Puttin' on a show

Puttin’ on a show

“Oh, Ga’wd … Hallleeeluuujaah.  Thank you, Jeeesuss.” No, I am not mocking, nor do I mean to be irreverent.  But, I have attended prayer meetings where I heard people praying in clichés, repeating stock phrase. It appears to be mindless exercise of religious motions, a kind of theatre.  The prophet Amos saw the people of Israel going through the motions of worship. He heard the Spirit’s response and it wasn’t very pleasant. “I hate all your show and pretense—the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings. Away with your hymns of praise! They are only noise to my ears. I will not listen to your music, no matter how lovely it is." (Amos 5:21-23, NLT)  Arresting, isn’t it?

Do you go through the motions of daily worship, only to offend God because your heart is not in it?  If the Spirit took the microphone at your church this Sunday, might He say, “Stop. You’re just making noise!”? What did the Lord God want from His people and from us?  He wants our worship wedded to our way of life.  "Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, a river of righteous living that will never run dry." (Amos 5:24, NLT)  God saw the injustice in Israel, the exploitation of the poor by the rich, the oppression of the powerless by the privileged.  He called on them to use their times of prayer to reflect on the way they were living; and to change.  

Puttin on a show, falling into religious ritual that is divorced from daily life, was not a sin unique to Israel. Isaiah saw the same sin in Judah. “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”  (29:13)  Jesus warned about “babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.”  (Matthew 6:7)  His prescription for the sickness of heartless religion is still offered. "The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.’ And here is the second: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment that ranks with these.”  (Mark 12:29-31, The Message)

Perhaps your conscience is hurting as you read this. (Mine was as I wrote it!)  You’re realizing how often you just slip into the ‘religion show.’  You sing songs you don’t understand or mean. You write a tithe check to your church without praying for the ministries you support. You open your Bible and read words you can’t remember even a minute after you put it away. You pray prayers that fall from your lips out of habit but leave the basic issues of your heart untouched.  The cure is not to try harder!   Curiously that is what we think we ought to do.  The real answer is to let the Spirit have access to all of you.  Just stop!  Jesus offers Himself to us. For those who are stuck in heartless religion, He says - "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." (Revelation 3:20, NIV)

Get honest and tell Him you’re sick of saying the same old words.  Tell Him about the resentment you’re hiding inside, the habits that are hanging on. Confess your lack of desire for godly things, that you would rather go fishing than to church, rather serve yourself than serve others, that Heaven seems far away- earth’s pleasures immediate and alluring.  “Jerry, I can’t admit to those things.”  Why not?  He knows the real you and me better than you or I do.  If we own up to it, start telling ourselves the truth instead of covering it all over with religious noise, we will find Him present to comfort, faithful to forgive, and changing us from the inside out.  Loving Jesus is not a matter of doing religion better; it’s about loving Jesus, focusing on Him.

He’s waiting, knocking on door.  Will you invite Him in?