SCRIPTURE

Studied: Isaiah 29

OBSERVATION

Isaiah 29:13 ~ The Lord says: “These people worship me with their mouths, and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is based on nothing but human rules.

APPLICATION

Unfortunately we could read this verse and say “Oh those people were soooo hardened” but if we are honest with ourselves, we could read this and see a lot of semblance to our churches today. After all, who is the church? It is the people…. us. We are the church, and unfortunately too often we come to worship with hardened hearts, with envy in our hearts, with anger against a brother or sister, with unforgiveness that separates us from a child of God and from God Himself, and sometimes probably a lot more. Each of these things I cited show that our hearts are far from God. Because if we were close to God, we would be filled with love, for God is love, and we would exemplify His character and obey His Word by drawing close to each other and not letting things of this world and of Satan himself separate us from God and His people. Too often our worship (not our church service, but our ability to praise our risen Lord and worship Him in spirit and in truth) is nothing more than tradition itself, or form, or something that we feel we have to do in order to look like that upright person to our friends. Out of a right relationship with God, comes a heart of appreciation filled with love, and an appreciation for a God that loves us so much that He demonstrated it at Calvary, and continues to demonstrate it each and every day. This is the heart that will be honestly ready to truly ‘worship’ and sing praises to our Savior, our Lord, our Master and our King. This will give fresh new meaning to our worship services as there will be sincerity and purpose in our worship, not because we are following some human or earthly or worldly rules.

PRAYER

Father, may our hearts be pure and sincere as we worship You. Help us to stop trying to impress others, but instead help us to express our true, honest love to You. By doing this corporately, may we be an influence and encouragement to our brother or sister that may be near us but discouraged or hurting in some form. Please also direct us to a brother or sister that You would have encourage us also, so that together we may lift up holy hands and hearts in praise to You. May we get our eyes and our minds off self and instead fix them on You, the one that died for us and truly deserves our full attention and who is worthy of all our praise.