To worship and beyond
The Church needs to loosen up and rediscover true rejoicing
Recently I was speaking to a group about knowing God, specifically 1 Cor 2 v 16 ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord that He will instruct him? But we have the mind of Messiah.’
I am worshipping this great eternal magnificent Being, who funnelled His powerful loving heart into His Son, whom He sent in perfection and humility, to get us finally connected up with His enormous purposes. Then He had to leave us in order to send Himself in the Person of the Holy Spirit and said: ‘See how you get on with me ‘inside you!’ So, tiptoeing before His great Throne into the blinding light; my response, a pathetic ‘God. Who are you?’ Are there clues to God’s character that we are just missing?
Lost understandings …
Hebrew is such a rich language with so many nuances and meanings. Take the word ‘dance’, for instance. As I understand it, it was frequently translated wrongly as just ‘rejoice’ due to the early church fathers who couldn’t possibly countenance a God who ordained dance! The words with a variety of meanings in Hebrew give a rich expression of Gods heart. Here are some of them:
DALAG ‘To leap or spring.’ (Song of Songs 2 v8, Isaiah 35 v6.)
CHIYL ‘To twist or turn.’ (Judges 21 v 21.)
KARAR ‘To dance or whirl.’ (2 Sam 6 v14) – An Israeli scholar told me it also means, to dance like an African!
RAQAD ‘To stamp, spring about, jump leap skip.’ (Chron 15 v29).
PACHACH ‘To hop, skip over, to dance. (1 Kings 18 v26).
ALATS ‘To jump for joy, rejoice in triumph.’ (Prov 28 v12, Ps 68 v3).
YAGIL ‘To spin around for Joy’ (Strongs) (Zeph 3 v17).
‘The Lord your God is in your midst – a mighty saviour! He will delight over you with joy. He will quiet you with His love. He will dance for joy over you with singing.’ This is talking about great Yahweh Himself, Who spins around over us with Joy! This verse always makes me feel a whole lot better and leaves me with a sense of wonder, that the great God of the Universe has made us in His image, and He dances over His creation. There is a sense of ‘movement’ in our glorious Maker.
Just as in the story of the prodigal, Luke 15 v11 -32, the father rushes out with compassion and falls on his neck and kisses his lost son. Not very dignified, yet here is a beautiful picture of our Heavenly Father who has, wait for it – emotion!
Interesting that the Greek word choros that our word ‘choir’ comes from, originally had dance movement to it. Even the pre-Victorian ‘carols’ we sing would have had music with dance steps as a matter of course. How different the Coventry Carol would have been with dance. Sadly, during the middle ages, all thoughts about dance in churches diminished. How radical the possibility of Yeshua leading dance at the wedding of Cana would have been to not only the believers in the middle ages, but also to those today who are far from the Hebraic root.
What does this leave us with? Wonder!
The Heart of Worship
After all these years of following the Great King, dancing and worshipping before Him with endless words that we believe find His heart. I can see that there is ‘far more’ that we don’t see.
When God spoke, it was! ‘Let there be light!’ His thoughts needed a voice, so enter the prophets, who speak God’s heart and unlock things, and hand it over to others who have to hear the Holy Spirit and respond.
Jeremiah 25 v 2,3: ‘Jeremiah the prophet spoke it to all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying: ‘from the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon, King of Judah, until this day – these twenty three years the word of the Lord has come to me. So I have spoken to you, clearly and often, but you have not listened!’ Poor old Jeremiah!
I wrote this in my journal this morning: ‘We try to write about you Yeshua, but you are flawless, how can we, those marked with human traits even begin to speak out.‘ I felt Him saying to me ‘But the very act of speaking out my words, purifies your mortal body, and all the lies you have made agreement with give way to my powerful word. Speak it out, it echoes through the heavens!’ Wow!’ That’s it then, simple, we just keep on speaking out His word, and that word will have an action to it! Hallelujah! Now I know what to do, I can dance on that truth and rejoice in it. I don’t have to be perfect, just obedient! We must never have form without a function.
Greater works …
If you’ve ever tried to encourage anyone who’s feeling down, or yourself for that matter, you’ll know the first defence is to get the truth in their mouth and spoken out! John 17 v17: ‘Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.’
It took me rather too long to realise that Scripture doesn’t entirely renew our minds until we actually act on it. Matt 8 v 16 : ‘In the evening they brought many who were troubled by evil spirits and he cast them out with a word, and healed all who were sick.’ What was that word? I imagine it was, ’be healed!’ Not so much a prayer but a command. If we are to do His work, and even greater works, we’d better as in Isaiah 60: ‘Arise, shine for your light had come!’ There again is the action. – Arise! Get up folks, and see the light and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. For Israel, for us, for the world.
So, what happens to this disconnect from the intended desire of the Almighty? Just saying, ‘well, it’s as it is’, just doesn’t seem to cut it. In the Jewish world there was something of a disconnect when the temple was no more, though dance had always been associated with rejoicing and victory and continues to this day in weddings and festivals and all celebrations.
Morakeng E.K.Lebaka. Dept of Old Testament Studies 2014 states: ‘It was found that the Bible described the use of the harp and the ram’s horn associated with singing and dancing – both for celebrations and military use. So during various diaspora’s Jewish communities took their dance and music expressions with them, thence Israeli folk dance emerging strongly during the 1920’s.’
Interesting to note however, that many of the texts and words in modern Israeli dance, and there are well over 4,000 of them worldwide, have a Biblical theme or text, many being dancing to a prayer. So, what happened to the church then? Does it matter to no one but ‘dancers’ that words are mistranslated, put aside and those in darkness of tradition and religion pay the price?
Church off the rails …
It points dramatically to the journey of the Hebraic church which embraced so much of God’s heart and character, and that the race was running well, side by side, until the Gentile church decided to take the baton and push aside their elder brother and finish the race alone. Or so they thought! That same disconnect has happened to the believing church itself. There seems to come a moment when we are all rejoicing together, maybe NOT dancing, but at least rejoicing, and then something upsets us. Maybe justifiably, yet it’s what happens after that, that really defines whether we are building the Kingdom of God or not. We usually dismiss, refuse to have fellowship, isolate and whip the baton away from our joint journeying. Who won’t hold up their hand to this attitude? I know shamefully it’s me too. Somehow, I suspect this is not God’s heart. Though we continue to bleat, they won’t listen to us! We don’t want their stuff in our fellowships thank you!
Reinhard Bonnke extract: ‘Living a Life of Fire’: ‘I will pray to the Father and He will send you another helper, who will be with you forever… I used to think that on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit fell because they were of one mind, in one accord. Jesus said ‘I will pray!’ It’s not our unity, it’s the prayer of Jesus, and the Father will always answer the prayer of His son.’
Perhaps there is some truth in this, and that when we see a corrupt version, instead of purifying it, we throw it all out!
Once in Brazil we were asked to minister but not mention ‘dance’ as it had become corrupt and too sensual to be part of the church, so we were billed as a ‘theatre’ group. It didn’t take long after demonstrating Biblical dance and putting on some lively Hebraic music, to get the whole church of some 600 or so dancing in joyous celebration in the aisles! Boy, the Brazilians can dance! They just needed to experience the authentic.
Recently, I had a clear vision in prayer of people falling into a dark hole and the word ’road block! ‘Build a road block of truth,’ the Lord said, ‘a check point, where truth will purify and challenge. The last stopping place for many who have never encountered truth.’
So perhaps the Lord in His grace can see nothing wrong with us – only what is missing! Shall we dance? And keep asking?