Let the Worshipers Arise

One of the albums I’ve ever listened to so much is this one done by Phillips, Craig and Dean, one of my favourite gospel rock trio, in 2004 - Let The Worshipers Arise. Before I went out to get the music, the title tilted my soul a bit – let the worshippers arise? Had they fallen? Had they grown cold? Had they fallen asleep? Had they been succumbed to some death or something? I wanted to get it in the music. Maybe there I would get the answers I was seeking for...
At such a time as this when church philosophy is being changed by the day and people have diversified their views on Christianity and the act of worship, it is of great value that you and I define our terms of worship. Of course there is music. Then there is singing. Then there are instruments. But worship is not any of those. But it may be inclusive of either or all of them.
Matt Redman, the man who composed, ‘Heart Of Worship’ at a time when his church (or congregation in his case) had lost meaning in singing with instruments; and while in a time of ‘no instruments worship’, found out that the heart needed to sing more than the instrument and the music...That music was just a tool, an aid to lubricate devotion. He found out that devotion itself had to be nurtured first...
So has your worship risen within you? Is it rising or is it asleep? Is it dying or is it alive?
I know you expected me to quote John 4:4-26 – the famous passage where Jesus meets a Samaritan woman and there follows a conversation on who is ‘worshipping’ a true God and in the right way... And Jesus, who happens to know motives and thoughts, is more of a ‘mysterious man’ to this lady (the Samaritan woman) – He knows too much about her! The story ends not with argument, but with confession, “Come and see the man who told me everything I ever did”... But that’s a story for another day. In that conversation, it is evident that worship in Israel had arbitrarily died. No one was doing anything as inscribed in the Torah. The 653 laws had become too hard to keep, huh? Israel was in a recess period where no-one cared about God, or the temple, or worship, or the mountain...No-one.
But Jesus had come at such a time as that to ‘let the worshippers arise’. To raise such a people who will give their all to God as influenced by the Spirit of God. To lift us an army, a people, who will do it in Spirit and in Truth. To raise a people who will do it in Love. Such a people who will take the interest of others at heart and not just their own. Such a people who will listen to the voice of their Shepherd. Such a people who will become heirs in a Kingdom that was to come. Such a people... who will be a royal priesthood, a holy nation, consecrated for the glory of their God... Jesus had come so that the worshippers may be raised from their death beds, from their gloom, from their slumber, from their lack of vision; from their stillness and ineffectiveness... he wanted them raised!
And He is here telling us to arise. To arise and worship. Maybe with a song. A new song. Maybe with a guitar. Maybe with a musical instrument. But majorly with our hearts. With our whole hearts. Let the worshippers arise! Are you rising?