Pure Worship

For a long time now, I have been struggling. I have been struggling with the way that the American Church has lost sight of the true calling of believers. We have lost sight of the face of God. We sit in our multi-million dollar buildings, seeking revival, planning our next outreach event, raising money for the addition to our new building, attending the next big conference like Passion or Urbana, and trying to create a worship band with talent and energy. These have become our focus. We can’t worship without the big rock music band, we need yearly conferences to “light a fire” in us, and without the powerful sermon of the superstar preacher we don’t get our daily bread. Our worship has become polluted by these toxins.

This isn’t a new problem. The Old Testament prophet Amos brought God’s word to the people of Israel with frightening contemporary relevance:

“I can’t stand your religious meetings. I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.
I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals.
I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making.
I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to me? Do you know what I want? I want justice—oceans of it. I want fairness—rivers of it. That’s what I want. That’s all I want.”

-       Amos 5:21-24 (The Message)

God is not pleased with our religious meetings, our conferences and conventions, our religion projects, our pretentious slogans and goals, our fundraising schemes, our public relations, or our noisy ego-music. He cannot stand it! He’s sick of it! He’s fed up! He wants nothing to do with them! All he wants is for us to unashamedly sing to him. All he wants is our pure worship.

When was the last time you sang to God alone? He wants you to seek after him, the Holy One, rather than the holy place. He wants your focus on him. He wants justice, fairness, and righteousness. The reason we exist as a body of believers is to sing to God, to worship him. Without the desire to be made righteous by the power of God, any offering or sacrifice of praise to God is one he cannot stand. God will have nothing to do with the empty, distracted, repulsive sacrifices that we bring to him through our noisy ego-music, conferences, or religious meetings if we are not only seeking his presence. Not only does God reject impure or tarnished sacrifices, he hates them. Cast aside the impurities of your sacrifices to God. Leave behind the hollowness of your perceived worship. Reject anything that is distracting you from God himself or he will reject your worship.