Where is my Heart?

Here’s another post that I’ve been meaning to write for a while from my readings of Isaiah. The verse is Isaiah 29:13 “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.” I found this verse fitting at this time because this is exactly what Jesus came to end – judging our spirituality by how clean our record is instead of where our hearts are at with God. When I think about it, how often am I simply paying lip service to God, instead of giving my heart over to Him? How often do I simply speak “Christanese” but never stop to think about what I am really saying. Recently I’ve been rethinking my devotional time, I used to read a chapter of the Bible and pray every morning and every night, and while that is good I found myself trying to speed things up a bit to “get it over with.” Now I’ve kept a notebook by my bedside, not to write out long passages or posts but a quick note or verse that I find interesting or feel really speaks to me. Life is not supposed to be going through the motions; it is not about following the rules. Instead we should put being right with God as our top priority and let the rules take care of themselves. Listen to the last part of the verse “Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men,” think about it, all the regulations were the Pharisees invention not God’s. Leviticus was never meant to be worship manual but instead a standard of perfection which if we set our hearts on God we can get a glimpse of. Worshiping God is not about saying “Well at the end of the day I did what I was told” it’s about saying “Well today I did my best to put God first in my life and look out at the world in that manner.” This Christmas we must remember what Jesus came here for, not to enforce a law but fulfill it and show us the true meaning of worship.