Is My Heart
Required in Worship?
For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment
of God rather than burnt offerings. Hosea 6:6 (NIV)
There was a story that appeared in Readers
Digest a number of years ago. There was a man who was a very devout Christian.
He believed in getting up early every morning and having a time of devotions.
He would spend an hour every morning between his prayer time and his time
reading the Bible. Well, he had a cat. And whenever it became quiet, his cat
would come and rub up against him – purring and demanding attention. Normally
this was a pleasant thing for him, but he did find it distracting when he was
trying to worship and read the Bible. So, after much thought he came up with a
solution. He put a collar on the cat, and attached a leash to the color, and
then attached the leash to one of the posters on his bed. The cat seemed to
enjoy being able to sleep on the bed during this time, so all were happy with
this solution. A few years later the man’s son moved out on his own. He wanted
to continue in the family rituals. But times had become a little more hurried,
and he just didn’t have the kind of time that his father had had. So every
morning he would get up – tie the cat to the poster on the bed, and sped ten or
15 minutes reading the Bible, or another good book. This way he knew that his
family rituals were kept, and he also showed that the kind of piety that his
father had. He was very pleased with this arrangement. When this man’s son grew
up, he also wanted to keep the rituals of the family going. But again, times
had gotten a little tighter, and he didn’t feel he had enough time to read the
Bible – or any other book in the morning, and prayer was not something that
interested him. But he did have a cat. So, every morning he got up, tied the
cat to the poster of the bed while he got his morning shower and shave. Usually
he remembered to let it go when it was time to leave the house for work. But
the rituals of the family were continued.
We live in an era that has been labeled
“the information age” where, within minutes and often even seconds we can have
information delivered to our fingertips. Yet, despite the rapid speed and
wide-ranging variety of information that is readily available, many of us are
still uninformed about God. We do not know who He is, what He is like, why we
were created, or what He expects from us. This problem I don’t think is new. In
the book of Hosea, we see the children of Israel struggling with knowing how to
truly know God. As Christians, we can go through life believing that we know
God. After all, we go to church, we read Christian books, we listen to
Christian music, and we have emotional experiences with God. But do we really
know God?
The children of Israel thought they knew
God, but they allowed rote ritual to take the place of a real relationship with
God. The significance of today’s verse in Hosea, a verse that Jesus Himself
quoted (Matthew 9:13), is not that God was refusing the sacrificial system or burnt
offerings that had been an integral part of their religion. God wanted more
from His people than merely formal observances or lifeless religious activity;
He wanted their worship and their service to come out of a genuine love for
Him, and a sincere love for others. The people focused on ceremony, when God was looking for communion, they focused on tradition,
when God wanted inward transformation,
and they focused on an institutionalized
religiosity, when God wanted intimate
relationship.
Does God want our service and sacrifice?
Yes! But He also requires that these cannot be done out of some legalistic
sense of duty. Our service needs to stem from compassion, kindness, and a
consideration for others, and our sacrifice must come from a personal,
intimate, and internalized relationship with God that comes from a devotion to
His Word.
God said, “For the Lord does not see as
man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the
heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). God must have our hearts if our service is to count for
anything. Religious activity apart from a personal relationship with God is
worthless. If we want to offer the sacrifice of service to God, we must begin
with knowing Him personally.
beautiful thoughts
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