The words of the song were common, I knew them. They flowed off my lips effortlessly. My clap was on rhythm and the volume was perfect, yet the atmosphere was dead. God was nowhere. I selected another album, a good one. In fact this was the latest and greatest, cutting edge worship chorus out. Again I sang the words boldly, mustering all the passion and concentration I could. I was saying beautiful things, I was speaking profound truths of God’s goodness and love, but I was not meant with His approval. The heavens were brass, and my christian “karaoke” was not penetrating the gap between my echo of worship and Jesus’ holy heart?
All I knew to do was shut up. I stopped the song and stilled my heart and heard a statement that had been repeating in my head for weeks, but this time it exploded with meaning in my spirit. “Am I a greeting card God, Do I desire “hallmark” holiness?” “No sir, you are not, and no sir you do not” I whispered in response. My mind began to fill with moments where someone had given me a card with a message written by someone else. A message that was rubber stamp thousands of times, and addressed to thousands of others all across the world. At that moment a verse burned inside me. When you pray don’t use vain repetitions like the heathen do... (Matt 6:7 NKJV) Strong’s Concordance defines “vain repetitions” as “to repeat the same things over and over, to use many idle words, to babble, prate”. The words idle and prate stand out in this definition; idle meaning hollow, meaningless, pointless and lightweight; and prate meaning to talk foolishly or at tedious length about something. I then understood God’s sentiment He has no use for our tired, worn, redundant prayers and worship. Jesus would never treat us that way, in fact the bible says we are “to live by every word the proceeds from the mouth of God (Matt 4:4) Jesus is saying God is constantly speaking new living words to us.
I could do nothing but repent before a worthy God. I had given the popular christian pat prayers and regurgitated seance-style praise to Him, but He was not interested in the “broken record” of popular culture. God wanted the truth from my heart. Psalms 15 is David asking God, who are those who are near you, who are those who can dwell right next to you, and this is God’s response in verses 2-5.
Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right,
speaking the truth from sincere hearts.
Those who refuse to gossip
or harm their neighbors
or speak evil of their friends
Those who despise flagrant sinners,
and honor the faithful followers of the LORD,
and keep their promises even when it hurts.
Those who lend money without charging interest,
and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent.
Such people will stand firm forever.(NLT)
The NKJV ends this chapter of Psalms with “He who does these things shall never be moved.”
Moved from where, verse one brings clarity ”Who may worship in your sanctuary, LORD? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? If we will follow God’s outline above we will never be moved from His presence and will retain the honor of truly worshiping Him. But if we do not speak the truth from sincere hearts then the flip side is true, we will be moved from the intimacy of His presence and forfeit the ability to give true worship to Him.
Think about it this way, it’s your birthday and your throwing a huge party inviting hundreds of friends. All the decorations are perfect, all the food is set and ready. The guests arrive and the party begins. The then time comes to open presents and your seated in front of the gift table, but to your dismay there are no gifts on it just a stack of identical envelops? You begin the process of opening and reading each one and are disappointed when the second card is the same as the first. You then let out a half chuckle as the third is the same as the other two. Card after card you go through hundreds of clones and the humor is completely lost after you discover all of the cards are copies of each other with just different names signed at the bottom. You think to yourself “Is this some kind of joke”?
The next day you are shopping at the mall and happen to stumble into the card shop, right on the front end cap is the display for the same card you received hundreds of times the day before. Over the display is a sale sign that reads “overstock cards one penny”. You are mortified you know it’s the thought that counts, but now you question was any thought put into it, or were your friends just doing the bear minimum to gain attendance to your party?
Ecclesiastes 5:1 states “Walk prudently when you go to the house of God; and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil.(NKJV). What is the “sacrifice of fools” the NLT sheds light on this “As you enter the house of God, keep your ears open and your mouth shut. It is evil to make mindless offerings to God”. Is the gift we bring to the party, just mindless offerings of “overstock” religious rhetoric ? Is our holiness something that can be mass produced from a printing press? Have we even taken the time to ask what He might want from us, instead of force feeding God our prepackaged, microwave ready praise? Ecclesiastes 5:2 from the Message Bible perfectly illustrates this point “Don’t shoot off your mouth, or speak before you think. Don’t be too quick to tell God what you think he wants to hear. God’s in charge, not you—the less you speak, the better”. Other translations state “let your words be few”.
Our verbal diarrhea gets us nowhere with God, in fact it keeps us from residing in His secret place. “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart,Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the Lord, And righteousness from the God of his salvation” (Psalms 24:3-5). What God desires is honesty from the depths of who we are, and to let the truth of who He is spring up from our hearts into sincere songs of worship to Him. The Message translation states it this way “What you’re (God) after is truth from the inside out Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.” (Psalms 51:6 author’s parenthesis) Those who truly worship God will “worship Him in Spirit and in Truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship Him” (John 4:23)
So what does God desire from us? Psalms 51:17 makes this clear The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,A broken and a contrite heart—These, O God, You will not despise. Psalms also goes on to say that “praise from the upright (synonym for honest) is beautiful”(Ps. 33:1), and “to worship God in the beauty of holiness”(Ps 29:2 and Ps. 96:9). God is waiting to open up the gift of true praise from honest and holy hearts before Him. This worship is done in harmony with His will, led by His direction and Spirit.
Of all the greeting cards I have ever received the one that meant the most to me was a mess of construction and printer paper held together with elmer’s glue. It was scribbled with crayons and markers and covered in glitter and stickers. Written inside in sloppy pre-k script was “we love you Dad”. It was signed with finger paint and the P.S. was coded in a unknown toddler language, but it was beautiful to me. It was a one of a kind, creative masterpiece of love and thoughtfulness. It was made in honest effort to make Dad smile, and He did. If we will bring our patch work praise before him and break open our paper-mache hearts in true worship at His feet, we too will find our Father smiling and proud of His children’s pure, passionate love.
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