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Worshipping in the Dark?
by Donna Kazenske I see more and more churches following after a new church trend of worshipping Jesus in a darkened sanctuary. I find this quite unusual as it makes me personally feel like I'm back in a bar room type setting. LOL. I have therefore chosen not to worship Jesus in a darkened sanctuary. I prefer worshipping Jesus with the lights on! :-). I have been delivered from darkness. Hallelujah! He brought me into the Light. That's where I'm staying, in the Light. :-) Being in a darkened sanctuary worshipping Jesus will not damn your soul to hell, but what's the turn on with this new trend? Is it just a way to get the younger generation to worship? Why does it have to be a dark sanctuary in order to draw people in? Seems strange doesn't it? John 3:19 says, "And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." The above scripture was talking about the lost, but I wonder why so many Christians prefer darkness over the light. Just a question. :-) Many say they worship with the lights out because you can see the words from the overhead projector screen better. Some say it's just a cool thing to do and then we can have different colors of light being flashed across the sanctuary and we can have smoke machines which will produce some much more needed entertainment. Is the church supposed to be an entertainment center? Hmmm. Well, it all seems a little worldly to me. If I want the worldly stuff in my church and in my life, what does that say about me? Hmmm. It seems that we have not been able to reach the lost or the youth or various other people because we have the lights on in our sanctuary and we do not have smoke machines and flashing lights to make everything exciting for the flesh. Could it be that we have to bring in all of these worldly type options because we lack the real presence of Jesus in our churches? Sounds like this might be one reason. Also, do we really have to look like the world in order to reach the world? I think not. Jesus never had smoke machines or flashing colored lights where He ministered. He just manifested His presence wherever He went. It was all genuine. It was all pure. It was all holy. There was no worldly mixture to draw people unto Himself. There's a lot of mixture in the church today. Just saying. In the Old Testament, we read that often times, the manifested presence of God filled the temple as a cloud. On several occasions when this happened, the priests could not even enter the temple because the glory of the Lord so filled the house. Wow! How awesome is that? I can tell you right now, there were no smoke machines in those temples! Ha! It was the real presence of Jesus. That's what I long for. I long for the genuine presence of Jesus being manifested in the sanctuary. Don't you? You can have the darkness, I've chosen to come out of darkness and walk in the light. You can have the smoke machines. They don't do anything for me. It's all a counterfeit compared to the real Shekinah cloud of His glorious presence. That's what I'm looking for. :-) I was once a slave to satan and his kingdom of darkness. Since I've been delivered from that kingdom, I don't want any part of it. :-). I'm walking in newness of life. All that old wretched darkness is gone! Let's turn the lights back on and drive the darkness out of our churches. Let's get so tapped into Jesus that when we come together on Sunday morning, the real presence and power of Jesus manifests in our midst. Aren't you hungry for more of Him? Oh hallelujah. I pray that you are being stirred up on the inside right now. :-). He so wants to manifest Himself to us. He is so awesome in His power. I pray that we will all just get so on fire for Jesus that the light of His glory will shine in us, upon us and through us. And may that light radiating from our lives draw people to Jesus. This is what it's all about. :-) Just radiate the King of Glory. :-) Copyright: November 2014 - Donna Kazenske Donna is the founder and president of Sure Word Ministries located in Litchfield, IL. For more information, please visit the website: http://www.surewordministries.net Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |