What a Powerful Name

Wow, what a Good God.

A lot has been happening over the past couple of weeks. It's hard to comprehend what has been happening lately in my life. I have to admit, there are days where I struggle immensely with my own self doubt. Lots of people go through these days, especially when we interact with others. But enough of the personal, this post is about worship styles.

James 4 begins with this: "What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions."

Talk about a slap of reality. We're constantly fighting with and against ourselves. We're quick to speak and slow to listen. I'm writing this blog post tying James 4 to the context of worship. Denominations quarrel over methods of worship, whether it is traditional with hymns or contemporary with contemporary Christian music songs. I'm actually on the fence on this theological debate. I attend a Baptist church where the worship services are contemporary. There are no pews, but there are chairs. I've been going there for six years, since the summer before my junior year of high school. I've also sang hymns in using the United Methodist Hymnal while in worship performance and through Union Harmony auditions. At 17, I officially gave my life to Jesus through a YouTube video, but let's save the salvation story post for another day.

To sum up the context, hymns have their place. So do CCM songs played on Air1 or K-Love. A friend of mine told me earlier that it doesn't matter what method as long as God is being praised. Problem is, we've become legalistic to the point where everything is a performance and we're caving to what people's preferences are. The problem is our attitudes in these scenarios. To me, worship is not just what songs we sing or what method of worship a service contains. Worship can also be spending time alone with God by reading a Bible and calling out to Him in prayer. Maybe that's just my attitude on all this, but if I'm honest, I don't feel any closer to Jesus by just singing a hymn, a song, attending church, hearing a sermon, or anything else. I feel closer to Jesus by getting to spend time with God, serving others through preschool and youth ministries, going to life group and all other things. Without those key ingredients, I don't know if I will be able to understand the power of God in its full capacity.

The question is, if Jesus Christ is the top priority and number 1 focus, then why does it even matter what type of worship service a church has as long as its biblically sound? Let's not focus on the methods, let's focus on the One. That would be Jesus.

So, raise your hands up. Grab a hymnal. Or do both. Or neither. What a powerful name it is, the name of Jesus.


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