i don't like looking in the Bible for things that shake me up. i don't like being scared by scripture. i don't like reading angry parts of the Word. i prefer to look for the parts of the Bible that let me know how good i am doing or that makes me think happy thoughts. i cannot escape reality. There are very scary and unsettling things in the Word that makes me feel uneasy about my condition, the job i am doing, the Church as a whole, and of what may be God's view of me. Here is probably the scariest thing of all scripture to me.
Isaiah 1
10Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom!
Listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah!
11"What are all your sacrifices to Me?" asks the LORD.
"I have had enough of burnt offerings and rams and the fat of well fed cattle;
I have no desire for the blood of bulls, lambs, or male goats. 12When you come to appear before Me, who requires this from you this trampling of My courts? 13Stop bringing useless offerings. I despise your incense. New Moons and Sabbaths, and the calling of solemn assemblies I cannot stand iniquity with a festival. 14I hate your New Moons and prescribed festivals. They have become a burden to Me; I am tired of putting up with them. 15When you lift up your hands in prayer, I will refuse to look at you; even if you offer countless prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.
16"Wash yourselves.
Cleanse yourselves.
Remove your evil deeds from My sight.
Stop doing evil.
17Learn to do what is good.
Seek justice.
Correct the oppressor.
Defend the rights of the fatherless.
Plead the widow's cause.
© Copyright (c) Broadman & Holman Christian Standard Bible. by All rights reserved worldwide.
First of all, it is scary to me to think that my worship, my prayers, my offerings to God may not be accepted the way i think they will be. It goes against my view of God being a merciful, compassionate God who will accept my gift to Him no matter how unfit they may be for a King of His Magnitude, as long as it comes from a humble heart. i know there are those who love this verse because it shows how other people may be worshiping wrong and how it might not be accepted. Conservative/traditional/whatever brothers may read that and say to the liberal/progressive/whatever brother, “"See! It's right here. God does care about how you worship and He isn't going to accept it no matter what."” The liberal/progressive/whatever brother will look at the same set of scripture and see it as a rebuke on the conservative/traditional/whatever brother saying, "“See! God is not going to accept your worship just because you get it done 'correctly'.”" Shame on either “side” for viewing this as a score for their side. It is repugnant to God that their be sides within His Kingdom and makes only Satan celebrate that God's Kingdom has divided itself. That aside, if we are looking at this scripture in this way, we are missing the point and may be covering or filling our hands with blood from our conflicts and bloody fights with other members of Christ's Body. This is the second scary thing to me, because i have been guilty of this considering that at various times in my life i have been on either side and have viewed this scripture in those ways. My hands have been made bloody by fighting my siblings who share the same adoption as myself, proving how unworthy i am to be called God's own, showing a very ugly image and distorted reflection to the world of our Lord.
Here is the third scary thing: i have gotten it wrong in my focusing to make sure my worship is correct and heartfelt. Even though i have been trying to make sure i strike a balance between right rituals and a right heart (thinking mistakenly that i am above all the others in trying to keep myself out of the spiritual “civil” war of worship within the Kingdom), i have been missing the point.
The fourth thing may be the scariest of all: What does He call those people? Verse 11 those people, those children of His, the worshipers are called "rulers of Sodom" and "people of Gomorrah!" i don't know about you, but i do not aspire to be associated with those vile people whom God saw necessary to eradicate, but that is exactly how we are viewed when we corrupt His worship.
What does God say we need to do to correct the situation? To have a worship that God does not reject? Look at verses 16 and 17 again:
We are told to wash ourselves, make ourselves clean. We dirty ourselves up and we need to be made clean before the throne of the Almighty. This is talking about showing God respect by not walking into His throne room filthy, with dirty hands and feet, with a dirty heart. No matter how righteous we may be, no matter how right we may believe our work and struggles to be, we are not immune from getting dirty and needing to be cleansed. The closer we get to God and to the character He desires from us, the more we realize our unworthiness, our filthiness and that is the way it should be. Admitting that you are dirty and need cleansed is the most respectful thing you can do in the presence of the Almighty God. The only time we will not need to be cleansed is when we are taken up into Glory.
He tells us to remove our evil deeds from His sight. Here's a little secret: His sight goes everywhere. There is nothing that is hidden from Him. The only way that something can be taken away from His sight is what He has mercifully forgiven. What He has forgiven He has forgotten. We can not hide it. The way we remove our evil deeds from His sight is having them forgiven, by repenting, by “going away and sinning no more.” He tells us to stop doing evil, not try to hide them. What is evil? What ever is not love. When we act in a way that is unloving toward another, especially one of our siblings, that is evil. We can not say that what makes an action evil is the heart or the motivation for the action. An evil act is an evil act is an evil act. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. There is never a motive so righteous that it will justify an unloving act.
We are then told to learn to do what is good. It isn't natural for us to do good. We act out of a selfish and earthly nature that tells us “its alright to not do this good thing for someone else.” We have to learn, to be taught, to do what is good. What is it to “do what is good?” Well, here it is:
Seek justice.
Correct the oppressor.
Defend the rights of the fatherless.
Plead the widow's cause.
The rest of the week i intend to focus on these COMMANDS and how it will lead to worship that is acceptable to God.
May God help me to be diligent in this and may it make a long lasting impact on my life as i strive to be . . .
raymond, a child of the King
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment