Tag: worship music

3 Worship Songs God Hates

tredWe must tread lightly here, for to insinuate that we know the mind of God is dangerous territory.  However, what we know of Him and that of human interaction with the Almighty, there are certainly forms of worship God hates.  Do you think the term “hate” is too strong?  Does God hate?

There are many scriptures that describes the displeasure of God.
One prime example of this is Proverbs 6:16-19

“There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: 17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, 19 a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.”

So with that being said, are there things that God hates?
I believe the answer is YES!

Can we then describe moments in worship and in song that could displease God?  Absolutely!  I should also clarify that the term “Worship Song” could be anything we do as we sing to God.  It can contemporary, it can be traditional, or somewhere in the middle.  Are there other things in “worship” other than song?  Of course, but just for this discussion, we are zeroing in on the topic of “Song”…

Here are 3 Worship Songs God Hates: 
Allow me to preface this with the following statement: If you were looking for specific names of songs that God possibly hates, sorry…that’s not what this particular blog post is about.  Again, sorry to disappoint you, I won’t be roasting the latest Chris Tomlin song here today.

But here is what I think are 3 Worship Songs God Hates and why…

1  Songs Sung Out Of Obligation
Have you ever gotten up on a Sunday morning to lead worship and the songs you have selected aren’t really resonating with you?  Sometimes it could be that we are just out of sync with our walk with the Lord…there are certainly seasons of life, and not everything is flowersgoing to be peachy.  But I believe God hates obligatory worship.  Imagine if I were to give flowers to my wife simply because it’s the right thing to do, not that I want to, but rather because it’s expected.  How do you think she would feel if, as I gave her the flowers, I said; “Here’s you weekly obligatory flower arrangement dear!”?  Do you think she would enjoy them and feel loved in my gift of those flowers?  Of course not!

In a way, when we sing songs of worship and adoration to God because we feel obligated, it’s like giving Him flowers that mean nothing to us and are given out of ritual not love and appreciation.  God doesn’t want our obligatory worship songs and our meaningless attempts at worship – He wants it to mean something to us, something that aren’t just meaningless utterances of lyric lines and memorized scriptures.  God hates obligatory praise!

2. Songs Sung Out Love For The Song
Which do we worship, God or our favorite song?
I’m not saying this happens all of the time, but sometimes those worship songs (or even hymns) we sing can become a false idol of our worship.  We just don’t “feel” it when we aren’t singing just the right songs…but if that all time “fav” comes up – we are rockin’ and rollin’ with our hands raised high.  hands

Let me ask a question – is it God that we worship or the song that we sing?
I would hope our answer would be “God”, but there is a danger of placing our favorite song on a place of worship instead of God himself.  God hates the worship of idols – He is truly jealous for our worship and that of us.  He wants all there is of us, not a portion – but our EVERYTHING!  I fear at times, we place the love for a song over the love for God.  Our worship cannot simply revolve around our emotions and how WE feel…We are to worship Him REGARDLESS of how we feel.  Perhaps that is the toughest thing to do, yet through discipline and perseverance, we can!

3. Songs Sung To Display Talent (The Concert Performance)
worshipWorship leader – beware!  Worship was never about how good YOU sing or how Awesome your Guitaring or Piano-ing is… Seriously, if all we do in worship is try to emulate a Hillsong or Jesus culture/David Crowder concert, then we’re going about it all wrong and we need to stop!

Jesus called the Pharisees praying loudly in the streets so that everyone could hear and see them – Hypocrites or Actors.  He certainly had a lot of harsh words to say to those kinds of people – people who knew better.  He even went so far as to call them a brood of vipers.  God abhors actors, fakers and hypocrites.  hypocriteOur worship of God ought not to be a circus displaying our vast array of talents for the world to see.  Real worship isn’t about a concert or our aspirations to be the next big thing in the Top Ten CCLI Worship Leaders.  All these things are earthly desires – as we strive for human accolades and praise.

Such things do not attempt to elevate the name of Jesus, but rather promote our name to the masses.  In the words of U2 “Then they put Jesus in show business, now it’s hard to get in the door…” (God Would Send His Angels, U2)

God hates performances by actors and hypocrites that should have been about who He is, not who the performers are.  Where is the depth of worship here?  I’ll tell you – it’s about an inch deep and a yard wide.  Do our best?  Absolutely!  But if what we do is called “Worship” but it’s not God we are adoring but rather the music and our abilities on stage, then perhaps it’s time to reassess and realign our motivation and goals once again.

Well, we have strolled lightly here today.
The Bottom line, God doesn’t want any substitutes or consolation prizes – He wants our hearts and our attention.  Are there times when we worship with a divided heart or mind?  Are our motivators God honoring or human praise seeking?

What do YOU think?
Something more to ponder today.
God Bless You!

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Worship Music and Road Rage

Ok, it’s confession time.  You know, that moment when you spill the proverbial beans, you spill your guts, the whole truth shall set you free…so here goes…

ImageIt happened yesterday.  It was just another normal day of getting my two oldest boys off to school, and getting there on time.  For me being on time is important, it’s a pet peeve of mine to be late for anything…yet somehow the rest of my family seems to think we can show up whenever we get there, which is not cool for school!

After about five minutes of looking for one of my son’s shoes, which must have been a part of Harry Houdini’s magic act, because I have found his shoes in the oddest places including outside and behind the toilet (I am not kidding).  Finally we get into the minivan, I’m a little flustered, we’re a few minutes late now and the van is stone cold because we spent so much time looking for shoes that I neglected to start the van early enough to get it warmed up.  I guess you could say it was my time to chill…literally.  We get our seat belts buckled, and off we go to school.  I take a few deep breaths to exhale the stress from my lungs and turn on the radio.  It’s still set to my mp3 player, and so praise music begins to play in the van.  I am finally finding my groove with now tepid coffee in hand, and soothing worship music playing in the background.  At this point I am starting to feel the music, and I begin to sing along…oh don’t judge me, I bet you sing in the van too.

As I’m singing along to a song called “Love came down” I glance in my rearview mirror and notice a car is aggressively riding my rear bumper.  I’m doing the speed limit…I’m not a slow driver.  I’m still trying to sing this great worship song but I’m being distracted by the driver in the car behind me.  It’s starting to stress me out again.  Finally we come to one of those round-abouts that the city recently put in, and I expect him to slow down…instead he speeds up, and swerves into the next lane, then he darts ahead of me and proceeds to cut me off as he turns into my lane ahead of me… “Love came down” is still playing in the background…although I’m not feeling like I want to place any love down on this guy who I feel has just wronged me.  In fact, I feel like speeding up, honking my horn, and if possible pass him up just like he did to me.

“Love came down to rescue me, love came down to set me free…”

Then these words hit me in the face, as I’m flustered, angry, and I’ve yelled at the guy as he cut me off…somehow I don’t feel so “set free” at the moment…I’m bound by this anger inside of me at this act that I understand to be injustice and inconsideration by some idiot in a car.

At the same moment that the lyrics of this song that I had just been singing hit me, I look over at my boys.  It’s a double slap in the face.  What am I teaching my children in this instance?  Am I teaching them that you can sing about being set free by the love of God and at the same time curse man because of their ignorance and failure to yield to the rules of the road?

“Love came down to rescue me, love came down and set me free…and I am Yours, I’m forever Yours.”  At that moment I didn’t feel like HIS…I felt guilty of being MINE.  I felt guilty of being selfish and I was teaching my children how to be angry and selfish too.  Was this the kind of legacy I was leaving for my kids?  Did I want my boys to be angry at drivers, angry at the world and stressed out over something so temporary and silly?  Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” I know this to be absolutely true…because in that moment of road rage, I lost my happiness and I lost a little bit of integrity that I had with my kids in that van.

I was convicted while singing a praise song, and instead of displaying that love that came down for me, I was displaying the wrath of my sinful state…my old self.

Okay, confession time is over.  They say it’s good for the soul, but you know what’s better for the soul?  Avoiding those trappings that lead us to confession in the first place.  It’s much, much harder to do, but in the long run we would all be better off.  This is a truth that I’ve learned, road rage and worship music make for very awkward road companions, let alone improper parental examples of godly living.

I guess what I’m trying to say is summed up in Ephesians 4:29; “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”   I was singing one tune and letting sin lead me astray back into my old sinful ways…and my kids were in the van.  I wasn’t building anyone up in that moment; I was letting my tongue destroy.

We can’t possibly do both at the same time as children of God.  We either let love come down and be a part of who we are igniting others with this joy, love and hope; or we let sin in and we treat others through selfish intentions and shameful acts.  Perhaps you’ve also been there a time or two…it’s a slap in the face, conviction follows and we need to confess and modify that behavior if we are to truly live as children of God bringing that love and freedom into this world.

Take it from a guy who sang a song of praise while my actions were singing a song of wrath…it’s time to change.

-Just a thought.

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