TRUE WORSHIP IS CAST IN THE IMAGE OF GOD

 

By Bishop Tony Osuobeni 

WORSHIP IS THE OUTWARD DEMONSTRATION BY MAN OF AN INNER REVELATION OF GOD. 

NO revelation, NO demonstration. NO demonstration NO worship, IN THAT ORDER!

The truth about worship is the revelation of who God is. Thank God for the spirit of tautology. WE SERVE A GOD OF ENCORES. GOD SAYS WHAT HE MEANS AND MEANS WHAT HE SAYS, OVER & OVER & OVER & OVER AGAIN, UNTIL WE GET IT! 

THERE'S NO WORSHIP WITHOUT A REVELATION OF GOD. Many books in worship are defective for spending pages upon pages talking about how to worship God without talking about God. At the core of worship is the very God we worship. 

The people that do know their God shall be strong and DO EXPLOITS in the altars of worship (Daniel 11:32).

You cannot worship a God you do not know. Wow, know God? Sounds almost impracticable. How can finite mortal man know or describe a God who is infinite, eternal, immortal,  omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent? God is “beautiful beyond description, too marvellous for words, too wonderful for comprehension like nothing ever seen or heard.l However, because He came down to our level to take us up to His level, we can, indeed know Him. Yes, mortal man can know and describe God via the instrumentality of His inspired Word! The Bible has the knowledge and the revelation of God scattered all lover it. It’s a travesty of gargantuan proportions to go into the Word of God to look for something else but God! 

We were created to know God and born again to know God. Salvation’s greatest purpose is the knowledge of God. The ancient Latin maxim is key; 

“Habere Deum Est Colerie Deum” which means, “TO KNOW GOD IS TO WORSHIP GOD." And we become like the God we worship, Hallelujah! 

It's time we put the Person and knowledge of God back into our worship. As a worship leader or worshipper period, you must know God. You cannot take people where you have not been. It's impossible to introduce people to someone you don't know or you've never met. The Knowledge of God is the greatest qualification for anyone who qualifies and thrives as a worshiper or a choir member, or a worship leader.

It shows when worship leaders attempt to lead their people into worship whether they know Him or not. You can just tell that that person up there leading us is drawing and bringing us into an experience he or she is very well acquainted.

TRUE WORSHIP IS CAST IN THE IMAGE OF THE ONE WE WORSHIP, NOT IN THE IMAGE OF THOSE WHO WORSHIP NOR IN THE GROOVE OF YOUR MUSIC. Worship is contaminated when the worshippers become the center of attraction and not the One being worshipped. Nothing is as other-centered as worship. It is something you do not for yourself but for the One you are worshipping. The spirit of pride is the greatest enemy of worship. Once pride is present in your worship, you are no longer worshipping. You have detoured into a mean cul-de-sac of idolatry. 

I repeat TRUE WORSHIP IS CAST IN THE IMAGE  OF THE ONE WE WORSHIP, IT IS CAST IN THE IMAGE OF GOD. Hence God said LET US MAKE MAN IN OUT OWN IMAGE (Genesis 1:26). It was for worship sake that God desired this creature that would worship Him in spirit according to the truth (John 4:24). 

True worship calls for the highest levels of consecration and devotion to God and the things of God, especially in the context of the local church. It calls for those involved in leading the church's worship to know God and he found to be present in all the churches weekly activities especially prayer and Bible Study. 

WORSHIP IS OF GOD, FOR GOD, FROM GOD & TO GOD!

BEHOLD THE GOD WE WORSHIP

 

WHO IS GOD? 

This is the most important question in worship! 

This is the quintessential core of worship. Who God is and how we may know Him. Our worship is shaped by this knowledge! My focus in this post is to attempt a definition of God. Can we know God? Yes we can? God wrote His word with that possibility in mind. God's word reveals all we may know about Him and nothing more. 

"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law."

(Deuteronomy 29:29) 

God reveals the things we need to know about Him for our consumption insofar as the shaping of His worth is concerned. The rest belong exclusively to Him and may be further revealed to those who go deeper in their relationship with God.

"The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant." (Psalm 25:14)

The Bible is full of descriptions of God’s spiritual form and “bodily parts”: Some of them are as follows:

1. He has a personal spirit body – Daniel 7:9-14; 10:5-19
2. Shape – John 5:37
3. Form – Phil. 2:5-7
4. Image and likeness of a man – Gen. 1:26; 9:6; Ezekiel 1:26-28; James 3:9 5. Back parts – Exodus 33:23
6. Heart – Genesis 6:6; 8:21
7. Hands and fingers – Psalm 8:3-6; Hebrews 1:10; Revelation 5:1-7
8. Mouth – Numbers 12:8
9. Lips and tongue – Isaiah 30:27
10. Feet – Ezekiel 1:27; Exodus 24:10
11. Ears – Psalm 18:6
12. Hair, face, head and arms – Dan. 7:9-14; 10:5-19; Rev. 5:1-7; 22:4-6
13. Loins – Ezekiel 1:26-28; 8:1-4.
14. God has a voice – Psalm 29’ Rev. 10:3-4
15. God has a breath (He is Breath Himself) – Genesis 2:7
16. God has a countenance – Psalm 11:7
17. God eats – Genesis 18:1-8; Exodus 24:11
18. God sits on a throne – Isaiah 6; Dan7:9-11; Rev, 4:1-5; 22:3-4
19. God walks – Genesis 3:8; 18:1-8; 22, 33.
20. God rests – Genesis 2:1-4; Hebrews 4:4

Perhaps, the best exercise a worship team would ever have is to take a season and study these descriptions of God. I cannot overemphasize the need for focus on His Person and Personality as our greatest pursuit. It is possible that we are 'worshipping' without having a vision of whom we are worshipping. It is essential that we have God on our minds and in our hearts as we worship Him. That's what makes worship a very powerful event! It is demonstrably rewarding when we know that the One we are worshipping is cast in the image of our own bodily likeness! (Genesis 1:26-28). We were made by God for God! 

If we focus on this "God Season" in our worship, then we can hope to successfully take others into His presence.  The best chapter in any book on worship ought to be the GOD CHAPTER! Have you read any book on worship lately that talks about God? How come we talk so much about worship but we never talk about the One THIS THING is meant for? The answers are not farfetched - worship is far removed from the Who and What we worship to the How we worship. We worship for many other reasons but God. And so our worship is godless, listless and powerless. This is sad! Our eyes are closed to the One we are supposed to be worshipping because our eyes are open to flesh and all that satisfies self. We are worshippers of worship but not of God! 

So who is God? 

He is the ETERNAL SPIRIT, THE FATHER OF LIGHTS, THE ONE WHO DWELLS IN A LIGHT NO MAN CAN APPROACH. God is the Supreme Being and principal object of our faith. He is the incorporeal God who controls time, space and matter! He is the God without gender yet He is known to us as an all-sufficient Mother in El-Shaddai and an everlasting Father in Elohim, the Father of the fatherless! 

God is not a man but He is shaped as a man! God is not flesh and blood yet He made flesh and blood to worship Him! He uses who He made us, who we are for His glory! Indeed, in Him we live and move and have or being. (Acts 17:28). We exist for His glory. This makes worship our DNA. It is our "Divine Nature Attitude.

God is unseen yet He is the most real Spirit and Person in our universe. This makes worship REAL! God HE is THE UNCREATED CREATOR - THE SELF EXISTING ONE WHO INHABITS ETERNITY. He is the One who has no beginning and no ending. HE IS! GOD IS! Think about it, GOD IS! So true worship IS. Worship is present in our present and eternal in our absence from time. Worship IS because God IS! 

The lesson to learn about the God we worship is that He created us to be like Him; He gave us our body parts, eyes ears, nose, mouth, face, lungs, heart, to mention a few, for the shaping of His worth! Never look at your body the same again: you are godlike! No other creature looks like you in this universe and you look like God. 

YOU ARE A GOD TYPE FOR WORSHIP SAKE!!! 

Now that's how real worship begins. You think God. You set your heart, spirit and soul on God; then watch out...your body will receive the message--- what we call WORSHIP breaks out! It's just a seamless powerful flow of life from LIFE Himself! That's where demonstration matches revelation. This is the kind of God-filled worship we need in our lives and churches today. Not the music or songs-driven worship. But the type driven by Hod Himself! 

No worship can happen without God being conceived of in our Spirit-mind. WE HAVE TO SEE IN ORDER THAT WE MAY WORSHIP HIM!

We are living in a day and time when our worship will be so filled with God that it will be so anointed: the dead shall be raised, blind eyes shall open, deaf shall pop, lame legs shall receive life just from this kind of God-filled worship. There shall be no preaching, no laying on of hands. And it will not be organized. It will be spontaneous! A God-filled spirit-led worship will get the job done. In that day, God Himself shall get all the glory! 

We need a revival of this kind of worship in our day and time. 

The Truth About Worship Part 2

 

"The Flames of Worship burn with the liquid love of who God is!" 

~ Bishop Tony Osuobeni 

My focus is GOD! Worship is about divine Person. Worship is about divine Personality. Worship is about Spirit and truth. Who God is has been my fascination forever. If I could just see Him AS IS, then I'll worship Him AS IS. The revelation of true worship shapes the our demonstration of worship.

I have often defined worship as THE OUTWARD DEMONSTRATION OF AN INNER REVELATION. But still, it doesn't really tell us who or what God is. As visual creatures, we want to let our imaginations run wild and try and see if we can come to terms with what God looks like. This is he underlying current of worship; THE ESSENCE OF WORSHIP IS KNOWING THE OBJECT OF OUR WORSHIP.

DOES GOD HAVE A FORM?

Perhaps, the greatest fascination with the Person of God is with His physical form. Now that’s an oxymoron – SPIRIT & FORM. Notwithstanding there is a kind of form that is attributed to God’s Person. God is Spirit and not flesh. His form is not corporeal; it is Spirit-form. Form relates to outward appearance and God does have an outward appearance. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." [Gen 1:26a]

The Hebrew word translated image is TSELEM which means “shade” or “resemblance.” Dake says “its usage proves it refers to outward form, not to attributes.” The other word in the verse is “likeness” or demuwth in Hebrew which means “shape,” model which also according to Dake refers to outward form as proven by its usage in Scripture (See Isaiah 40:18; Ezekiel 1:5).

So when the Bible says that God created man in His image and likeness it suggests a certain kind of form that can be attributed to God Himself. When Ezekiel saw Him he noted as follows:

"And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as THE APPEARANCE OF A MAN above upon it. Ezekiel 1:26. 

It is interesting to note that Ezekiel did see a form sitting on the eternal heavenly throne and even more interesting is that he saw the shape of a man. Think about the TSELEM and DEMUWTH and then try to connect that idea to what David says in Psalm 139:14-16;

"14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. 

15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."

The child of a cat is a cat; the child of a bear is called a bear; the child of a shark is a shark. It shouldn’t surprise us therefore that a child of God is called a “god.” It came from the mouth of Jesus Himself; 

“…Is it not written in your law, I said, YE ARE GODS? If he called them GODS, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken.” John 10”34-35. 

God is man in shape, but He is Spirit in essence. He looks like a man in appearance, but His nature is Spirit. That is what the TSELEM and DEMUWTH mean. God's body is like that of a man. We were created in His image and after His likeness.

However, God is a SPIRIT-BEING. He is unlike anything He has ever created. He is not the sun, moon, stars; nor an image of wood, stone, or metal; and not beast or man. He is not the air, wind, universal mind, love or some impersonal quality. HE IS A PERSON WITH A PERSONAL SPIRIT-BODY, A PERSONAL SOUL OF SOME IMPERSONAL QUALITY! Instead of flesh and bones, however, God's "body" is of spirit substance.

Oh worshiper, do you ever think about God? Do you really long to see Him AS HE IS and worship Him AS HE SHOULD NE WORSHIPED? IT'S YOUR TURN TO SEE GOD! Let the flame of worship burn in your life like never before! 

To read more about this: get my book, "THE TRUTH ABOUT WORSHIP" and read more about the God of our Worship under the "God Chapter"! 

THE TRUTH ABOUT WORSHIP Part 1

 

"To worship a God you don't know is to worship yourself."

~ By Bishop Tony Osuobeni 

THE TRUTH ABOUT WORSHIP IS THE REVELATION OF WHO GOD. We never really start talking about the subject of worship without talking about who God is. WORSHIP IS ABOUT GOD, WORSHIP IS FOR GOD, WORSHIP IS FROM GOD AND WORSHIP IS TO GOD!

The truth about worship is the revelation of who God is! [repetition for emphasis]. When we discover this truth, we worship God as we ought to “in Spirit and in truth.” 

According to Nathan Pitchford, “This approach to pursuing the knowledge of God has an unavoidable impact on any study of worship in that it not only lays the foundation from assessing what true worship is, but it also necessitates a mutually-supportive conclusion as to how true worship comes about.” 

There is no worship without the knowledge of God. There is no man who can truly worship God, till he comes to a measure of certain knowledge of Him; for all the worship in the world where the veil of ignorance still prevails upon the mind, is all abominable and it is unacceptable to God. 

There must be a knowledge of God before there can be a true worshiping of Him. 'They that worship before they know God, worship what they know not.' It's not enough to merely hear of God, you must know God before you worship God. We don't worship to know God but we know God hence we worship. Every one that would be a true worshiper, must first come to that which gives a true knowledge of Him. They must worship with a certainty and clarity in their minds that; "THIS IS OUR GOD, FOR WE HAVE WAITED FOR HIM." (Isaiah 29:5). 

In this day and time when the worship of worship is rampant in our churches, we need to go back to the God of the Bible. When the worshipper becomes more famous than the One we are supposed to be worshipping, we have missed God and His greatest pleasure. It is time we need a revival of the meaning and significance of worship. It was AW Tozer who always said; "the church will get many things right when she gets worship right." Thus to be wrong here is Gobe wrong everywhere else. 

How are you ever going to talk about worship without talking about the One we are worshipping? Worship is not about songs, music or anything else. Even the expressions of worship such as jumping dancing, clapping of the hands etc do not explain what worship really is. Worship is. Or what we do. It is who we are in relation to who God is. Then we can say IT IS THE OUTWARD DEMONSTRATION OF AN INNER REVELATION! No revelation no demonstration and no demonstration no worship, in that order! 

So the first question we need to be asking when talking about worship is WHO IS GOD? Worship is wrapped up in who He is and who He wants us to be in order for us to worship acceptably. 

WHO IS GOD? The Bible tells us that GOD IS SPIRIT [Jn 4:24], but who is God? What is He really? How does He look like? What are His features? Any semblance to us? Let's keep imagining. If we can imagine who He is, then maybe, perhaps, we might be able to come to terms with the revelation of His Person in Scriptures, because THE TRUTH ABOUT WORSHIP IS THE REVELATION OF WHO GOD IS! Read on in Part  2 of THE TRUTH ABOUT WORSHIP!