RIVERSIDE, Calif. (Feb. 26, 2015) –Trip Lee, rapper, pastor and author, spoke to students at California Baptist University this week about music and worship. He also performed a concert on campus Feb. 24.

"God created music, and he gave it to us for our enjoyment and for his worship," Lee said. He released his fifth album last fall and his second book in January. "Music captured how I felt about things and inspired me. I was really in love with music and that eventually led me to write my own."

Music is used in worship for many reasons, he told the students. The main one is to praise God and celebrate his work. Lee talked about how the Israelites broke into song after crossing the Red Sea. He questioned why Christians are often uninterested in praising God in chapel or in church.

"If you're a Christian today, you always have reason to burst out in joyful songs of praise, because you have been delivered from great doom," he said. "We're always standing on the other side of the Red Sea looking at the miraculous way that God has delivered us."

Music can also be used to express pain and frustration. Lee talked about a health issue he has struggled with that resulted in the song, "Sweet Victory." The song has connected with people, because everyone can relate to pain and frustration in their lives, he said. Scripture is real about pain and suffering, with both Job and David writing songs about it in the Bible.

"It might be kind of depressing that we find songs like this in scripture, but instead it should be a comfort to us," Lee said. He reminded students that the Bible inspires us in all life's circumstances.

Music also encourages others, and it is a gift God has given us to enjoy, Lee said. While it's a big part of everyone's life, we should be careful how we use it.

 "Let's not just mindlessly enjoy our music; let's not mindlessly ignore opportunities to praise God," he said. "It's been given to us to enjoy but also (to use) to worship God."