The Worship God Rejects… and the Worship That Changes Everything

Isaiah 29:13-14 – “And the Lord said: ‘Because this people draw ear with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men…the wisdom of their wise men shall perish and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.’”

This passage is quoted by Jesus both in Matthew 15:8-9 and in Mark 7:6-7, where Jesus said people who match this description are practicing ‘vain worship’ that neither He nor the Father in heaven want. Anything that’s vain is self-focused, worthless and of no use to God. Both here in Isaiah and in Jesus’ day the ‘people of God’ had become vain in their worship.

Isaiah also says that their fear of God isn’t real. What they call ‘the fear of God’ is just something they make themselves do in response to a commandment. Ask yourself, does any of this sound familiar for us today?

The fear of God is not something that we can ‘make’ ourselves do. Genuine fear of God is the result of actually experiencing God in our lives. And that first occurred when God finally won your heart. It could have been at church, Bible camp, talking with a friend, or some life-changing experience. If you are a true believer in Jesus Christ and are a follower of His, at some point in your life, God got your attention and convinced you of His awesome power and His amazing love. God did that in each of us to give each of His children a genuine experience of His awesome greatness. Escaping the vanity of insincere, self-focused and self-motivated worship requires that we remember those experiences with God. We must dwell on them and recall what God saved us from, and how stunningly beautiful God is, who called us to Himself and gave us the gift of eternal salvation. Keep those experiences fresh! Remember that excitement and relief you felt when it finally dawned on you that God’s amazing love and the full extent of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is for YOU! Then never let those thoughts leave you. Begin again to live your life letting those life-changing thoughts of God motivate what you do.

You know what will happen don’t you? You will begin worshiping God and His Son, Jesus out of pure, genuine reverence. You won’t be able to stop yourself…you won’t want to.

Do you know what happens when we give ourselves to worshiping God like that? Read Isaiah 29:22-24. God says that when vain worshipers see God’s children genuinely worshiping Him in spirit and truth, they will learn how to worship. Genuine worship will teach the soulless person to see God.

Matthew 5:8 – “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God”…AND WORSHIP!