“The Kiss”
By Hal Sacks
In September 2008, I attended three days of continuous worship and prayer in Colorado Springs, CO. From the moment I walked in the door of the church, the tangible, sacred presence of God was distinguishable. The atmosphere was electric.
After two days of engaging in this heavenly atmosphere of worship, I began to hear the Spirit of the Lord speak to me about what He was doing. I carefully made notes. My heart stirred with anticipation as I sensed God’s Spirit say to me, “If you kiss Me with your worship, I will kiss you with My presence.”
At the time, I did not know what God was saying to me; I didn’t even know if what I heard Him say about “kissing Him with worship” could be found in the Scriptures. But, following my return home, I found myself mysteriously drawn into a renewed pursuit of God’s presence and a deep hunger for intimacy with my Heavenly Father.
I felt compelled every evening to spend anywhere from one to three hours walking and communing with the Lord. During these times, my heart came alive with renewed passion and strength. He spoke His Word to me in a fresh and renewed way.
The words I believe I’d heard kept gnawing at me: “If you kiss Me with your worship, I will kiss you with My presence.”
Was it even a biblical concept? This question drove me into the Scriptures to search out what it meant. I didn’t know that this Word of God about worship was going to alter my life.
A New Understanding of Worship
I read everything I could on the topic. While exploring the roots of “worship” in the original languages of Scripture, I discovered profound insights into this beautiful entry point to a divine relationship. I found there are 13 words translated “worship.” The most prominent word for worship in the Old Testament is sha’chah and the same in the Greek word pros’kuneo; both of which mean the same thing: “to kiss” or “adore,” “bow down” and “show great respect,” or “to fall.” In a literal sense, it means “to bow low and throw a kiss.”
It gets really interesting when you look at the word “presence.” In the original Hebrew (pa’niym) and Greek (pros’opon) both words meaning “presence” also mean “face.” This begins to sound like an irresistible invitation from my Father God to enter into intimacy with Him.
It is amazing what the Lord was saying: “If you kiss Me with your kiss, I will kiss you with My face.” It doesn’t get more intimate than that!
Coming from an Orthodox Jewish upbringing, I understand about the ancient Eastern custom of bowing, kneeling, or throwing a kiss as a form of greeting, especially to royalty. In both modern and religious “worship,” the outward physical act reveals the inner heart of respect and honor.
Becoming a True Worshiper
I’m not a musician, nor have I ever considered myself a worship leader. Like many people, I used to have a fairly one-dimensional view of worship: basically, that worship is the musical and spiritual “warm-up” to the message in a church service!
But I’ve since discovered that worship is not simply an activity; it’s all about my proximity to my Heavenly Father. Worship is a matter of my heart, not something I do or attend. True worship is all about my heart’s focus on Him.
Christian songwriter and worship leader Matt Redman experienced this revelation, and it led to his writing his now-famous worship song about “coming back to the heart of worship.” It was in the late 1990s, and the pastor of the church Redman attended in Watford, England, sensed that his congregation’s gatherings were spiritually flat. People were simply going through the motions. Worship just wasn’t flowing from the heart.
“There was a dynamic missing,” says Redman, “so the pastor did a pretty brave thing. He decided to get rid of the sound system and band for a season, and we gathered together with just our voices. His point was that we’d lost our way in worship, and the way to get back to the heart would be to strip everything away. The heart of worship is not music and song, but heads and hearts in joyful awe of the real Jesus.”1
A true worshiper is most concerned about the emotional and spiritual connection with the heart of God; it’s not just about the music. A true worshiper is one who is intimately acquainted with God and lives in a daily relationship with Him. And, the fruit of the life of a true worshiper is a deeper connection with God—hearing His voice more clearly while walking in greater levels of His favor, joy, peace, and authority.
Inviting God’s Presence
As I continued to prayerwalk, night after night, I kept asking the Lord, “Why are You calling me to spend this time with You?” I was enjoying these times with the Lord, but I sensed there was something more He wanted to do.
On those walks, the Father taught me about “vertical worship”—worship not just about God, but to Him. This intense prayer and vertical worship became a part of my spiritual core, reminiscent of my Jesus movement days.
Worship had always been a trademark of our ministry conferences. Now it was about to become an important key to inviting God’s presence to our community.
One day we received a letter from the pastors of Mexicali, asking for our help. Violent crime was increasing on our Southwest border. These pastors wanted our help and asked us to come alongside them in building a wall of prayer and worship along our border. Then, one night while prayerwalking and asking the Lord about what to do, I heard Him say, “I want you to invite My presence back to the border!”
We worked with pastors to raise up a wall of prayer and worship “to invite God’s presence” to the 2,000-mile border from San Diego, CA, to Brownsville, TX. We saw immediate and measurable results, with crime dropping dramatically, including the capture of the FBI’s 37 of the most-wanted cartel leaders.
This was just the beginning. It was evident that my face-to-face time every night with the Lord was not only drawing me closer to Him, but that He had plans to use me and others to carry His presence into our community. Our team rented high school auditoriums and prayed and worshiped all night to invite God’s presence to our problem-ridden campuses. We saw academic scores go up and suicides and drugs go down. We held all-night prayer and worship at City Hall for our governmental leaders and law enforcement. Crime was diverted and our police experienced divine protection in life-threatening situations.
I’ve learned that if we invite the transforming presence of the Lord into every area of our daily lives, into every location we travel to, and into every sphere we touch, He will come! When we invite His transforming, glorious presence into situations, miraculous changes can take place.
The Lord promises that if we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. This can happen corporately as well as individually. When we invite Him into difficult situations in our families, schools, and workplaces through our intimate worship, He will “kiss” our community with His presence.
Positioning Ourselves for the “Kiss”
In our pursuit of God’s presence and in following Christ, worship will always, ultimately, be the act of attributing reverent honor and awe to God. We do not need to be a worship leader or musician to express our worship. We worship God because He is God, and because we have an extravagant love for Him.
Intimate worship is rooted in our relationship and intimacy with God—our proximity to Him. I am more intimate with someone I’m close to than someone I do not know well. I’ll kiss my wife on the lips, but in a European style, I may kiss my friend on the cheek. A kiss always comes from the heart. And a loving Heavenly Father will always embrace “the kiss” of His child—His arms always open, reciprocating with a tangible “kiss from His lips.”
1David Matthis, “Back to the Heart of Worship,” http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/back-to-the-heart-of-worship.
DR. HAL H. SACKS is cofounder, along with his wife Cheryl, of BridgeBuilders Int’l, a Phoenix-based ministry that equips and mobilizes God’s people in transformational prayer. He is the author of Two Nations, One Prayer, a book that calls for prayer for the ending of violence, trafficking, and corruption on the Southwest border.
