When the Music Fades...

When we often think of worship, we mostly associate singing worship songs and playing music to the Lord. I love the lyrics from Matt Redman's worship song that echoes that music and singing is not the heart of worship but the heart of worship is really OUR HEART!
When the music fades, And all is stripped away
And I simply come, Longing just to bring
Something that's of worth, That will bless your heart
I'll bring You more than a song, For a song in itself
Is not what You have required, You search much deeper within
Through the ways things appear, You're looking into my heart.

Since true worship is about God and not about us, what is it that He desires? Jesus taught on what worship is and He said that true worship is worshipping God in spirit and in truth.
John 4:21-14
Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
What Jesus means is that worship is not an outward demonstration but an inner connection from our heart to God out of a real relationship with Him! True worship is a lifestyle borne out of a continual relationship with God and is not restricted to a place or time of day!

As someone said, "It's not the art, but the heart". Jesus warned us that worshipping without our heart right is being a hypocite.
Matthew 15:7
You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men
David who was a great worshipper, understood that if he cherished sin in his heart that God would accept his worship.
Psalm 66:18
If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

Jesus also said all strife and sin originate from the heart. If our heart is not right with God, we cannot worship in spirit and in truth. That is why we need to confess our sin and come back to God!
Matthew 15:16b-18
Jesus asked them. "Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.'
1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

How is your worship - is it once a week affair when you go to church or is it a lifestyle reflecting and connecting with God every moment of every day? If there is something fundamentally wrong with the relationship, then nothing we can do externally will actually make up for that. God is not after the songs that we sing but He wants our hearts.. Confess all sin and have a close heart relationship with God. Then when the music fades, our worship will not cease but always be present as it borne out of a close relationship with Him!