STOP! cries a holy God who gave the law of sacrifice and service.
What? If God commanded the sacrifice, the manner of church service, why does He now yell stop? He said to do all this, right? We are obeying the law! What is wrong?
Emptiness. Letter over spirit. Action over heart. God hates religious service from an empty heart.
We seem to be back at this place today. Churches full of rich tradition, calling families to serve through sacrifice, often too busy serving to be a family. Giving money, time, work out of necessity. “It’s what we do”. Yet empty of passion, desire, love.
God yells “ENOUGH!”
It’s not the action of sacrifice He desires and appreciates. God has no pleasure in a dead lamb! Of course not! The benefit of the sacrifice was the heart of the person being willing to give his own first fruits, best efforts, to the God that forgave him. It is understanding that the wages of sin is indeed death. It is in the spirit of humility, recognizing that our sin caused death, our choices and pride caused a fallen world. It is honoring the God that did not strike Adam dead on the spot and blot out the human race.
It’s your heart that our heavenly Father desires, not your actions.
Think of your own children. Sure they do chores, but do they complain constantly, doing no more than necessary, and with a cranky disposition? Think how your heart would sing if they were anxious to help out, to do their part, if they sang happily as they enjoyed the labor of their hands. Wow, wouldn’t that be great! Sometimes when the worker is so constantly cranky and complaining, we just want to yell “stop”, send them away and do it ourselves. We tire of a bad attitude.
This is how God feels when we “have to go to church” or “have to tithe” or “have to read and pray”. Sigh… what a chore to serve God. So much fun we miss out on wasting all that time just to keep Him happy.
No! Stop! If you do these things out of necessity, obligation, just stop. Your wasting your time and upsetting, even insulting the God you thought you were pleasing. He doesn’t want your cash, He wants your heart! He doesn’t want your traditions, He wants your anxious love! He wants you to WANT to do those things with Him, not have to.
That’s all that matters…. The heart. What do you want? Do you have a burning desire to hear from heaven? Is the Bible your goto book for fun? Are you at church early, stay late, anxious for one more moment in His presence?
If not, pray for repentance and forgiveness. You have hurt God’s heart with your forced actions.
He does not want His laws followed… He wants you to want to be with Him, to want be like Him.