Sunday morning isn't the time to be in the spotlight.
Isaiah 1:11-18 "What makes you think I want all your sacrifices?" says the LORD. "I am sick of your burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened cattle. I get no pleasure from the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to worship me, who asked you to parade through my courts with all your ceremony?
Stop bringing me your meaningless gifts; the incense of your offerings disgusts me! As for your celebrations of the new moon and the Sabbath and your special days for fasting— they are all sinful and false. I want no more of your pious meetings. I hate your new moon celebrations and your annual festivals. They are a burden to me. I cannot stand them!
When you lift up your hands in prayer, I will not look. Though you offer many prayers, I will not listen, for your hands are covered with the blood of innocent victims.
We sure can take a lot of things to church with us, no I'm not talking about your Bible or that box of Krispy Kreme's. What I am talking about is all that smut that is stuck to us like dirt on a toddler, and how about that bucket of self-righteousness, and then there is that back-pack full of sin that weighs us down.
I am convinced that a lot of what happens in church on Sunday morning is a burden to God. I am pretty sure that he is tired of seeing some of us come back week after week holding on to our pious attitudes, feeling righteous and selfish, demanding that things be done the "right" way. So you brought your offering, you said a prayer, you stacked some chairs or maybe you even brought some food for the dinner on the ground, what else is there?
We get in the way of God finding pleasure in our worship, there is too much tendency to push our own agenda in order for the worship experience to be more pleasurable to ourselves, but there is a huge problem with that line of thinking. It isn’t about my pleasure! I think that most of us know that in our heads but it doesn’t seem to sink into our hearts, we know it but we just can’t fully put it into practice, what better place could there be to deny myself and take up my cross than when I am worshiping?
Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me.
God wants us to live selfless lives every day of the week and when we enter his house and participate in corporate worship it just seems to me that we should live it out more deliberately then than at any other time. I am supposed to be a servant.
Help me to make the focus of every activity that happens at church be all about you and your glory. My live is not about me and my worship isn’t supposed to be about me either, help me to worship you in a pleasing manner today and every day.
