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Hear the Word—Romans 10:17

/ Susan W. LaVelle / Leave a comment

Five Ways to Get the Bible into Your Life: Hear

We are not very good listeners! We get distracted, forgetful, and misunderstand what we do hear. Hearing and listening: are they two different things? A good little study to do this week might be to take a blank piece of paper and draw a line down the middle from top to bottom and write “Hearing” and “Listening” one each at the top of the columns. Write down your thoughts about those two words. Maybe you will look up the dictionary definition or even find out if these two words are used differently in the Bible or even the original languages. Check a concordance and find some verses using either or both words. Jot all that down.

Doing this slows us down and makes us focus so that we hear and listen to what it says, what it means, and what it means to us.

Romans 10:10-17 (English Standard Version)

“How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Worship vs Style

/ Susan W. LaVelle / Leave a comment

When we worship, we are opening our hearts to hear what God is saying to us as well as reacting or responding to Him based on what He has said. We might react or respond in quiet contemplation or in loud and boisterous joy. A grieving or repenting person might react or respond to God though mournful tears. All of these reactions are appropriate, depending on what God is saying and how the individual worshipper is responding. These things are part of worship, something which happens between the individual and the Lord, but also is reflected through what God might say to a congregation as it meets together and how that congregation might respond back to Him. A good worship leader will understand this and will make it a priority to listen to what God wants to say and help people to respond appropriately.

Worship is not the same as style. Style has to do with things like tempo, rhythm, instrument or vocal choice, “contemporary or traditional” (both words that are relative and individualized in their meaning), “familiar or cutting-edge” and other things like this, which are changeable and disputable and really determined by individual preference. Style is not worship. Style is relative and changeable. Although stye differences in worship are actually representing not-essentials, such differences, unfortunately, are more likely to get in the way of people actually worshipping God together in unity, than the things that actually comprise worship—hearing from God and responding to Him.

A believer determined to worship God can and will worship, no matter what the style.

Of course, people need to find the place that God has called them to attend and be a part of, but don’t let style determine your ability to worship God or let style influence the way you appreciate other people’s quality of worship.

Be where you are at in learning to worship—
Don’t just stay there.
Enjoy worship preferences—
Don’t have worship prejudices.
Be open and free in worship—
Don’t use it as a platform for promoting personal ambitions in music or ministry.
Be creative and professional as you lead worship—
Don’t be a performer, showman, or worship celebrity.
Abandon yourself to God in worship—
Don’t judge the abandonment of others by looking at their external appearance.

 

Worship God with all your body, soul, mind, and strength!