the coming destructive storm.
Like a siren that sounds when a coming tornado is on its way, the only thing that will save us as a people from reaping the consequences for the lukewarm ways of the American church is a return to a radical life of worship before the Lord. For too long we have muddled our way through the Christian faith and have compromised all that is sacred and holy for the sake of comfort, convenience, and crowds. We have lost the essentials of truth, spirit, humility, sensitivity, prayer, holiness, and the fear of the Lord. We’ve replaced these things with relevancy, entertainment, compromise, strategies, and the need to build our own kingdom in the kingdom of God. There is however, a storm that is brewing on the horizon and life as we know it, in comfortable and complacent church of America, is about to experience a wave of unprecedented destruction which will destroy the very foundations that we have placed our false sense of truth.
The prophet Ezekiel cried out to his people that “The end is now upon you…” I believe that even more as our nation digresses into moral filth and political corruption, his statement rings true. Jesus promised in Matthew 24-25 that there would come a day when the “end” would be evident. I believe wholeheartedly that we are in the beginning of these days----deception, wars, hatred, and false prophets. Paul echoes this by adding that in these “last days” will be filled with people who will be “lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God---having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:1-6). It doesn’t take a genius to see the increasing evidence of these things taking place in our world today.
Worship comes down to a simple transaction which takes place in our lives: we worship which leads to knowing God more which leads to a greater life of faith. Hebrews 10:6 states “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” We cannot please God unless we have “faith.” Faith in turn, is more than simply believing something “about God;” rather, it is a belief “in” God which translates to how we live our lives. In other words, if I have faith in God I believe God, and if I believe God, then I will live my life in complete obedience to God as I truly see Him as Lord and King.
There is a storm that is coming very soon. A few years back, the Lord impressed upon me that I needed to “prepare for the coming storm.” Since that time, our country has drastically changed. We can now see the severe storm clouds on the horizon and they appear to be approaching us fast. More specifically, the Lord made it very clear that His people need to learn to live by faith in order to endure the fury of this coming storm. If we as His people who claim to worship Him cannot live in a way that reflects our full trust, hope, and confidence in Him when life is easy, then how will we weather the storm when it bears down upon us? I cannot help to think of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 7:24-27 concerning the two men who chose to build their houses on completely opposite foundations. This speaks to our faith and in essence, Jesus is asking His disciples, “What will you choose to build your life upon?”
This is why worship in spirit and in truth is critical for the people of God. Our faith will never be anything of substance unless we come to a place where we intimately know that One who we need to place our faith in. It is only through true worship where we can discover the depths of knowing God. A half-hearted attempt which is focused on other things will never get us to a place where we can find the revealed heart of the Lord. For too long, the church has made “faith” an easy acquisition which costs the buyer nothing more than a simple prayer and weekly attendance to Sunday service. Rather than examining the reality of our anemic faith which is evidenced through the lack of the Holy Spirit’s presence and power in our midst, we make ourselves feel better by convincing ourselves how much God loves us. I will not dispute our need to know of His love but somewhere along the way, knowing of His love should cause us to forsake all that is of this world and passionately pursue His presence with a relentless desire that will stop at nothing to simply “know Him!”
This is ultimately where worship in spirit and in truth leads---to a place where God is everything and we are nothing. It is a life that is completely “enamored by His presence, humbled by His grace, captured by His endless love, and consumed by His embrace.” This is the cry of a heart that is desperate for God and will stop at nothing to find Him. And this is the place where faith begins. It’s not a matter of “believing” God. It is a life that has come to know the Lord so intimately that you see no other reason in all of life to seek satisfaction, provision, and passion from any other means or any other place. It is the simple expression of saying “I have all I need in Jesus.”
We will never come to that place unless we begin to put ourselves in a place of knowing God in greater depths. Worship should be all of life. All that we do, say, think, and believe should reflect the truth of God and the Spirit of God living within us. We need to come to grips with the notion that “there is nothing good that lives in me”----except for Jesus Christ. Why are we so afraid of this truth? Why are we so afraid to proclaim this in our churches that we are indeed unworthy, miserable and wretched people within ourselves? Rather than believing that the harsh reality of ourselves would turn people “off” to the notion of Christianity, perhaps it would make us realize the incomparable worth of our salvation resulting in a greater faith in the only One who brings any value to our lives!
We need to prepare for what lies ahead. We need to find ourselves in the center of the heart of God knowing that we are holding on to all that He is. The time has come to let go of all that has held us back from knowing the Lord as He desires for us to know Him. Otherwise, we will have run our race in vain. We will become like that man who built his house on the shifting sands of life only to be washed away in the coming storm. Our faith will be tested and tried beyond what we have ever experienced in this country. When that day comes the truth about and the spirit of your worship will be made known. When all is said and done, what will be said of your life in regards to how you worshiped the Lord?
The radical call to worship is one that says “He must become greater and I must become less” (John 3:30). It is the forsaking of one’s life for sake of living life for Jesus Christ. We’ve made it too much about ourselves, we’ve stolen center stage and we have forgotten our First love to love lesser things. I can only be a voice which calls forth a hungry people who would desire to forsake the things of this world to enter into another world---one of Spirit and of truth. As for me, this world can no longer hold my affections nor can it any longer demand my attention. Time is too short.
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