What fuels your worship team?

What is the driving force behind your worship team? What is the passion that fuels their song? What motivates your teammates to sacrifice their time and share their talents for Sunday morning worship? What is your motivation for singing or playing or leading or participating?

 I'm sure we all know what the 'right' answer is.  We know what we should say; we know the answer we think God wants to hear. Just stop for a second, and take a look at the real condition of your heart. You might as well be honest with yourself - God already knows the truth about you (and He loves you anyway!). What is your real motivation?

My heart is a mixed bag. On any given day, I want to lead worship for a lot of different reasons. And yeah, some of them are self-serving. Should I be afraid to admit that? Not all of my reasons for leading worship are selfish, but I am a sinner and sadly, some of them are.

There is hope for me yet, and you, too, if your motivations are kind of like mine.  Christ has covered our sin and selfishness, and He can use even our most meager gift for God's glory. That's a relief! I don't have to be perfectly motivated to do what I do. On the other hand, I can't afford to be complacent about my the state of my heart, attitude, and motivation.  This is what  I want my heart to look like:

In the Old Testament, in the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah the prophet has been called by God to share a specific message from God for His people. Jeremiah wasn't thrilled about his assignment, he knew it wasn't going to a message that made him popular in the people's eyes. But this message was God's Word! And what does he have to say about that? Jeremiah says,

""But if I say, "I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name," his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot." (Jeremiah 20:9, NIV, www.biblegateway.com)

That about sums it up. I want God's Word to be such a fire in my soul that I can't help but let it out. I want to be so full of God's Word that His praise wells up and busts out when I sing. I want God's love to burn inside me so strongly that I simply cannot keep it in.

Dear God, Please set fire to my soul....