Is Your Worship A LIe?

Lamentations 2:6-7 -  He has broken down his Temple as though it were merely a garden shelter. The LORD has blotted out all memory of the holy festivals and Sabbath days. Kings and priests fall together before his anger.  The Lord has rejected his own altar; he despises his own sanctuary. He has given Jerusalem's palaces to her enemies. They shout in the LORD's Temple as though it were a day of celebration.

 

Jeremiah’ poem of lament continues as he looks around the town. As his eyes settle on the once beautiful Temple that people went to worship…he realizes that God now despises this place where people came merely out of routine. God couldn’t bear to live within the walls of a place where so many hearts mocked his very existence.

 

The beauty and location of our worship is not nearly as important as the heart we enter into worship with. The hearts of these people had decayed from within the walls of what was believed to be the most beautiful place of worship that existed.  The routine of going to the Temple with the correct sacrifice meant nothing if their heart was not right when they offered it. Their worship was a lie…a thing they did merely for show.

 

We know how God feels about this from one of the first stories in the Bible.  Go back to Genesis 4 to get the whole story….but the short of it is that Cain and Able both brought offerings to God.  Cain’s was unacceptable…and the rejection of it made him so bitter he committed the first recorded murder in the Bible.

 

Cain didn’t see his sin either. He brought an offering…but it wasn’t his best. He didn’t even see the need to look for his best and let that sin control him just like these Israelites.  His sin created a pride in his heart that mocked the very life that God had created.  The hate that resulted knew no limits…not even the bond of family was strong enough to stop its spread.

 

It’s a huge reminder to me to never let my worship become so routine that I forget why I am worshipping.  I need to make sure that every time I go to worship God I tell him how great and mighty he is…thank him for all he has done in my life…and repent of any sin that might have crept into my heart. True worship can happen anywhere….in the lowliest of grass huts in poorest countries of Africa….in the basement of a home in any country where people must hide to study his word….in the dorm room of a student trying to share God with her friends…or the most gorgeous building set with stained glass windows and polished furniture. 

 

Father…thank you for the reminder that my worship should be purely about praising you…and thanking you for the life you gave me in your son. Forgive me for the times that I have gone to ‘church’….and not gone to ‘worship.’  Help me to always bring my best to you because I want to thank you…not just to make a show of my best for others to see.  Amen.