Interview:

Music is spiritual. Music and spirituality can not be separated because they are one. We are spiritual beings; our actions, beliefs, and words are all part of our spirituality. My spiritual journey with music and worship started when I was a child of eight. I was worshipping up in the hills of our family farm and I received a vision from the Lord. I was singing that song “I’m on the top of the world looking down on creation, and the only explanation I can find is the love that I found ever since you’ve been around. You love me on the top of the world”. At that moment, it was as though I was looking down on creation with seas of people around me, and as I sang and worshipped, people got healed, delivered, and set free when chains broke off people’s lives. Waves of God’s love pulsed throughout my body: a love so pure and undefiled, a love I want to share with the world.

As a child I said to the Lord, “They may be singing a love song to their boyfriend or girlfriend, but I was singing a love song to you”. God is waiting for his bride to sing him spiritual songs of love. Worship became my life. I have been told that I have “extravagant worship in my bones”. God continued to lead me on a pathway in prayer and inner healing. This began as I was leading worship workshops in several churches throughout New Zealand. I would also give time to personal prayer for people to receive spiritual restoration from God. The opening has come for me to put a prayer booklet together that will hopefully be available in Singapore, and also translated into Indonesian. This will also take me to the small island of Manado, Indonesia, teaching and training people how to pray for themselves and others; to make sure they will go to Heaven and not Hell. Over the years, as I have worked with worship, and incorporated chord progression at the end of the last worship song; I have found that some chord progressions have five levels of anointing. Only a few churches that allow God to move may be reaching four of the five levels of anointing. Usually, only the third level is reached. Personally I have reached all five levels.

Colossians 3:15-17 [New King James Version]
15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Matthew 7:21-23 [New King James Version]
21 Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’
23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

These Biblical scriptures have continued to encourage and inspire me to keep the church hungering after God; to sing spiritual songs to the Lord. I believe that as the church hungers for God, miracles will occur. People will be set free by deliverance and healing. With an increased hunger in the hearts of people for more intimate prayer and worship, cleansing and repenting from all unrighteousness, and a sound foundation on the Word; God will turn up, as He will not be able to help Himself. God is waiting for all his people to sing their own spiritual songs in corporate and personal worship.

Worship stirs up the prophetic. Churches stay away from intimacy in worship for many reasons: some lack the time, some don’t understand the importance of singing spiritual songs, some don’t like that form of worship and fear an unknown area of worship, some say it may scare non-Christians away. Satan does not want the church to sing their spiritual songs back to God, because he knows the anointed power that occurs when worshippers sing their songs of thanksgiving to God.

Remember the key is we are singing someone else’s psalms and hymns, now it is our turn to reply to God with our spiritual songs. The church is unbalanced in the approach to worship. If they do not allow the spiritual song, they are robbing church of the power that comes from singing corporate spiritual songs. We must have balance. By playing a chord progression, which is just a vehicle after a song, it gives people a chance to sing their song back to God. Not everyone has to hear it, just God. So we can sing our own songs all together. It is wonderful and moves the heart of God. He looks down and hears our song and it melts His heart. So simple, and so powerful.

Ephesians 5:19 [New King James Version]
19 Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.

These songs can be sung corporately and in our own daily worship to God. In every thing give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus. We can worship God and sing spiritual songs back to the Lord any time, day or night. Christianity is not a religion but a relationship with the loving Heavenly Father who cares for His children. We are encouraged to come toward God in simple faith. Man has made it a religion and taken the simplicity out of worship. God’s children are starving and craving for intimacy and love that only God can give.

“God is waiting for all his people to sing their own spiritual songs in corporate and personal worship.”
– Janice Martin, singer-songwriter