After reading last week’s post, a friend kindly sent me a link to another post entitled Worshiping in Spirit by Lonnie Crowe, about songs that the Spirit has brought to mind.
The article encouraged me as it echoed what I’d been writing about that week but specifically because we had also experienced a song title in common, “Have I told you lately that I love you?”
Referring to a song written by Scotty Wiseman, Lonnie writes “One day, as I was driving alone across the countryside, I suddenly sang out, “Have I told You lately that I love You? Well, Jesus, I’m telling You now.” While my mind was concentrating on driving the car, my spirit was worshiping and responding to the indwelling Holy Spirit.”
Coincidentally around the time Crowe was writing this post, the Lord whispered those same words in my ear one morning as I woke up. But it was the Van Morrison version. I’m not a huge fan of Van the Man (maybe the Lord is??) so I didn’t know all the words but discovered they go on to say,
Have I told you lately that I love you?
Have I told you there’s no one else above you?
Fill my heart with gladness, take away all my sadness
Ease my troubles, that’s what you do
For the morning sun in all it’s glory
Meets the day with hope and comfort too
You fill my life with laughter, somehow you make it better
Ease my troubles, that’s what you do
The Lord was not only singing His words of love over me, but also putting them on my lips so I could sing the same words of love and thankfulness in response.
Crowe writes, “I came to know that God is not a mere spectator in our worship. He is a participant, and, more than that, He is the orchestrator. Music is His gift, and He is redeeming that gift. Our commitment to Him must be an intimate dance where He leads and we follow.
When we worship in the spirit, our expression becomes part of the fulfilment of Zephaniah 3:17 “ The LORD your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing” (NKJV, emphasis added). We get to join Him in His song.
The Lord has taught me that worship can and should be a conversation between us and Him. When we recognise His delight over us, we can’t help but respond, and the same is true in reverse. And when we come to understand this in a scope that takes us far beyond our church services, it brings a new richness and awareness of His presence with us all the time.
King David rejoiced that God had put a new song, a song of praise, in his mouth (Psalm 40:3). Likewise, we are told in other psalms that we are to sing a new song unto the Lord. To worship in the spirit, we must allow the Lord to give us that new song.
We may be like Handel and receive magnificent oratorios. We may be worship leaders with a spiritual gift for composing praise songs. We may be hymnists and compose with four verses and a refrain. We may be blessed with spontaneous prophetic worship, or we may be surprised to receive redeemed renditions of the songs of our youth. In whatever form it comes, worship received from the Spirit is worship indeed.“
Interestingly the morning before I received the article, I had been walking in the forest with my waggy tail, Tess, feeling grateful for blue sky and bluebells, for sightings of squirrels and nesting swans, for peaceful streams and beautiful birdsong, when I again heard the whisper “Have I told you lately that I love you?“.
I felt that what I was seeing was His way of showing me how much He loves me and in response my gratitude was my version of singing “Have I told you lately that I love you?”
Have you told Him lately that you love Him?
But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. – John 4:23-24 (NKJV)