Genuine Worship
Isaiah 29: They act like they’re worshipping me but don’t mean it.
Generally speaking, we know how to have church. While it’s true that there are various “flavors” of worship ranging from high church with rich liturgy to “low church” filled with individual expression, there’s beauty and impressive worship services across Christianity. The issue isn’t that some need to abandon their worship tradition and adopt that of someone else. Isaiah complains about how his contemporaries worship, but his complaint isn’t that they don’t know how to organize a worship event. They’re doing fine in that department. The problem is on the inside, not the outside. An impressive, well done worship service is meaningless unless the worshippers pour themselves into their worship. This is no excuse for shoddy planning, but it does force us to concentrate on what really matters. Isaiah says the solution is God doing a “shock and awe” operation on the worshippers. Is that what it takes for us to move beyond “worship wars” and get about the business of worshipping from the heart?
Take Away: The Lord still looks for people who worship in spirit and in truth.