Worship 6 Jesus-Consciousness, The Heart of Worship

[HKHaugan]

To sum up what we have said about worship,---worship is believing, trusting and practicing God's worth, 'worthship.' That means every next moment offers us the opportunity to glorify His presence in praise, ministry and mission.

So far we have established that worship happens in three forms, as persons, in small groups and their assembling together in congregations.

The person worships daily with the mind, the heart and the spirit wherever, whenever and with whomever.

The small group worships in an intentionally relational meeting where each person shares their mind, heart and spirit to grow in healing, grace and love as persons so they can go out in ministry and mission.

The congregation worships when individuals and small groups gather to celebrate the Lord's work and presence in their lives through shared testimony, praise, prayer, preaching and the Lord's Supper.

Worship begins when we take seriously that we are conscious images of God in relationship with Him. It's having a 'Jesus-conscious' mindset. Life is not about our biology, our society with all its social and political problems or even the emotional strategies we and others use to face the day. Life is about Jesus. We start with Jesus, God the Son, as the Father has commanded us. We shift our focus from self to Him, from family to Him, from the job to Him, from school to Him, from the world to Him. We seek His counsel in those complexities as He relates to us in His Word and through prayer. 'Jesus-consciousness' is what clears our mind to handle every next moment in human existence because those moments are His gifts to us so that we can witness to Him, share Him and glorify Him. That describes worship.

'Jesus-consciousness' is how we become aware that every person we run across in those 'every next moments' is an image of God whether they know it or not. That means we no longer see them or treat them according to the categories from our past. God loves them like He loves us. But in order to have that kind of 'Jesus-consciousness,' growing in the knowledge and experience of Jesus is primary. This requires getting into the Gospels. The more we know about Him the more the Holy Spirit can help us to be more like Him. The more like Him we become the more we have to offer for ministry in the Body and the more we are able to witness to the secular world around us.

There is another aspect that opens up. As we grow in 'Jesus-consciousness' He gives us an awareness of the larger spiritual dimension into which we were born. Now we know the darker inroads the devil and his spirits take as they try and slip into the weaknesses sin has rubbed into us. We find that pride and fear are the handmaidens of sin that draw us into ourselves through rationalization and self-justification where others are always to blame for our mistakes and we can rationalize any behavior to fit our moments' needs. Self deceit is a major factor and easy to be lured into but in Jesus is exposed and with the Lord's help in the Spirit we come into healing from them.

The interesting thing is that as we are healed within we find ourselves more free to be open about our faith and life in Jesus. This is precisely where and why we start each day with prayer and His Word lifting up our self-centeredness and praising the Lord Jesus who went to the Cross to forgive our sins and put them as far as the east is from the west. It's a shift from self-centeredness to Jesus-centeredness, from self-consciousness to Jesus-consciousness which is what His Cross visualizes so clearly. It becomes the key to our entry into the spiritual life Jesus brings us throughout the day. We die to what we want and yield to what He wants. We repent and thank Him for forgiveness and ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit who tweaks our consciousness as we pray to stay centered in Him. This is our daily worship experience. The more oriented in the Cross we are the more spiritually conscious we are of being an image of God in our surroundings. The more conscious we are of being God's image the more spiritually discerning we are and the less the devil and sin influence our activities.

Then too, being a conscious image of God in a spiritually like group reminds us that they are praying for us and we them. If we are not only conscious but conscientious in that relationship we can call them and they us for support, sharing and guidance. We'll want to keep a list of their names with us or on our desk or in our Bible. They need us and we them each day. This is part of that worship we've been talking about, the prayer part, the image sharing part.

Now if you have been following this line of thinking you will notice that we have mentioned praise, thanksgiving, receiving forgiveness, petitioning the Lord for others as well as ourselves and all in the context of God's Word. This is personal worship. This is being a spiritually conscious image of God. It is also relational in that you are spiritually connected to your group each day. But something else might happen as well. Your consciousness of one another may lead you to sense one of them need to be called or supported in some special way. Maintaining spiritual contact is important. The Holy Spirit alerts you on a deeper level once you have started on this road of spiritual awareness in which you become more and more spiritually discerning. From here there is a real sense of worship you carry into the larger congregation to celebrate in its major gatherings. The music, the praise, the prayers, the presence, the preaching and the time when the major kissing (Gk.-proskeuno-worship) of righteousness and peace come together with each person in the Lord's Supper. This is the climactic experience of worship when the assembled images of God are 'Jesus-conscious' in mind, heart and spirit.

In Christ you are on a super high 'way' that can only be accessed through Him. His spiritual reality is the most real, free and open range of reality there is because it is the source of Creation, its beginning and end, and He is your guide and companion in this broader eternal atmosphere out of which Creation came. In this world we have a temporary experience of being human to prepare us for a great spiritual homecoming. In worship we are truly spiritual beings having a human experience so that those who don't know Him can also see they too are conscious images of Him, the ultimate blessing.