This is Sister Ame. Reflect that often our prayers and worship are not from where we are. They are a deliberate act of will. It is not an outflowing of our spirit.

I’ve struggled with prayer since my first husband left. As a friend who had known me a long time said, “If anyone could have prayed their husband to God, it was you.” That’s not boasting … that’s just stating how much she knew I prayed for him, for us, for our family.

But we cannot manipulate God, and God chooses not to manipulate us. So he still had a choice, and he chose to leave.

So I’ve just struggled … how should I pray? What should I expect when I pray? Why should I pray. It hasn’t stopped me from praying all together . . . it’s just, challenged me. I’ve wanted God to answer the “why” right away, but He hasn’t. And I don’t know if this is all of the answer to “why,” but it is some.

My prayers are incense . . . fragrance, to Jesus.

This is old doctrine, but one that has been lost.

Many churches today are simply baptizing cultural fads and fashions and calling it worship. Beginning with “felt needs,” the order and activities of their worship service reflect what the unbelieving world is comfortable with rather than what the bible says about true worship. If the starting place in worship is “How do I feel about thus and so?”, it is likely the worship service itself will continue to reflect this emphasis. Eric J. Alexander explains, “The important thing is not what is acceptable to you, but what is acceptable to God!”

If you want to go deeper, let us consider for a second R.C. Sproul who notes that in this age we appease too much the seeker and their sensitivities, and, in our risk not to alienate and be inoffensive, we don’t please God. We become insipid.

We are to worship God how God wants us to worship Him. This is the apparent crisis in the revolution of worship in our day. The driving force behind the radical shift in how we worship God today is not because of a new discovery of the character of God but rather through pragmatic studies on what works to attract people to corporate worship. Thus, we devise new ways of worship that will accommodate the worship of the people of God to those who are outside the covenant community. We are told that churches ought to be seeker-sensitive, that is, they ought to design worship to be appealing to people who are unbelievers. That may be a wonderful strategy for evangelism, but we must remember that the purpose of Sabbath worship is not primarily evangelism. Worship and evangelism are not the same thing. The solemn assembly is to be the assembling together of believers, of the body of Christ, to ascribe worship and honor and praise to their God and to their Redeemer. And the worship must not be designed to please the unbeliever or the believer. Worship should be designed to please God. We remember the tragic circumstances of the sons of Aaron in the Old Testament, who offered strange fire before the Lord, which God had not commanded. As a result of their “experiment” in worship, God devoured them instantly. In protest, Aaron went to Moses inquiring about God’s furious reaction. Moses reminded Aaron that God had said that He must be regarded as holy by all who approach Him.

I believe that the one attribute of God that should inform our thinking about worship more than any other is His holiness. This is what defines His character and should be manifested in how we respond to Him. To be sure, God is both transcendent and imminent. He is not merely remote and aloof and apart from us. He also comes to join us. He abides with us. He enters into fellowship. He brings us into His family. We invoke His presence. But when we are encouraged to draw near to Him in New Testament worship, we are encouraged to draw near to a God who, even in His imminence, is altogether holy.

The modern movement of worship is designed to break down barriers between man and God, to remove the veil, as it were, from the fearsome holiness of God, which might cause us to tremble. It is designed to make us feel comfortable. The music we import into the church is music that we draw from the world of entertainment in the secular arena. I heard one theologian say recently that he was not only pleased with this innovative style of worship and music but thought that what the church needs today is music that is even more “funky.” When we hear clergy and theologians encourage the church to be more funky in worship, I fear that the church has lost its identity. Rather, let us return to Augustine who agreed that we can use a variety of music in our worship, but all that is done should be done with a certain gravitas, a certain solemnity, always containing the attributes of reverence and awe before the living God

There are those rediscovering the older ways and the older music and the older worship. It is not about us. It is about God.