Selfishness and Worship

You ever notice how selfish we can be sometimes? It's a recent phenomenon for me, I've really never noticed it before, but I am one selfish cookie…I'm not talking your average selfishness either, damn. It's taken almost two years of continuous effort from God for me to even be aware of my selfishness... and that’s really bad! We as people focus way too much on ourselves, and in some ways this belief is perpetuated in the church...(not saying the church is bad, I love church) for instance, we are all about 'what God can do for us' or 'what God did for us' when it should be about 'what can we do for others?' and 'what can we do for God?' A lot of my prayers have been things like 'Lord help me to...' and whereas this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, 'Lord please help me to be a man of integrity, to have strength, etc. etc.' I'm thinking (now...I didn't used to) where's the relationship in this? How am I focusing on God in my prayer? As a worship leader I MUST be about God to be effective at all in my worship. I read the other day that worship is our natural response to God when we truly know God. So who is God? Do prayers like 'Lord help me...' really help me to KNOW God? Or do they help me to use God to get things for myself? It's a really tough question, and I know I'm nowhere near an answer yet. Worship involves sacrifice, as David said, (paraphrased) if I will not offer to God that which costs me nothing. I'm willing to take it a step further and say that worship doesn't involve sacrifice, but SELF-sacrifice. 'Those who try to hold onto their life will lose it...' So the question becomes, what am I giving up for the Lord? A Sunday afternoon? Pfft...anyone can do that, as a Christian that is not a sacrifice, that's a given. Am I truly worshiping God when I'm up on stage, or am I focusing on what I can get out of it? Am I giving God the glory He deserves? Do I even know God, to worship Him? Or am I up there to feel good about myself? What am I doing for others lately? Well gee, lets see, I've been trying to comfort some friends lately who've been going through a rough time...yes this is good. However, what are my motives? Am I truly giving my time to them for their sake...am I even helping them? Or am I simply doing it to make sure that I am in their good books, that I can feel good about myself because of it? The bottom line is the more I look at myself, the more I see that I am a disgrace.

Lord, take my life, take my will and my desires, and replace them with Your life, Your will, Your desires. Take my selfishness and replace it with Your Love. Help me to be focused on You entirely. Reveal Yourself to me in ways that I’ve never even imagined. In doing so, allow me to worship you in spirit and in truth. Lord I want to KNOW You, not know everything that I can get from You. Change my heart.

Cheerio, D-Man