Christians serve a beautiful God. Beauty is the absolute foundation of all things. It is transcendent by nature. The beauty and glory of God are far more incredible and far surpassing any earthly beauty one could ever know. Everything about God is beautiful. His power is beautiful. His love is beautiful. His mercy is beautiful. Beauty is rooted in Him.
God is the foundation of all beauty in the universe. Beauty begins and ends in Him. He is the revelation of all that is good, loving, and kind. He even signs His name using the brilliant colors of a rainbow (Gen 9:13). He uses beauty as His messenger, declaring across the universe that He is "altogether lovely" (Song 5:16 NIV). The beautiful God is worthy of worship. The Bible proclaims that we must "worship Him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24 NIV).
Contemplative worship draws our heart to Him as we take the time to gaze upon His beauty and become lost in the intimacy of divine embrace. It pulls the heart upward into the whirlwind of God's glory, and the realm of His unspeakable beauty and the indescribable magnificent splendor of His holiness as the heart is consumed alive with the fire of His presence and fervent passion.
Spiritual Freedom
God is love, so He desires to have people who trust Him. God wants people who worship Him because they want to, not because He does something to make them love Him. The foundation of trust is love. To trust, there must be freedom. But God can't create faith, so He gives human beings an unlimited capacity to love and trust. Faith is something we must provide! It is based on freedom.
Adam and Eve chose not to trust God. Faith requires freedom. The Bible says that the "righteous will live by his faith" (Hab 2:4 NIV). The Hebrew word used here for faith is "amin," where we get the word "amen." The righteous shall live continuously by faith. We must enter into the state of "amen" where no doubt exists.
The anointing of the Holy Spirit gives the liberty to worship. It is as natural to worship as it is to live. The Bible reveals that worship is a combination of inward humility and the reverential attitude of mind and body; the feeling of awe, love, trust, adoration, loyalty, reverence, dependence, obedience, and outward action in service.
True worship comes out from walking daily in humility. Humility requires a total yielding of self and trusting in God. It is esteeming EVERYONE more highly than yourself, casting ALL cares upon Him, taking NO thought for tomorrow, and not being anxious or concerned about ANYTHING (See Matt 6:34; 1 Peter 5:7; Phil 2:4, 4:6). It is a giving up of any last confidence in self that one is better than anyone else and that they could ever possibly obtain the character of God through any of their feeble attempts.
Someone once defined praise as thanking God for what He has done and worship as thanking Him for who He is. Worship is a way of life. The ability to worship should be as natural as it is to breathe. It is not just worshiping but being a worshiper - living a pleasing life to Him, no matter where we are or what we are doing.
We worship God in how we do our jobs - in how we run our business - in how we esteem and care for others - in how we love our family. If we want to be a holy Church filled daily with the HOLY Spirit, we must each be holy and offer our "bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will (Rom 12:1-2 NIV).
Intimacy in Worship
The secret to greater intimacy with Jesus is learning to focus on Him breath by breath and what He has done for us, not on what we can do for Him! We must come to that place in worship where we are overwhelmed with His presence - His beauty - His majestic splendor – His infinite love. He desires to love us so intimately that the waves of passion from His flaming heart will make a casual observer blush.
Those who long for His passionate touch will discover that contemplative worship opens the door to feel His heartbeat against their chest, two hearts beating as one. God longs for His majestic love to roll over us like waves upon the seashore - sometimes like the waves caused by a quiet, gentle breeze and sometimes with the intensity of storm-tossed waves pounding, heaving, and sighing, pulling you under, causing you to gasp for breath.
For those who long to do His bidding, His love can overwhelm and engulf them with the deep satisfaction that His love transcends all that this world has to offer. The inner chambers of His secret place are where we find TOTAL fulfillment. We serve a God who is so passionately in love that nothing of this world can compare. He yearns and desires to ravish us with Himself.
Foundation Building
The foundation of Contemplative Worship is intimate prayer. Prayer is simply a two-way conversation, not some ethereal mental exercise of mystical introspection and spiritual assent to a God that lives "way out there somewhere." We don't need to traverse some man-made labyrinth to find a special place to pray or write a list of objectives in which to petition the Lord or empty our minds to hear His voice. We have the mind of Christ! Jesus said His people know His voice (John 10:4).
Prayer is the dynamic that gives the ability to do those things that can't be done naturally. It is a spiritual umbilical cord to our heavenly Father! It is an act of worship, the communion of one's soul with God. It is a person's spirit working with the Holy Spirit to make changes and fine-tune them so that they might "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18).
Prayer of the heart doesn't need the exercise of human logic, intellect, and reason. The sweetness of His love defies understanding. The goal of prayer and worship is the enjoyment of God, who desires to give us more of Himself than we could ever conceive. It is fixing our attention on His face and beholding Him where He lives. He has made us His home! The reality that the Creator of the universe has chosen every individual Born-Again Christian to be His home should cause profound adoration.
The fundamental foundation of intimate prayer is that "the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21 NIV). Touching the heart of God is not a reaching OUT to Him but rather a reaching IN, turning inward towards the Holy of Holies. When we turn towards the inner dwelling place of God, we are confronted with the many layers of self that stand in the way of divine romance. This causes us to acknowledge those things that must be repented of and those who must be reconciled with before we can humbly approach His throne and truly worship Him in spirit.
Making time to spend with God is how we get to know Him and learn to trust Him. Sadly, too much time is often spent learning about Him but not spending time with Him. It is like a husband and wife who spend all their time reading about how to have a good marriage yet don't spend any time having a good marriage. If they don't communicate with each other, they will have a shallow and passionless relationship. So it is with God.
Beginning The Journey
Contemplative worship is the first step in beginning the journey to the higher place and deep into His Secret Chamber! We are going to spend eternity worshiping God just as the Angels:
"…fell face down…and worshiped God. They said, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength belong to our God forever and forever. Amen!" (Rev 7:9-12 NLT)
God is a relentless pursuer and lover who desires to ravish us with His love. We must become resolute in our pursuit of His passion and presence. He is looking for radical worshippers. We can only worship to the degree of our revelation. Worship takes us deeper into the revelation of who God is. The deeper we move into worship, the greater degree of the revelation of His glory, and the more we will enjoy Him. As a result, we will become a more excellent reflection of His beauty in a world lost in the darkness that is getting darker.
Don't Trust Your Understanding
Those who desire to enter into more intimate worship of God will often find themselves in a place of uncertainty which will be used to show them that they can't lean upon their knowledge, intellect, experience, wisdom, logic, and education. It has to be Him and Him alone. Risk and uncertainty are used to bring us into a greater realm of worship (See Prov 3:5-6).
Contemplative worship will help establish affection and holiness in our hearts so that we will become hopelessly lovesick worshippers, fascinated with nothing else, and no one else but Jesus.
God is Creator, Father, and Lover. He knows what life is all about. He designed it for His children as a place for them to be birthed, grow, and mature. He knows what is best. Every human being can become lost in the ecstasy of intimate embrace with their Creator! It requires pressing into Jesus and letting Him hold them so close that He takes their breath away. Why? Because humans take His breath away every moment of every day. The Cross proves He loves us so much it hurts. God isn't mad anymore. He is madly in love! That is the truth worth contemplating for all of eternity!
