False Worship and Mysticism in the Church

“Creating an atmosphere of worship”, “entering in”, “breakthrough”, “experiencing the glory cloud”, “feel His presence”, “feel His love pouring over you”??? For about two years now these terms have been bothering me. I know where the concept comes from – mostly the Old Testament, but now that Christ is in me and daily I am in His presence, fellowship and keeping myself in the love of God, why do I need to seek an “experience” out side of what the Word teaches? For years I have been frustrated with my walk in God because I was seeking a sign from Him. God revealed that to me this morning as I woke up praying. My seeking God, crying, falling out on the floor, screaming and “manifesting” were all signs of my faith being in crisis. This morning as I was praying this scripture came to mind:

” a wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed” Matt. 16:4

I believe in miracles. God is a God of miraculous acts, which He has performed at sundry times according to His plan and purpose. I thank God for this and have no sympathy for religious teaching that denies the miraculous. I believe in signs. God has given us many of them at His appointed times and according to His purpose, and has revealed in His Word the meaning and purpose of them. To believe in these is a simple matter of faith in the Word of God and to doubt them is to question the integrity of God and the validity of the Bible. On the other hand sign hunting comes not from a spirit of a faith which is deeply satisfied with the mighty acts of God already performed, but from a spirit of unbelief which demands a perpetual continuation of those signs, wonders and miracles. This is the attitude of the skeptic which says, “Except I see, I will not believe.”  In Matt. 16:4, the Pharisees and Sadducees were not convinced by the signs “on earth” Jesus had done – they were blind to the signs regarding Jesus’ Messianic credentials right before their eyes.

This morning God showed me that all those years of “manifesting” (which may include but is not limited to speaking in tongues unbiblically, shaking, dancing uncontrollably, disruptive outbursts [both words and various noises], and uncontrollable physical gyrations) in an effort to “touch Him” in some way, to “feel His presence” or to “enter in the glory cloud”, was how I was seeking a sign. Signs alone converts no one. In the body of Christ today we place far too much confidence in signs as events bring people to faith in Jesus. As it relates to worship, the sign that I was seeking as I worshiped in the worship service and at home was “God’s presence” or a feeling to come over me to give me some type of assurance that He is in me or with me. Often times I had to conjure up emotions and tears just so that I can feel like I was “pressing in”or going “deeper”, but all the while I was having a mystical experience. What I was doing is what some call today “flase fire” which is the counterfeit of the ministry of the Holy Ghost. It signifies the need within man to experience the presence of God in a sensual, emotional way and thereby exercise both his senses and emotions to “manufacture” sensationalism. I have been doing this for years and I was always on a rollercoaster in my walk with the Lord. Instead of being taught by the church how to KNOW the Lord, I was seduced and the tools of the seduction included uplifting, often energetic, even tribal, rhythmic  type  music with lots of percussion instruments, dynamic personalities who prance, shout and strut themselves across the platform—in other words,  a charged up  atmosphere “by any means necessary”. The problem with this sort of worship is that it tends to provoke an emotional, demonstrative  response an outburst so to speak that is based on factors other than the truth of the Gospel of Jesus crucified, dead, buried, raised, ascended and coming back. Dynamic preachers of all denominations and persuasions can be extremely skilled at manipulating a crowd  by  stirring up  the emotions of people. When the emotions of a congregation are stirred, the shouts, screams and similar outcries can light a false fire throughout the congregation, the results of which are erroneously attributed to an outpouring of the Holy Ghost. “Holy” laughter, “holy” dancing, shouting, falling out slain, rolling on the floor, running up and down the aisles, throwing money at the feet of prominent evangelists  and other forms of  emotional frenzy keep the false flame alive.  At these euphoric times, not only are the pockets and wallets fleeced, but people “get high” and think to themselves ”now is the time I can give myself to Jesus” and they start marching down aisles in small churches and in big tents, convention halls and stadiums.

Not to be misunderstood, I certainly do not suggest that reverent music and praise  has no place, but rather, no emotional tactic needs to be employed to psychologically condition sinners to come forward to the altar and “confess Christ”. If the elect are assembled within the assembly, the Holy Ghost knows how to reach them once they have heard the simplicity of the gospel. The problem is that the messages or sermons that accompany the antics are often not grounded in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

God showed me that my worship was all wrong! For two years now God has been showing me this about myself and cleansing me with His word from this false sense of worship and need for an “experience” with Him. The truth of the matter is that as I continue in fellowship with Him and obey His commandments I am “experiencing” Him daily in the transformation of my soul into His image. God has been teaching me that my faith in Him is in a knowing and not a feeling. Although I have heard this many times spoken by my leaders, I never grasped it. Perhaps it was mainly because they ignorantly continued to have the congregation seek God emotionally in the worship service by using words such as “press in”, go “deeper”, “push”, and praise until it hurts or until something happens.  As believers, most of us have gotten the Biblical idea of personal and corporate praise and worship twisted. When we praise God we praise Him for: His mighty acts and according to his excellent greatness (Ps. 150), because He made or created us and to be joyful of our king (Ps 149), because He is our refuge, burden-bearer, deliverer, shield and I can go on an on. When we worship God we worship Him because we know who He is. Jesus made it clear in John chapter 4 that one cannot worship who they don’t know. He also said that they that worship the Father must worship Him in spirit and in truth. What does that mean? Well, because God is a spirit, then we must conclude that our worship must be spiritual. We are a three part being – body, soul and spirit. It is our spirit that communicates with His Spirit. Our mind and will and emotions are also used to worship Him (our soul), and we can use our body too – raising arms, clapping hands, dancing. We can worship Him with our whole being, but it is our spirit that worships, led by His Holy Spirit.

I understand now that my worship experience and the worship service has been and is being manipulated towards mysticism (Gnosticism) and sensuality or a feeling of the soul or flesh (not sexual in nature) by a concept that has been introduced into the churches very subtly over many years and in fact has become a catch phrase in our church language. We have been led to believe that we must “create an atmosphere” that is conducive to God the Father coming down to meet us, to enable us to experience His manifested presence, otherwise He will not abide with us and the anointing will not be there for healing and deliverance. As I study His Word, the more I see that there is something truly wrong with this concept. As a praise dancer (a person who praises God in the dance) I must be very careful now that my eyes have been opened to the truth of God’s word, not to partake or compromise my walk with the lord by co-signing on this type of false worship (even if my church is plagued by it) and by my dancing not to lead others to the same, ultimately entering into that false mystical experience of what was interpreted as “God’s manifest presence”. If I do so or compromise myself to this false type of worship, I will be disobeying what I know to be true according to His Word.

Now…I believe in the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit working in and through a believer’s life to bring glory to the Father in Jesus Christ, to walk in His presence daily by faith and not by feelings. The practice of “setting the atmosphere” or creating one to provide just the right ambiance for God to be present amongst His people is a slap in the face to God according to what the Word teaches us. By doing so I believe that we are in unbelief or at least I was. If it is an experience that we desire, are we opening ourselves up to another spirit or seducing spirits that feed our sensuality. We are seeking a sign or proof of Jesus who said he will never leave us or forsake us. Jesus said simply, “For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.” (Matt. 18:20) He is there, whether we feel anything at all and we do not have to have a spiritually charged atmosphere to know that He is present.

In some of our churches we like to reference the Old Testament for ideas or prescriptions about worship and how to do it. By doing so it is easy to be caught up in the false spirituality, believing that we can go on to “higher levels in God” in praise and worship. The Scriptures does not teach us that we are to seek to go higher in the “presence of God”, but to “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). The power of this pattern of worship is almost too hard to resist in this day of famine for the Word. Yes famine! God showed me that I was seeking Him and partaking in false worship because I did not know His Word. That is why, when I came off that “mountain top experience” I went back to sin because I did not know His Word. If I don’t know His Word I can’t keep it. Scripture teaches if one does not keep His word - and if he says that he knows God he is a liar and the truth is not in him (1 John 2:4). In many cases what is interpreted as the “presence of God” is nothing more than soulishness or even to the more extreme sense, other spirits in guise of the Holy Spirit. We have been taught that God is in some other spiritual realm, and that we have to coax Him to come down to us. This is totally not true. The veil was torn from the top to the bottom to show us that God has made himself accessible by the blood of the Lamb and we can now come boldly to the throne of grace to receive help in the time of need. God is not in some other realm where we have to “press”, “push” and “enter in” in order to be in His presence. The presence of the Lord is not beyond us in another state of mind. In the worship service we don’t have to dance and give all we have physically to the act of worship, and express with our emotions and bodies with such over-wrought desire hoping to enter into the presence of the Lord. We must not be like the prophets of Baal who tried to call down the presence of their gods, beating, whipping and cutting themselves hoping that this would bring about their desired effects. Scripture teaches us that we must move in faith with the belief that God is who He said He is, He is faithful to His word, that no matter where we try to flee from Him, He is always there. (Psalm 139:7)

As believers we are to trust our God who has made the way through what Jesus Christ accomplished on the Cross, through His death the veil was torn and we have access to the Father in one Spirit through Him. (Matthew 27:51) (Ephesians 2:18)  According to the scriptures in Psalm 95: 1-7, we are bid to come according to His terms, to give glory to our God, to worship Him, to kneel before our Maker, for He is our God and we are the sheep of His pasture. His terms are the only ones acceptable! John 4:24 teaches us that God is a Sprit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Again what does that mean? It means that to worship God it involves us using our rational mind to know the truth of His Word and because God is spirit, we must worship Him not by our senses or emotions, but we must be filled with the Spirit of God to worship Him in spirit, by believing in faith that His presence is always with us and in us- we don’t need to “seek” any further.

God Bless,

PDCM