Genuine Worship

Testimony by David Teo (part one), 22, North Carolina

“Week 4 of DTS, I felt a calling to read Leviticus because of a dream where someone came up to me and called me a “Levite”. When I finally opened up the scriptures, the words JUMPED off the page. I became obsessed with ALTARS to the Lord. Why? Because the Altar was a place where a form of God’s presence resided.

In Leviticus 1, there’s a reference to 2 Samuel 24. In this chapter, David isn’t trusting the Lord to come through in battle, so he sends one of his officials to number all the fighting men in Israel to see how Israel’s numbers stack up to their foes. When David realizes his sin, he confesses it to God and wants to build an Altar to sacrifice and repent so that the plague on Israel may be averted. Then, David finds a threshing floor that he likes which is owned by a man named Araunah, who says….

“Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Here are the oxen for the burnt offering and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. All this, O king, Araunah gives to the king.” And Araunah said to the king, “May the Lord your God accept you.” The replies, “No, I will buy it from you for s price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing…”

Even though we live on this side of Christ’s payment, we still make sacrifices to God. It can be spending time with a friend in need, saying “no” at work to maintain our integrity, or while in a pew at church. But if we cheapen our sacrifice to the Lord and do things when they are “convenient” for us or “surrender” things that do not matter or have no value: HE IS NOT HONOURED.

This revelation was followed with an exhortation from an OG YWAM leader:

Marker Parker was standing next to me during worship. He looked over for a moment and motioned to me to get into it. I nodded back, but couldn’t get myself to be more excited and jump around… it didn’t feel right.

Afterwards, he asked me why I didn’t really step it up. He could tell. I told him that I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to get exuberant. He asked me, “Why?”. I said I felt like I needed to be genuine in worship, so it felt wrong to get excited when my heart wasn’t in the right place. He responded:

“David, precisely when you don’t feel like worshiping, that is when you must. When you stop depending on your emotions to fuel your worship and start depending on the Spirit of God – that is when your worship becomes genuine.”

I was rattled. But then I realized he was right! OF WHAT COST TO OURSELVES IS WORSHIP THAT COMES EASILY?

Therefore, I must repeat the words of my namesake: “I will not make sacrifice to my God things that cost me noting.”

I spent hours worshiping and learning about worship on this worship DTS, but the most important lesson I learned was what Hebrew 13:15 and John 4:23 say: “let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise,” “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.”

When I’m not felling it, but in the complete dependence on God still place on the altar my real, 100% all-in worship, that is a powerful and honouring sacrifice.”

Hop on over to part two of David Teo’s testimonies, where he shares his heart and experiences of the Father Heart of God week of lectures during DTS. He opens up into a moment of vulnerability, allowing the Holy Spirit to speak truth about his identity.