Sunday, March 4, 2012

God Wants Our Love

And so the Lord says, “These people say they are mine. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far away. And their worship of me amounts to nothing more than human laws learned by rote.” -- Isaiah 29:13

They go through the motions. They follow the rules. They know the rules well. They interpret them as they see fit, frequently looking down on those who either don’t know the rules or don’t follow them. They’ve got religion figured out. It’s the faith that alludes them.

We are all hypocrites of one kind or another. We want to be better than we are. We pretend we’re happy when we’re not. Part of life is always fake, whether we intend it or not. We are taught to be nice, to tell people what they want to hear, to be tender with the feelings of others.

Some of that is good. Taming the tongue, James says, is impossible. But we must try because our tongue sends forth evil whether we intend it or not. That is a different kind of hypocrisy than that of those who believe they are better people, better Christians, than those around them.

I once attended the same Sunday school class as a woman who did just that. She was so filled with the rules -- some of which were just simply not part of the Bible. For example, she insisted that the Bible tells us not to drink alcohol. It doesn’t. It warns us against drunkenness, which is not the same thing. She insisted that we aren’t suppose to do anything to lead someone else to sin. True. So what about banning desserts from the potluck? Our nation has an obesity problem and that’s just too much temptation. She didn’t find it funny.

I suppose it isn’t. Because telling people something is in the Bible when it isn’t is wrong. And misrepresenting something is wrong as well. It’s why I encourage people to read or listen to the Bible for themselves. Ask questions. Study. Pray.

But I digress. One topic that really upsets the rules folks is the traditional vs. contemporary church serves. They can get quite vocal when it comes to the “proper” way to worship God. From their point of view, it’s about the proper songs and the proper liturgy, the proper dress code and the established length of time. I always thought it was about the heart.

God wants us to love Him for who He is. God wants us to worship Him for who He is. God wants us to desire a relationship with Him for who He is. It’s not about rules and tradition and style of music. It’s about love and trust and faith.

There’s that word again: Faith. It’s dancing before the throne of God because He is who He says He is. It’s about singing words with hands lifted up toward the Almighty who has joined us in His place. It’s about standing beneath the light of His love and knowing, really knowing, who we are in Him. It is loving God and giving Him all we have because of all He has already given us.