Sunday 11 July 2010

Today in church the pastor taught on Luke 11:37-54. The sermon was called "How to Know if Your Religion is Dead"

As he started teaching the thought came to my mind, if we fail to worship God with all the passion we can we are essentially spiritually or religiously dead. I personally think this is true. What is in our hearts as we worship? We know, God most assuredly knows and possibly those close to us know. The question is do those around us who may or may not know us see the passion in our worship? If they do, what would they tell us if we asked them do you think there is a passion for Jesus in my worship? Is it possible that we practice an unconscious hypocrisy and deceive ourselves into thinking that our worship has passion when it may not really have that passion. I think sometimes we may say and do things in our worship of Jesus that are just like the Pharisees in this passage in Luke. We take actions and say things and adopt body postures that say to those around us "see me I am worshiping". I am not saying that there is anything wrong with those actions in and of themselves, but if what is in the heart of the worshiper does not back up what shows up on the outside, isn't that just like the actions of the Pharisees that Jesus saw right through to the sad state of their hearts. I think that we each must examine ourselves to see if our heart is in tune with the passion we have for worshiping God. I think this quote from "Studies in the Sermon on The Mount" by D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, sums it up.

"Finally, therefore we must realize that what God wants, and what our blessed Lord wants, above all, is ourselves--what Scripture calls our 'heart'. He wants the inner man, the heart. He wants our submission. He does not want merely our profession, our zeal, our fervour, our works, or anything else. He wants us." (Studies in the Sermon on the Mount pg. 534)

I think it will be my prayer for myself as well as for all who know and profess faith in God through His Son Jesus Christ, that we be able to give to Him our true selves without hypocrisy or acting, just a broken heart that loves Him and desires only to worship Him with passion.

Yours in Christ's Amazing Love, Bob Best