What does your "church" look like? Is it big? Is it small? What does the worship sound like? What kind of messages do you hear? What do the other people do? How do you feel? Do you get into worship easy or does everything feel fake or forced?
These are just a few of the questions that I have been faced with since I got to Geneva. It is hard to find a home church. Most people want something real. I want to go somewhere where I will
grow in my faith. I would like that place to be like my church back home, but I know the individuality of my church back home and that I shouldn't look for an exact copy. God has been bringing up the questions above to my mind and really challenging me with them. I feel deep in my heart that I want to go where God wants me to. It seems like everywhere I go, something feels off.
Upon hearing a friend complain about a speaker being too charismatic, (a speaker I had enjoyed) I began questioning myself. What about the speaker did I like? I thought, "that's easy! God spoke through him!" Then I stopped. Was that the real reason? Was it the atmosphere? Did they secretly pump drugs into the room and my friend was immune while I was not? Surely it was because God was moving. Yet, if that were true, why could my friend not feel it?
These questions grew in number until I was becoming detached from worship. I began praying fervently. I thought I was just passionate for the people there. I have come to think that this whole time, God was waking me up to see that I was no longer going about it in the right way. I was there for the experience. Yes, I had the desire to see God deep inside me. The problem
was that I was not focused on it. I was focused on what God was doing and not the One who was doing the doing. I had been lulled into a trap of the enemy. The enemy does not want us to focus on God correctly. That would mean God would show up and the enemy would have to flee (1 John 4-5, James 4:7 ).The enemy would be kicked out of the temple and God would take his place.
Are you getting caught up in the experience instead of the conductor of the experience? Are you focusing on the God who loves you, cares for you, and calls you His Son/Daughter (1 John 3:1)? Pray for a refocusing on God. What you put at the center of your life will be what shapes you and your life. Would you like that to be an imperfect human, car, or sport? Or do you want it to be the only prefect and pleasing God, the One who sent His Son to die on the cross so that we may have a relationship with Him? Let us remember who we gather to worship and that it is not about the music, people, or atmosphere. Let us remember it's all about Jesus and as we worship, give all of ourselves to Him.
Related Scripture:
John 1:4-5 "In him {Jesus} was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."
James 4:7 "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."
1 John 3:1 "See what love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him."
2 Corinthians 4:5-6 "For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Christ."
1 Peter 2:9 "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."
Psalm 96:9 "Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth."
Mathew 15:8-9 "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules."
Luke 4:8 "Jesus answered 'It is written: Worship the Lord your God and serve him only'"
John 4:24 "God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth"
Exodus 34:14 "Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God."
2 Kings 17:38-39 "Do not forget the covenant I made with you, and do not worship other gods. Rather, worship the Lord your God; it is he who will deliver you from the hand of all your enemies."
Psalm 29:2 "Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness."