I hate, I despise your feast days, and I do not savor your sacred assemblies. Though you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them, nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings. Take away from Me the noise of your songs, for I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments. But let justice run down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
(Amos 5:21-24)
In John 4, Jesus told the woman at the well about true worship. We must also recognize that there is false worship that is unacceptable before God. Half-hearted worship is an insult to Almighty God.
There is idolatrous worship. There is insincere worship. There’s even sinful worship. Did you know that if you come to worship God or get on your knees at home and there is sin in your heart, it makes God angry? When we worship God with sin in our hearts, God says, I will not hear you. To worship God with an unclean heart is unacceptable to God.
True worship is the adoring contemplation of God revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Worship is all that we are, responding to all that God is. All that we are: body, soul, and spirit—mind, emotion, and will. It is everything in me responding to all that God is.
• What might it look like for a person to come before God in improper ways?
• What things threaten to keep you from worshiping God fully?
Spend time today praying that God would lead you to worship Him with everything in you.
This really spoke to my heart. I know I have come to the Lord at times when he didn't hear me because of sin in my life. Thank you, Bro. Phil, for reminding me of the importance of having asked for forgiveness of sin before coming before the Throne of God. Trust you and the wifee are doing well!