More Than Music

by Tracy Manno

Part of the REDISCOVERING WORSHIP video series

“Worship!”  Reading or hearing someone say the word worship can invoke a number of responses in each of us.  Depending on our upbringings and life experiences we each have our own personal take on what worship means, how we define it, and varying emotions and imagery it conjures.  From thoughts of performing ceremonial religious acts and memories of fragrant incense, to rousing our feet to stomp and hands to lift high in praise with cymbals, horns and guitars, there is no shortage of opinion on the subject.

The point of our “Rediscovering Worship” blog series, and really the point of His Way Worship at heart is to set a tone where we can start to set aside our finite ideas on “how” God wants to be worshipped, and explore the endless ocean that is ours in worshipping the Lord Jesus.

Let’s start by just ripping the band aid off and saying worship, in its primary form, is not a musical concept at all.  Think of music as a vehicle for our worship to travel in.  We get in a car, airplane or boat that provides us transportation to someplace we otherwise couldn’t have gone.  Music is a place that we can enter into so we can tangibly express deep longings to the Father from within our souls.  The lyrics we sing connect the truths of who God is with our own living spirit.  The music we play allow us to physically interact with that connection by playing instruments, tapping feet, lifting hands, singing voices.  We “enter into worship”, individually or together, through the medium of music.

Music is such a powerful and universal vehicle for us to worship in I believe, in part, because we are created in the likeness of Christ.  We create music using the very likeness of Himself, and we naturally connect with this likeness at the untouchable place it was created… deep within our souls.

Worship is where our spirit and soul collaborate and agree together that Christ is above all and in all.  When sin came into the human DNA our eternal connection with God’s spirit was severed.  We needed a savior to revive, restore, and bring new spirit life back to us.  Through the process of salvation God gives us His own Spirit, and once again our soul can connect eternally with God, and in our worship we agree with Christ, that He is Lord of our lives.

Romans 12:1 tells us that this is our spiritual act of worship… the sacrifice of our lives to Jesus for His purposes.

This is why worship at its core is not about music.  It’s a heart condition.  Worship happens as a lifestyle, in the mundane, messy, broken, painful, joyful journey of our daily lives.  We find our worship in the surrender of every moment as we agree with His Spirit that He is worthy of it all.  In this way our very lives become the ultimate vehicle for our expression of true worship.  We allow God to play us as His instrument, freely giving Him every moment, every circumstance to the obedience of serving our beautiful Creator.
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Let the symphony play on Lord Jesus!

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Click here to watch Tracy's video blog teaching on this topic