Zachary Watkins I have titled these lessons “Unraveling” for the fact that there are certain major topics concerning the Christian faith that don’t only themselves need “unraveling” but more importantly, you most likely need to be “unraveled”. As we begin to dive into the content of this lesson it is important that you hold your beliefs about God with an unclenched fist and an open heart so that if you need to be “unraveled” you can be. If you can allow yourself to be undone then this is where God can begin to rebuild things rightly in His house. I do not ask you to needlessly throw away the things that will stand up against scripture and the Holy Spirit which we both share, but I do ask you to be completely torn down and rebuilt apart from those things which should have never stood in the first place. Have you ever heard people say, or maybe you’ve said it yourself: “I like the worship at our church better than theirs.” or “I just didn’t get into the worship today.” or even “That’s the certain style of worship I like, it fits me” I’m afraid we have made worship all about “me.” We have turned worship into a cheap therapy session for our personal thoughts and feelings. Whatever gives us an emotional high, making us feel good, is what we really desire from worship and the faster it can be delivered the better. “Three songs is perfect, four is too many.”… “Less lights, less instruments, that's what I like…” It’s just sad. Worship should be the automatic reflex of our posture changing produced by pressing into the presence of the One who created it all, holds it all together and is the embodiment of all things holy, the Triune God. Worship is not about leeching the life out of the worship service so we can get our emotional high for the week. The question is, have your feelings, and your thoughts stepped down from His seat of glory and given it back to the One who actually deserves the throne? Or do you hold your own thoughts and feelings as the supreme authority in your life thus needing to feed them as their dutiful slave? Look at your life and notice who or what is sitting in His seat of glory. Whoever or whatever sits on the throne produces in us a reflex which leaves us in a particular posture as we walk through this life, and the posture in which we find ourselves is called worship. What commands the posture you take throughout each day? Nothing in this world deserves to influence your posture other than our Creator, God. To give an example of God on His throne producing a correct reflexive posture in us is found in Ezekiel 1:28, notice the different postures Ezekiel takes and how they are in response to God’s commands or movements: Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds after the rain. This was the appearance of the surrounding brilliant light; it looked like the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I threw myself face down, and I heard a voice speaking. He said to me, ‘Son of man, stand on your feet and I will speak with you.’ As He spoke to me, a wind came into me and stood me on my feet, and I heard the one speaking to me.(Ezekiel 1:28) Have you seen the glory of the Lord causing you to fall face down in worship? Has He also responded to you telling you to stand up, enabling you to do so by giving you His breath? Ezekiel’s postures of first being face down and then God’s breath moving him to his feet are significant in our lesson to follow. Worship is our posture brought about by the reflex to our authority that sits on the seat of power in our temple. Paul tells the Corinthian church "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?... For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple" (1 Cor 3:16 & 17b). Therefore we need to ensure that only God sits on the throne within us, and this is what reshapes us to live like Jesus. What is the reflex and therefore posture you take to life’s difficult situations? What is your posture when dealing with difficult people? What moves you to posture? People? Money? Circumstances? Do NOT posture out of a reflex to your circumstances or anyone else in your life other than God! Created things do not deserve the temple’s seat of authority. We will learn why as we continue this lesson. Remember this: Worship is posturing. Posture is the submissive arrangement, and reconstruction of all our parts to better understand our identity and then more accurately build our image. It is simply, the movement or change we make in our lives to whatever is in the seat of power. I want you to imagine someone cutting you off on the road and then hitting their brakes while throwing you the finger. Imagine the thoughts that run through your head and the emotions you feel, this is posturing. Now imagine a nice looking man or woman comes over to you and starts to flirt with you at the store. Imagine what your mind is doing and what your emotions are doing, this is posturing. Worship is a reflex that reconstructs our inner being to align our image with that which we submit to. Whatever it is we worship we end up finding our identity in, and eventually our image is shaped by what we align ourselves to.. We become the image of what we worship. Today we worship greed and therefore are greedy; we worship lust and therefore are lustful; we worship control and therefore are controlling. Where have you seen this in your own life? But none of these things are where we will find our true image and identity. Genesis 1:26 says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness.” To worship and therefore be conformed to the image of God was always His plan, we were never supposed to bow down to the images of things created on this earth. We were called to “have dominion over the earth” when made in His image! He is the only place we will find our true identity. Take a moment and consider this, what would happen if you put some time and energy into recognizing the things in life that we worship without realizing it? Is there something (or maybe someone) that you worship and direct yourself toward? As you think about these things, I hope you’ll start to see how what we worship affects our identity and how we see ourselves. Then comes the challenging part: How can we reshape our identity to have a solid foundation in Jesus Christ, instead of finding it in the earthly things we worship? Where does this journey of discovery take you? I hope you’ll share your thoughts and what you’ve learned in the comments below.  I was raised southern baptist and redeemed at 5 years old as angels walked me to the alter. "Strong willed” was an understatement to my disposition and therefore life was solely up to me to figure out. Curiosity mixed with extremism was a powerful cocktail that led me to live 20 full lives. I called the Triune God "daddy" only to leave Him due to the above mentioned case for curiosity. I've studied Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Witchcraft which ultimately led to me calling Satan "lord". I've seen things that some people will never even believe exist. Contemplating suicide or an insane asylum broke me to only have me "re-awaken” to eternity in our Daddy’s arms. Hallelujah! Married to one beautiful woman, father to 3 awesome children, and overseer to 10 plus Kingdom men.
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