Dirty Worship

“I hate, I despise your feast days, and I do not savor your sacred assemblies. Though you offer me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them, nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings. Take away from Me the noise of your songs, for I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments. But let justice run down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” –Amos 5:21-24

It’s very easy to fall into an ominous pattern in worship. We are creatures of habit, and we like routine. Think about it. Every Sunday we go to church and can pretty much guarantee what the order of service will be. Sometimes we can even predict the songs that will be sung. Some days it just seems mundane.

There is nothing wrong with having a pattern to follow, or with knowing what the order of service is, but there is a problem when our heart isn’t in it. There is a problem when our worship becomes so ordinary that we fail to deal with sin before we come to worship. All too often we come before the Lord with dirty worship. We offer him our praise, laced with the murk and mud of sin. Do we really think that this is acceptable to God? Do we really think that we have pleased him?

We must heed the words of Psalm 24:3-4 – “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart” Matthew 5:23-24 tells us to deal with any broken relationships before we worship. James tells us to humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord and to deal with our sin.

Our worship is of no value to God when it is tainted by our sin. Our worship is of no value to God if it is simply vain repetition. Our worship is only pleasing to God when we let “justice run down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Only then will we be acceptable to God in our worship.