An Appeal to One

Worship in Spirit and Truth is our central protest against all sin and evil. We protest the evil we see in the world around us, and we protest the evil that still resides in our own hearts. We lift it all up to the only One who can heal us and heal our land. We sing like the Israelites marching around Jericho. We hear the word thundered like Mt. Sinai shook at the presence of the Lord. And we feast at His Table, like Israel’s first Passover, displaying the blood of the Lamb who was slain, for our sins and for the sins of the whole world, trusting God to bring His judgments on our land and set us free to live for Him. 

But precisely because our appeal is to God and not to politicians or programs or publicity or popularity or any other human institution or solution, this means that our appeal is relatively secret. Worship is a public event, all are welcome, and in fact, we summon all the nations of men to come, but we do not gather to be seen by men. We do not want the rewards or accolades or deliverance of man. There has already been far too much of that. We want the rewards of our Father in Heaven; we want His deliverance and blessing alone. 

This is one of the reasons why we’ve discouraged taking pictures or videos of our worship services. Taking a picture or video of a baptism or membership is one thing, but ordinarily we don’t want anyone to have to worry that they might be on camera when they are trying to worship the King. But most of all, we don’t want our worship to be any kind of display before men because we don’t want to lose any of our reward, any of our deliverance. 

Jesus said, “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” (Mt. 6:5-6).

Photo by Robin Spielmann on Unsplash