Good morning to all. I hope your week is off to a tremendous start. I am praying for our church today for God to move mightily through our midst. We are totally reliant on His work. I am so hungry to go beyond the surface into the depths of God's love and presence. That when the body of Christ would gather, we would experience God in powerful ways.
I was reading in Mt. 15 where Jesus is talking about the Pharisees and He uses a passage out of Isaiah when He says: "these people honor me witht their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commands of men."
The Pharisees were getting on to Jesus' disciples for not ceremonially washing their hands before they ate. Jesus said, it's not what goes in the mouth that defiles the man, but what comes out, because what comes out comes from the heart. What comes out of your mouth most often? Not just when you have on your Sunday best and you are singing songs in church, but in your day to day. This is where your heart is. Jesus said you can honor me with lips and your heart is far from me. I believe many in church today are here. Not just the extremely negative and vocal and bitter people in church, and not just those mired in public sin, but the majority of church goers. Not because they are not sincere or desiring a walk with God, but because their hearts are still tied to worldly pursuits or religious ritual. Jesus said, "teaching as doctrines the commands of men." We have made our forms of worship the most important thing and many times miss the Savior.
In "My Utmost For His Highest" today, Oswald Chambers made this statement. "Consecration means the continual separating of myself to one particular thing," which for us is Jesus Christ. Allowing the Lord to strip away the world, our man made forms of religion, and anything else that would keep us from Him. Where is your heart today?