How great is YOUR God?

How great is our God, sing with me how great is our God, all will see how great, how great is our God. - Chris Tomlin, How Great is Our God.
I just led worship for the Sunday morning congregation of Acts Center yesterday. Wow!

The people were really singing their hearts out to God and encountering God in a real way during the worship. And again I had the satisfaction of bringing people to encounter God, using just a guitar and the anointing he gave me.

Of course I had help. People who lent me the guitar and the mike, people who helped project the lyrics for the congregation and of course a dear sister-in-Christ from Tuesday Group who specially took the time and effort to be there and sing backup for me to help the congregation flow in worship.

Kinda interesting, this sister, Sister F, arrived late for the pre-service preparations because her car broke down. And after the service when we were chatting she told me that the projected cost of repairs was $2000.

I couldn’t believe it. She too sang her heart out during worship and during the sermon she was furiously soaking in every word from the pastor. It was as if she wasn’t given a $2000 piece of bad news just that very morning.

Either that or she has a God who is greater than a $2000 problem.

Which brings me to the question I have for you. How great is YOUR God?

O LORD my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty. He wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent. (Psalm 104:1-2, NIV)
Now, we all have the same God as Sister F. But not all of us can shrug off a $2000 problem just like that, because not all of us have a revelation of God in which he is bigger than a $2000 problem.

Let’s look at things in a different way. If you discover that you’ve left the baby’s things behind at home JUST after you’ve struggled to get the pram and the two boys up the bus, and you’ve got to get off, head home, grab the bag and then head off to church to meet the rest of the family, does that ruin your Sunday worship service and leave you fuming at yourself (or your spouse) during worship? Or is your God so great that all that hassle is a hiccup barely worth mentioning or thinking of?

What I am getting at is that you can see how great your God really is to you by seeing how great a problem has to be before it can trouble your peace and affect the way you relate to God and to others. The greater God is in your eyes, the smaller other problems become.

Now of course problems are problems and need to be dealt with. But do they need to affect your peace? Or you can just deal with them as if they are no big deal, because your God is bigger than they are? One very common source of quarrels for Sunday mornings is being late. I know of people who will argue bitterly with their spouses over being a few minutes late for worship.

And when the arguments start getting hysterically historical (“You ALWAYS XXX, I told you not to XXX for the last 3 Sundays and you promised that you won’t XXX again. Now you’ve XXX-ed again and we’re going to be late again, just like the last 3 Sundays…”) that’s when we tend to forget that nowhere in Scripture are we specifically told to be punctual for services, but we are repeatedly admonished to watch how we treat our siblings-in-Christ. Do we honestly believe God is so concerned about our punctuality for services that he’ll close one eye to us emotionally abusing our spouses or children for the sake of punctuality?

Anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. - 1 John 4:20, NIV
Of course, I’m not advocating that you should be late for worship. In fact you should make a special point to be on time. (Especially when I am the one leading worship, of course). What I am saying is how great is your revelation of God will determine how much all these matters trouble you to the point that you forget what is really important to God.

So how do we grow in our revelation of the greatness of our God?

1) Pray for such revelation

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. - Ephesians 1:17-19, NIV
2) Feed such revelation.

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? – Romans 10:14, NIV
We feed the revelation of the greatness of our God by exposing ourselves to preaching, whether during church sermons, sermon CDs, the preaching in the Bible, the preaching we sing to ourselves and to others during worship, or even from the indirect preaching of others as we hear their testimonies.

I’m willing to bet that if I were to quantify the amount of time, money and effort Sister F has put into feeding her revelation of the greatness of God, it will be easily be worth more than $2000. Because she has a greater than $2000 revelation of the greatness of God, I am looking forward to seeing how God will deal with her car problem. Will he just do something to the repair bill that it becomes negligible? Or give her a sudden windfall to cover the repair cost? Or just give her a new car? I don’t know, but I look forward to finding out.

Important note: If you are serving as a worship musician, don’t let your service deceive you into thinking you don’t need to further feed your revelation. There are musicians who serve in church for the sake of the music, not for the sake of serving God and his people.

Frankly, I’ve got absolutely no problem with that at all. If people want to indulge their desire to play music, I’d rather they do it in the house of God and let his people be blessed, than do it in a pub someplace, where the quality of their music is judged on how many alcoholics they can attract to that pub. And besides, there’s less 2nd hand cigarette smoke in church.

What I am concerned about, however, is that the musician may spend lots of time in the house of God and not feed the revelation within. And that would be such a waste. Here’s a quick test for you to see if a musician is there for the sake of the music or feeding the revelation of God’s greatness. Look at what happens when something goes wrong with the music.

Yesterday when I was leading the worship, the E bass string on the guitar went drastically out of tune, going to some out-of-tune D. So I had to immediately change my playing style to avoid that string, and tune that string later at the first available break. (Since I was the only musician, that break took a long time in coming.)

And I totally forgot all about it after that. It was only later yesterday evening when I was thinking through the points of this email, how Sister F just shrugged off the car problem she had, that I remembered that something went wrong with the music also. But because I knew my God is greater than the E bass string on the guitar it just didn’t affect me at all. My peace was unruffled and I just continued leading worship, being a blessing to God’s people and being blessed by his presence myself.

So that’s it for this somewhat longer post. Feed your revelation of the greatness of God. And may he reveal his greatness to us in ever-increasing measure as we continue to grow in him!

Prayer time: I’m going to be conducing worship training for the worship personnel of Acts Center this coming Saturday. Because I know the people involved (and have sat in for the services even when I am not playing for the worship) I am going to adapt my sharing to be more specific for this group (rather than share what applies to many churches across the board). Pray for me that I will say the right things and that what I share will be received in the right way. Other words, pray that if there are people offended with me, let them be offended because they heard me correctly and didn’t agree, rather than because they misunderstood me. Thanks, everyone! Be blessed!

More T & A (Teaching & Admonishing)

A quick follow-up note on the last post…

A couple of Saturdays ago, I spent 4 hours with my sis and one of her friends, a worship leader from her church. And it was great. I was totally in my element, sharing about leading worship, singing, demonstrating on both the keyboard and guitar… Wow! Totally fun!

Because I got held up at home, I got there late and VERY hungry. My sis got lunch for me, and while I was eating she was listing the questions she had for me to answer. When I heard some of her questions, however, my spirit got so excited that I forgot my hunger. I had to discipline myself to finish the food before getting started on her questions.

"I have food to eat that you know nothing about. My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” (John 4:32, 34)

And once we got started, the time just shot past. I was showing how to modulate the key of a song in different situations, how to actually apply all these ideas in worship, what can be done with familiar songs, common situations during congregational worship and all that.

The really unusual part of the experience, however, was that AFTER it I realized MANY things about what I am doing, what I trying to teach. I found new and clearer ways of explaining what I had to teach. They just came to me in the days after the sharing session.

It was as if my subconscious was so stimulated by the interaction with my sis and her friend that for days I kept getting revelations and seeing connections about what I have been called to teach.

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)

This is what you can get from teaching and admonishing one another, as the Scripture exhorts. I know the other people there were blessed by the sharing, but I was blessed even more. And that is what I want you to experience too.

A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed. (Proverbs 11:25)

And I definitely was refreshed by the whole experience. After 4 hours I was ready to keep going on. Or find new people to share my info and experience with.

And that is why I do what I do, right?

Another point:

I shared last time about spending lots of time in the book of Psalms. My personal experience is that because the Psalms are less intellectual and more emotional, they build me up in my emotions more than other parts of Scripture.

And you kinda want to have more than an average familiarity with the book of Psalms. Because when the storms of life hit, sometimes our emotions just shut down and go dead on us and we find it difficult to pray our hearts out to God.

So at such moments, the Psalms do wonders for helping to bring life to our emotions again. The crisis Psalms (27, 31, 34, 54 and 61, for example) may seem a bit way-out for us during the normal days of life, but if you spend some time with them then they will minister to you so much more during the stormy seasons.

I just went through such a period, in fact. I was blasted in stereo, torn down effectively by a couple of experts and given burdens no one should ever have to bear, at a time when I most need my clarity… And the sheer unfairness of it all caused my emotions to just shut down. I couldn’t even pray the way I usually do.

All I could do was to take the crisis Psalms and read them aloud a few times each. And do that everyday until my emotions started coming back to normal again.

Now, you don’t want to wait until a crisis before you start feeding on these Psalms. It takes time for them to become a part of your spirit, and for them to start aligning your emotions and thoughts with the Word of God. So start on them now. It will take you less than 10 mins a day to read through them aloud a couple of times, but after just 3 weeks you will feel different, as if God has deposited something solid and substantial into your soul and spirit. (He will.)

Ok, that’s all for now. Get back to you all soon. Be blessed!

Teach and Admonish

I have a confession to make.

I am a control freak.

And that is a side of me that I had to face up to, especially as I am writing this.

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation…” 1 Peter 2:9 (NIV)

When I first started serving in a worship ministry, the popular teaching was that we musicians were a specially called group, the New Testament equivalent of the Old Testament Levites and priests.

As I grew in my understanding (and just kept on reading the Bible) I just couldn’t hold to that idea anymore, that worship leaders and worship musicians are a separate group from the ‘average’ believer. I don’t believe that is an idea that can be justified from New Testament Scripture.

“To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a Kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father…” Revelations 1:5-6 (NIV)

Notice from the two passages I quoted that there is no argument the New Testament believer is a priest? Depending on what translation you are using, people can dispute whether we are made kings. But it is clear that we are definitely made priests.

All of us. Even the ones who are not serving in a worship ministry or see themselves as having no music gifting at all.

And one very neglected duty of the priest is the duty to teach. If Christ has made you a priest, he has given you not only the duty to praise God but also to teach. Consider this passage on the tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe:

“He teaches your precepts to Jacob and your law to Israel. He offers incense before you and whole burnt offerings on your altar.” Deuteronomy 33:10 (NIV)

And what are the priests to teach?

“They are to teach my people the difference between the holy and the common and show them how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean. In any dispute, the priests are to serve as judges and decide it according to my ordinances.” Ezekiel 44:23-24 (NIV)

This is the tough part for me. To tell you all that you are called, no, you are commanded by God to teach his people. What if you start teaching the wrong things to God’s people? Wouldn’t I be at least partially responsible?

“I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another.” Romans 15:14 (NIV)

And THAT is the verse that slapped me in the face and told me to tell you what I am telling you now.

Now, I’d love it if I could teach you what to teach God’s people, and be your reference and guide if you have any questions, or be someone you check things out with before you share your teaching with others. But it’s better for me to share with you some principles that will help you teach the right things to God’s people.

1) “Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult, whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse. Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you, rebuke a wise man and he will love you. Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still, teach a righteous man and he will increase in learning.” Proverbs 9:8-9 (NIV)

Remain open to being taught. Notice in the above passage mockers and the wicked are grouped together? And so are the wise and the righteous. Be open to what others share. Please, don’t swallow everything they say wholesale, because they may be wrong, but at least give them a fair hearing before you come to your conclusion. Remember Proverbs 18:13!

And thank them too, even if they are wrong. Oftentimes it’s very hard to step up to a sibling-in-Christ and share what you think they need to hear, especially if it’s something uncomfortable. So thank them for making the effort and assure them that you’ve heard what they had to say and you are giving it thought.

2) Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:16, NIV)

Notice the word “dwell”. Think about it. There are scientists who study cockroaches and centipedes, right? But they don’t let those creatures dwell with them in their own homes. Likewise, we can study the Bible seriously. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the Word of Christ is dwelling within us.

So let the Word of Christ dwell within us as a welcome and respected guest. As you open your mouth and speak out the Scriptures, let this welcome guest minister to you, edify you and educate you.

And also keep up your worship lifestyle. Besides teaching God’s word we are also to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Now, there is room for us to disagree on the exact definition of those terms for worship, but it’s clear that we are to keep worshiping God, as that is part of letting the word of Christ dwell richly in us.

Side point: I personally spend lots of time in the book of Psalms also. I believe that it helps me understand the rest of the Bible better. In Ephesians 5 the psalms are linked with being filled with the Spirit. As I said, this is a personal thing.

3) Be ruled by peace.

In Colossians 3:15, we are commanded to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts. We are called to peace, and in this context we’re talking about peace with our fellow believers. And this is the order of priorities that God has. First peace, then teaching.

And when we treasure peace, unity and continually release forgiveness to preserve that unity, we will find ourselves released to greater understanding of God’s word. And that will help you to teach the word of God to his people in an effective and appropriate way.


There is so much more to share on this topic, so I hope what I’ve shared so far will help you start off or encourage you further on this aspect of your priestly ministry. Be blessed, everyone!


Prayer time: Please pray for me that I will continue to be guided by the God in my decisions. Very heavy decisions to be made this season. The breakthroughs I’ve been praying for are finally arriving, and I need wisdom in reaping the harvest. Thanks, everyone!