Sensual Worship
So, I follow a hashtag on Instagram called #worshipleader, and I’ve been seeing a pretty disturbing trend. Number one, it’s wrought with really bad theology like naming and claiming, waiting for your miracle, and other things that don’t have to do with the glory of God, but sadly these days, that is to be expected. The major thing though is the sexualization of many females that call themselves worship leaders and Christian artists. In the last few months even, many women who claim to be daughters of the King and are self-proclaimed worship leaders have rolled across the worshipleader hashtag posting images of themselves with various, highly sexually charged poses and incredibly immodest and revealing clothing. Like, some seriously shocking stuff.
One girl recently posted a Bible verse while posing on the beach half naked and looking seductively into the camera with another girl by her. It was to promote her new single coming out. It was enough for me to unfollow the worshipleader hashtag. Ladies, gentlemen, either way, we are to model purity before God and the Church. We are to be modest. We aren’t to cause others to stumble with our bodies to the best of our ability and to the ultimate fear and glory of God. God is indeed real, and we have what He has commanded us in Holy Scripture about how we are to present ourselves, and we don’t really have the choice to take that seriously or not. Galatians 5, in the big list of egregious sins, Paul reminds us that those who practice sensuality will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Also known as “lewdness” or “debauchery,” sensuality can be defined as “devotion to gratifying bodily appetites; free indulgence in carnal pleasures.” We must rid ourselves of this, especially so if we are calling ourselves leaders in ministry.
Now, this isn’t to look down our noses at those who do this as if we ourselves are perfectly pure. As if we aren’t hypocrites and Pharisees. As if we certainly have it altogether. I don’t. I need grace every single day, and the more I get to know the Word, the farther and farther away from holiness I realize I truly am - but ultimately, what kind of Christians are we? Often times, we can make sure our posts are pure, inoffensive, modest, and then behind closed doors we’re looking at things online we know we shouldn’t. We post things about our spouses that seem we love and respect them, but behind closed doors we tear them down and attack them. We attend church, raise our hands in worship, and then leave those walls and live however we want, watch whatever we want, say whatever we want as if the Word has no true hold on us. We claim Christ and before people we say and do all the right things, but before God, do we truly fear Him? Posting immodest pictures with a Bible verse indeed reveals some dangerously bad fruit in a person identifying as a Christian, but we also must be careful that we examine ourselves not to just appear pure and set apart, but that we actually, truly are to the glory of Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit. If we appear pure to men, but before God are actively living in unrepentant sin, there is zero difference. Staying in the Word will help us know the heart of God, and praise His Name, there’s grace for us today for those in Christ. Let’s be Christians who don’t just hear the Word, but obey it wholeheartedly until Jesus returns.
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“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:1-2
