Mouth Candy

"The Lord says: "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."

-Isaiah 29:13

As a worship pastor, this is one of the most haunting verses to me. I want more than anything to give myself and my life to my Lord in total abandonment as a sacrifice of praise to Him, that everything I say and do be an offering of worship to Him. I do not want myself nor those entrusted to me that I lead in worship to fall into the trap of giving lip service to the Lord. However, I know that I do. I know this because, He shows me daily areas of my life that are not completely surrendered.

Last night, is a great example. We hosted a Missions Festival to celebrate what God did through our Mission Team we sent to Thailand earlier this year and to increase awareness of our adopting a certain unengaged people group therein. The team, as well as, a new Missionary couple stationed nearby, spoke of cultural differences between us and Thai people. One of these was the food that the people eat. Of course, there were pictures of fried grasshoppers, silkworms, et. al. Now, I was a youth pastor for over a decade, and I traversed this ministry without consuming anything that I deemed strange or "abnormal." I found myself struck by the question, would I be willing to crunch down on an insect to avoid insulting a local that I was trying to win favor with to share the gospel. I am not sure I could go heartily into that realm, yet this is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Worship, is not just the songs we sing on Sundays, that is just a small expression of what is taking place inside our hearts. If we say we love Him, but our faith does not permeate all that we do and are, our faith is useless, as James states in James 2:19-21. Read the verse, Notice the example he gives at the end of verse 21, he is talking about true worship.

I was in DFW area this weekend, and I saw on a church billboard the title of a Bible Study series they were promoting, and I liked what it said, "Stop Dating the Church." I think that captures much of what the vast majority of people in American churches do nowadays. But as I read Isaiah's words above, apparently not much has changed with God's people. Today, may it not be said of me that my heart is far from you, Lord.