Glamour or Glory
By David Berg - March, 1973
Musical perfection is mathematical, but musical inspiration is divine! Watch performers, the difference between the truly greats and the mere perfectionists: The major difference is that the perfectionists, those who have great voices etc., but who are more interested in their performance and are more conscious of how they are singing and looking and sounding, are only interested in themselves!—It falls flat, nothing but an egotistical display of self!
Whereas the truly great performers make you forget they're performing and make you forget their performance and even forget them you're so carried away with the emotion of their message and what they're singing about or saying or portraying, so that they almost fade out of the picture and you're getting the message.––These are the truly greats!
The greatest stars are those who don't know they're stars. The greatest men are the ones who didn't know they were great, at least they didn't feel great. What makes you really great is the greatness God gives you––the Spirit, the inspiration.
You have to have the Holy Spirit which people recognise as something great. You kind of swing with the drama of it and sort of fit in with it and ride the crest, but you have to remember it is not you––it's something divine, the Holy Spirit, so people recognise they're not seeing you—they're seeing the Lord.
We're showing God to the world. They don't know what He's like. The only way they're going to know is by seeing God in you, and that's not you. But if in seeing you they don't see you, they see the Lord, that's the difference.
That's what the world today calls charisma, a kind of a mystical charm, a divine anointing, a supernatural fascination. That's what every really great musician, singer, speaker, performer, prophet or king must have, a divine anointing. It ought to really erase the performer in some respects and make you think of God, of the greater One behind the person—not the mere instrument.
When God has given you a role to play and you can play it with divine anointing and real inspiration of the Lord and by the power of His Spirit, you become that creation of God!
If you're willing to be what God wants you to be, not what you are, but what God wants you to be, then He can mightily use you.
He makes the difference between lifeless clay and the alive, pulsating energetic body of a human being! It's the breath of God, the anointing and power of God that makes the difference!
One of the biggest dangers you have is to begin thinking it's you. It's God's anointing. If He withdraws it, you're just as flat as ever. It doesn't matter how technically perfect our bands are, they can be dead as a doornail if they lack the power––that supernatural thing—that mysterious mystical power that really turns people on.
If you've got that divine anointing, it makes every little task wonderful! "You've got to have a glory in the thing you do, an everlasting glory that'll carry you through!"
Unless it moves you, what good is it? The business we're in is moving people! We're trying to move them from one place to the other, one life to another, one spirit to another. We're trying to move them!
If your music doesn't affect people, you're just in the entertainment business! If your singing doesn't affect people, if your witness doesn't make them glad or mad or sad, it's just so much hot air and a waste of time! It's the difference between somebody who is proud of his own work and himself and those who have the Spirit and just wanna exalt Jesus!
People have to see you, but they've got to see Jesus coming through you. But if it stops dead with you, they'll just go on and figure it was a waste of time––no different from what everybody else was screaming. "Not by (thy) might nor by (thy) power, but by My spirit!" saith the Lord. Jesus said, "The words that I speak unto thee, they are Spirit and they are Life"!––Zech.4:6; Jn.6:63.
You've got to move them, make them mad, sad or glad, drive them to a decision, spur them to action, emote them into motion by emotion by the Spirit. "It's the Spirit, it's the Spirit!"
The body without the spirit is dead!––So is every song, every sermon, every witness, every book, every picture. every task, whatever it is, without the Spirit it's dead! But the Spirit can make anything glorious! It can make you even clean toilets with an artistic finesse and be proud of the good job you did and consider it a work of art and a thing of beauty!
Have you got the spirit? Has your singing, music or whatever you do got the power, the fire of God?––If not, it's dead works!––And it'll never set anyone else on fire either! God help you to have the fire-power of God's Spirit in all you do!––Amen? Praise the Lord! Don't try to work up glamour––pray down glory! Hallelujah!