Unlike old testament worship, which consisted of various rituals, regulations and traditions, worshiping an unreachable and untouchable God high above the earth - new testament worship is based upon two things found in John 4:24 - Spirit and truth.
1) the Spirit - God is spirit, for this reason He doesn't want or need your physical strength, your church building, your new computerized sound system, your fancy music and singing, your money, your food or the clothes on your back. Because God is Spirit, He only wants your spirit. The Holy Spirit is the blessing of Abraham (Gal 3:14). The Holy Spirit brings God to us. Now God is with us and is touchable and reachable. The Holy Spirit is the most valuable and important gift that God could ever give to mankind (Luke 11:13, Acts 2:17). God wants us to know and experience the Holy Spirit.
Where is the Holy Spirit? If you are saved, if you have received Jesus into your heart, i.e. you are born again, He is inside of you (John 3:6). Now you are a spiritual being with the life of God, the Holy Spirit, joined to your human spirit (1 Cor 6:17, Rom 8:15). But that is not all. God did not save you just so you could go to Heaven when you die - God wants us to live our life in unity and fellowship with Him, with the Holy Spirit (2 Cor 13:14).
2) Truth - this is not doctrinal truth but experiential spiritual truth. God wants us to know and experience Christ in our daily living. Again, this is a subjective, intimate and inward personal experience of the Holy Spirit. The question is, do you know Him? do you truly know Him better than your wife, your children, your parents, even yourself? Or do you merely know about Him? Do you know and recognize God's voice above all others?
With these two matters, Spirit and truth, experiencing and knowing God in our daily life in Spirit and truth is the kind of worship that satisfies God's heart. This is what New Testament worship is all about.
The far majority of Christians and churches (including myself) are still in the mode of old testament worship. That is, go to church, lift up hands and voice and do your best to please a high and holy God who is far away in the Heavens. You give Him a little time, you give Him a little money (offering/tithe), then give Him little thought or time until next Sunday. This doesn't satisfy God's heart, and it doesn't satisfy your heart either. God is not the one really suffering or losing out here - it is you. If we want to worship God like an old testament Jew or Pharisee, then we will eventually become an old testament Jew or Pharisee.
The Reason why It doesn't Please God
The reason God sent His Son to die for you is so that He could have a personal intimate fellowship with you , because He loves you (2 Cor 13:14, John 3:16).
God wants us to know Him intimately on a moment by moment, day by day basis.
God wants to be "I AM" to us. That is, God wants to be everything we need Him to be. We may think that worship is all about us giving to God. In fact, worship is more about God giving Himself to us, and us responding to that.
A simple analogy - let's say you are married to a beautiful woman, and she or he is in one room of the house, say the bedroom.
Now you are standing in another room, say the kitchen, and you sing to her, you shout to her, "oh my dear wife, you are lovely, you are beautiful, I love you, I worship you, I praise you, I adore you". Then you leave your house for 1 week, and you come back home and do the same thing again. But you never actually spend any time with your wife.
Sadly, that is how many Christians treat God. Of course, in reality, according to Biblical typology, we, God's people, are the woman and God is the husband.
It is more a case of God calling out and seeking us out like a caring husband, but us like a stubborn and forgetful wife refusing to listen.
God is already in your house, even your most intimate place such as your bedroom (your most inward part, your spirit). That is, the Holy Spirit has taken up home in your heart permanently. So there is no need to go to a certain place and shout to Him high in the heavens. You only need to turn to the Holy Spirit who lives in you. This is New Testament worship.
Why do so many treat God this way?
An answer is found in 2 Peter 1:5-9.
When we first believed in Christ, we had faith and we thought that faith is enough, "faith is all we need" (actually according to the Bible, it's not). We were content and happy, but only for a time. We accepted this condition as "normal" because everyone else around us, even our pastor, felt the same way. It was supposedly a "sign of maturity" to lose your loving emotions and feelings for the Lord, and sign that you have grown up. Yes it's true you have grown up and matured, but what have you grown up to become? You've become a stone-cold hearted Pharisee that's what you've grown up to be. You've lost your first love for the Lord and it has grown cold as ice. Why? because you blindly followed the crowd and thought that faith and getting to Heaven is all you need, instead of developing a personal and intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit.
The Bible says that to our faith, we should add goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love (2 Peter 1:6-7).
The result is that we will not lack knowledge of Christ (2 Peter 1:8).
The result of not adding these qualities to our faith, is that we are so unproductive and know Christ so little (2 Peter 1:8), and we even forget that we are cleansed from our sins (2 Peter 1:9).
Imagine that - you have a wonderful salvation experience and testimony, but at the end of your life you know God so little that you even forget that Christ died for you on the cross to cleanse you of your sins.
For this reason, you will keep your distance from God, you will be afraid to approach Him because He is a God so high and holy in the heavens, and you are such a poor lowly sinner on the Earth. For this reason, you will resort to old testament styles and methods of worship, rather than experiencing the blessing of enjoying God in your daily life.
But it is not too late
Old Testament worship can be a never ending cycle of feeling bad about ourselves, feeling sorry for our sins, and attempting to make up for it by old testament worship, forgetting that because of Christ our sins are forgiven and we are in fact very close to God all the time. It doesn't matter how long we have lived our lives in old testament worship, the Bible says that God is faithful even when we are not, and that He has never left us (2 Tim 2:13 , 2 Deuteronomy 31:8 Heb 13:5). The only thing we have to do, is to turn back to the Lord, repent, and do the first works (Rev 2:5). According to Rev 2:5, the way back to recovering our first love, is to go back to all those things we did at first, in a similar way that a married couple who have lost their romance might go back to the things they did on their honeymoon, e.g. a romantic getaway together, to rekindle their first love again. Perhaps when you were first saved you used to get up and read the book of John every morning at 7 am, then go and do that. Perhaps you liked to walk through the gardens and pray to the Lord as you walked - go and do that. Perhaps you liked to praise God and listen to worship music as you drove in your car - then do that again. Make a habit of turning to the Spirit often - the Holy Spirit inside you is also the Shepherd of your soul, He knows exactly what you need to do to recover your lost love. Then go and act on those inward leadings from the Spirit.
1) the Spirit - God is spirit, for this reason He doesn't want or need your physical strength, your church building, your new computerized sound system, your fancy music and singing, your money, your food or the clothes on your back. Because God is Spirit, He only wants your spirit. The Holy Spirit is the blessing of Abraham (Gal 3:14). The Holy Spirit brings God to us. Now God is with us and is touchable and reachable. The Holy Spirit is the most valuable and important gift that God could ever give to mankind (Luke 11:13, Acts 2:17). God wants us to know and experience the Holy Spirit.
Where is the Holy Spirit? If you are saved, if you have received Jesus into your heart, i.e. you are born again, He is inside of you (John 3:6). Now you are a spiritual being with the life of God, the Holy Spirit, joined to your human spirit (1 Cor 6:17, Rom 8:15). But that is not all. God did not save you just so you could go to Heaven when you die - God wants us to live our life in unity and fellowship with Him, with the Holy Spirit (2 Cor 13:14).
2) Truth - this is not doctrinal truth but experiential spiritual truth. God wants us to know and experience Christ in our daily living. Again, this is a subjective, intimate and inward personal experience of the Holy Spirit. The question is, do you know Him? do you truly know Him better than your wife, your children, your parents, even yourself? Or do you merely know about Him? Do you know and recognize God's voice above all others?
With these two matters, Spirit and truth, experiencing and knowing God in our daily life in Spirit and truth is the kind of worship that satisfies God's heart. This is what New Testament worship is all about.
The far majority of Christians and churches (including myself) are still in the mode of old testament worship. That is, go to church, lift up hands and voice and do your best to please a high and holy God who is far away in the Heavens. You give Him a little time, you give Him a little money (offering/tithe), then give Him little thought or time until next Sunday. This doesn't satisfy God's heart, and it doesn't satisfy your heart either. God is not the one really suffering or losing out here - it is you. If we want to worship God like an old testament Jew or Pharisee, then we will eventually become an old testament Jew or Pharisee.
The Reason why It doesn't Please God
The reason God sent His Son to die for you is so that He could have a personal intimate fellowship with you , because He loves you (2 Cor 13:14, John 3:16).
God wants us to know Him intimately on a moment by moment, day by day basis.
God wants to be "I AM" to us. That is, God wants to be everything we need Him to be. We may think that worship is all about us giving to God. In fact, worship is more about God giving Himself to us, and us responding to that.
A simple analogy - let's say you are married to a beautiful woman, and she or he is in one room of the house, say the bedroom.
Now you are standing in another room, say the kitchen, and you sing to her, you shout to her, "oh my dear wife, you are lovely, you are beautiful, I love you, I worship you, I praise you, I adore you". Then you leave your house for 1 week, and you come back home and do the same thing again. But you never actually spend any time with your wife.
Sadly, that is how many Christians treat God. Of course, in reality, according to Biblical typology, we, God's people, are the woman and God is the husband.
It is more a case of God calling out and seeking us out like a caring husband, but us like a stubborn and forgetful wife refusing to listen.
God is already in your house, even your most intimate place such as your bedroom (your most inward part, your spirit). That is, the Holy Spirit has taken up home in your heart permanently. So there is no need to go to a certain place and shout to Him high in the heavens. You only need to turn to the Holy Spirit who lives in you. This is New Testament worship.
Why do so many treat God this way?
An answer is found in 2 Peter 1:5-9.
When we first believed in Christ, we had faith and we thought that faith is enough, "faith is all we need" (actually according to the Bible, it's not). We were content and happy, but only for a time. We accepted this condition as "normal" because everyone else around us, even our pastor, felt the same way. It was supposedly a "sign of maturity" to lose your loving emotions and feelings for the Lord, and sign that you have grown up. Yes it's true you have grown up and matured, but what have you grown up to become? You've become a stone-cold hearted Pharisee that's what you've grown up to be. You've lost your first love for the Lord and it has grown cold as ice. Why? because you blindly followed the crowd and thought that faith and getting to Heaven is all you need, instead of developing a personal and intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit.
The Bible says that to our faith, we should add goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love (2 Peter 1:6-7).
The result is that we will not lack knowledge of Christ (2 Peter 1:8).
The result of not adding these qualities to our faith, is that we are so unproductive and know Christ so little (2 Peter 1:8), and we even forget that we are cleansed from our sins (2 Peter 1:9).
Imagine that - you have a wonderful salvation experience and testimony, but at the end of your life you know God so little that you even forget that Christ died for you on the cross to cleanse you of your sins.
For this reason, you will keep your distance from God, you will be afraid to approach Him because He is a God so high and holy in the heavens, and you are such a poor lowly sinner on the Earth. For this reason, you will resort to old testament styles and methods of worship, rather than experiencing the blessing of enjoying God in your daily life.
But it is not too late
Old Testament worship can be a never ending cycle of feeling bad about ourselves, feeling sorry for our sins, and attempting to make up for it by old testament worship, forgetting that because of Christ our sins are forgiven and we are in fact very close to God all the time. It doesn't matter how long we have lived our lives in old testament worship, the Bible says that God is faithful even when we are not, and that He has never left us (2 Tim 2:13 , 2 Deuteronomy 31:8 Heb 13:5). The only thing we have to do, is to turn back to the Lord, repent, and do the first works (Rev 2:5). According to Rev 2:5, the way back to recovering our first love, is to go back to all those things we did at first, in a similar way that a married couple who have lost their romance might go back to the things they did on their honeymoon, e.g. a romantic getaway together, to rekindle their first love again. Perhaps when you were first saved you used to get up and read the book of John every morning at 7 am, then go and do that. Perhaps you liked to walk through the gardens and pray to the Lord as you walked - go and do that. Perhaps you liked to praise God and listen to worship music as you drove in your car - then do that again. Make a habit of turning to the Spirit often - the Holy Spirit inside you is also the Shepherd of your soul, He knows exactly what you need to do to recover your lost love. Then go and act on those inward leadings from the Spirit.
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