"God is the king of all the earth; sing ye praises with understanding." Ps. 47:7
"...they that worship [God] must worship Him in spirit and in truth." John 4:24
Worship is for the whole man, not just a part of him. It is no mere emotional experience any more than it is a mere intellectual exercise, though it seems that the intellectual side of things needs to be re-stressed today. We treat worship like a wholly subjective experience, which it is not. It is subjective, in that it is highly personal; but it is also equally objective, in that it is directed towards a definite object with definite realities. Our subjective praise of God must be bound to the objective truths of God that He has revealed to us. Binding your subjective experiences to objective realities is an essential paradox for many things, and worship is one of them.
We have very few who "praise with understanding" these days. Most worship is bound to utter subjectivity, which can cause one to wonder who it is exactly that everyone is worshipping. In order to avoid deceptive self-worship (which most modern worship is) or "God" becoming an empty connotative word with no definite substance, our spirits must be bound to the truth. We must not forget the individual man (for then or worship becomes mechanistic), but we must also not forget the God who is (for then our worship becomes a lie). Only when we account for both can we worship subjectively and objectively; only then can we have "praises with understanding."
-Jon Vowell
"...they that worship [God] must worship Him in spirit and in truth." John 4:24
Worship is for the whole man, not just a part of him. It is no mere emotional experience any more than it is a mere intellectual exercise, though it seems that the intellectual side of things needs to be re-stressed today. We treat worship like a wholly subjective experience, which it is not. It is subjective, in that it is highly personal; but it is also equally objective, in that it is directed towards a definite object with definite realities. Our subjective praise of God must be bound to the objective truths of God that He has revealed to us. Binding your subjective experiences to objective realities is an essential paradox for many things, and worship is one of them.
We have very few who "praise with understanding" these days. Most worship is bound to utter subjectivity, which can cause one to wonder who it is exactly that everyone is worshipping. In order to avoid deceptive self-worship (which most modern worship is) or "God" becoming an empty connotative word with no definite substance, our spirits must be bound to the truth. We must not forget the individual man (for then or worship becomes mechanistic), but we must also not forget the God who is (for then our worship becomes a lie). Only when we account for both can we worship subjectively and objectively; only then can we have "praises with understanding."
-Jon Vowell
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