Daily Devotional July 4 - Are You Willing To Unlearn A Great Many Things?

"O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker."  Psalm 95:6

There are many thoughts about how worship should be performed. Different denominations have a different school of thought concerning how worship should be approached.

• There's the "we must be silent and respectful (children not allowed)" group.
• The "we must be shouting out loud group (children must be present)" group.
• The "Come unto me and confess in my booth" group.
• The "We worship (on time)" group.
• The "We believe one should worship in small groups in homes, but never in a church building" group.
• The "We worship with music" group.
• And of course the "We don't allow music during worship" group.
• The "righteous go to the front and kneel while sinners stay in their seats" group.
• The "righteous stay in their seats and quietly worship while those seeking attention go to the front" group.
• The "you must speak in tongues to really worship" group.
• The "if you speak in tongues, you aren't worshipping" group.
• The "you must have the second blessing to worship" group.
• The "you must possess certain gifts of the spirit to worship" group.
• There are the "there are no more gifts of the spirit still in operation, but you must be baptized to worship"group.

God must really be sickened with all of our man-made rules. All of them (as rules to get into the presence of God) hinder the process of worship. All of the man-made rules are man's idea of how someone else should act in the presence of God. None of the man-made rules are bad, in and of themselves, but to miss the spirit of the act of worship is to miss worship. If we weren't so worried that someone else might see what we are doing and not approve, we might find that worship is the letting go of the "what man thinks" and becoming real and true and empty long enough to find out what God thinks. Outward appearance for the sake of trying to act out a part sickens God, whether in one of these settings above or not.

Only the letting go of this world's standards and coming before God in pure simplicity and reverence and love could ever truly be called worship. You don't have to change denominations to worship God, but you do have to get real and vulnerable before God to worship Him. You will have to unlearn a great many things if you want to give God His due."