Over the past two weeks I’ve written about the necessity of BEING over DOING. In order to get a better understanding of this, we need to explore the root of how DOING has a tendency to overwhelm a person to the point of exhaustion which forces one to re-evaluate to come to the conclusion of BEING. So how did this idea of the over-importance of DOING originate? I want to propose a very simple explanation. It starts with something we do with regularity on a weekly basis, but may also be ingrained in our daily lives. I’m talking about worship.
Maybe your experience has been like mine. On a Sunday morning I’ll walk into church, preparing myself for service. A few minutes before the start, the worship team gathers on the stage and starts a prelude. Then the worship leader welcomes everyone and invites everybody to stand. With rousing rhythm and instruments, a couple of high-beat songs are sung followed by a couple of medium and slow songs to move the participant into a meditative time of reflection. Maybe during the week you are listening to worship songs on your smartphone or in your car.
Have you ever considered what those worship songs are really saying? What you’re really singing? I’m not here to tell you the worship songs you are singing are wrong. There are many, many wonderful worship songs which communicate profound truth. But what are we subconsciously telling ourselves? For example, I’ve sung Lord, I Lift Your Name on High since my days in youth ministry. Let’s take a look at some of the lyrics:
“You came from heaven to earth to show the way
from the earth to the cross my debt to pay
from the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky
Lord I lift Your name on high”
What about Mighty to Save😕
“Saviour he can move the mountains
My God is mighty to save
He is mighty to save
Forever author of salvation
He rose and conquered the grave
Jesus conquered the grave”
Let’s also look at Worthy is the Lamb:
“Thank you for the cross, Lord.
Thank you for the price you paid.
Bearing all my sin and shame, in love you came
And gave Amazing Grace.”
Please don’t get me wrong. These are excellent, excellent worship songs. But I picked these lyrics to make a point. Let me highlight certain phrases: You came, to show, to pay, can move, to save, He rose, He conquered, You paid, bearing all my sin, and He gave. All of these emphasize the Lord DOING. This isn’t wrong. He did do these things. And these things were necessary in order to save humanity. But here’s the danger: when we focus on the Lord DOING, we begin to believe that in order to be like God we have to be DOING as well. Over time this can lead to exhaustion, burn-out, and drop-out.
What we need to understand is that God’s DOING flows out of His BEING. The reason He came, showed, paid, moved, saved, rose, conquered, bore, and gave is because of who He is. He is mercy, wisdom, omnipotence, holy, love, justice and so much more. The reason He DOES is because of who He IS. His BEING precedes the DOING.
Therefore it’s also important we sing songs that speak of His BEING. Let’s take a look at some other lyrics. Let’s start with God of Wonders:
“God of wonders beyond our galaxy
You are Holy, Holy
The universe declares your Majesty
And you are holy holy
Lord of Heaven and Earth
Lord of Heaven and Earth”
Here’s Chris Tomlin’s Holy is the Lord:
“Holy is the Lord God Almighty
The earth is filled with His glory
Holy is the Lord God Almighty
The earth is filled with His glory
The earth is filled with His glory”
I’ve always enjoyed Awesome God by Rich Mullins:
“Our God is an awesome God
Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom, power, and love
Our God is an awesome God”
These lyrics speak of God’s BEING. They speak of who He is. Our worship should primarily be for who He is, secondarily for what He has done. Let me ask you a question. If God chose not to save humanity, would He still be worthy of praise? Yes! Why? Because of who He is. This was a huge paradigm shift when I first heard this. We worship Him first for who He is! Even if He did nothing, we should still worship Him.
Then it hit me. God does the same thing for us. He loves us because of who we are, not because of anything we’ve done. We are completely loved and accepted without doing a thing. It’s not about the DOING, it’s about the BEING. Being a child of God, being accepted unconditionally, being fully loved.
When we worship God for His BEING, we can understand how He loves our whole BEING, just as we are. But if we just worship Him because of His DOING, then we will have the tendency to think that we need to be DOING as well in order to be accepted.
Sometimes we don’t have leaders who last because there is so much emphasis on the DOING and not enough on the BEING.
Questions to Think About:
Think about your favorite worship songs. Are they more about His DOING than His BEING?
Do you feel that in order to be accepted by God you need to be DOING?
© Gary Lau 2013
All rights reserved. This article may not be distributed, forwarded or duplicated without prior permission from the author.
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