Worshiping God in the Afterlife
One of the key reasons there are so many churches is that people have different musical tastes and prefer different forms of worship. They pick a church with music they like. Even though I know I shouldn’t, I do too.
Worship shouldn’t be about what we prefer; it should be about what God deserves. We shouldn’t let music dictate our worship, but we often do.
Some music and songs draw me into worship, where I approach the very throne of God. Other music erects a barrier I must fight to overcome.
For some inexplicable reason, I’m part of a denominational level think-tank of sorts. The other members are wonderful people, who I really like, but they are also modern thinking folks who approach God with a traditional mindset, in a formal manner. I do not.
We meet twice a year and often begin each day of our meetings with a worship service, which I tend to skip. One year the worship experience so crushed my spirit that it took most of the day to work past it.
Yeah, worship is supposed to be about God, but I couldn’t push through their formal constructs of it.
This year when I showed up midmorning to begin the day’s meetings, the worship service was winding down, droning on with some really lame music, sounds that repulsed me and evoked a rebellious spirit.
As I waited outside with other nonconformists, I heard the speaker end the service with, “Brothers and sisters, look around you. This is a little bit of what heaven will be like.”
Horrified, my knee-jerk reaction was, If this is what heaven will be like, then I don’t want to be there.
Seriously, that was my first thought.
The reality is that I greatly anticipate heaven. And if the music in heaven is lame, then I will learn to push past it, because that’s what God merits.
However, I think music in heaven will be so compelling, so inviting, so awesome that we’ll yearn to worship God whatever the style may be.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
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