Whose Pleasure Do You Seek?

I believe that we as the church (a collection of people, not the building) have been slowly and steadily drifting away from God and toward self.  I don’t think that we’ve necessarily gotten there because of a direct desire or a hard left turn, but gradually– and all in the name of Christ, mind you– we have veered off from our course.

Perhaps it was the desire to see the number of souls saved that were saved during the Great Awakening.  Perhaps it was the converse– smaller number of church attendance.  For whatever reason (and there are probably many), the church of Christ has replaced true worship and a desire to delight in God with something that is only a shadow of true and undefiled religion.

On this path we are not alone, for the children of Israel walked this well worn path.  In Isaiah 58:13-14 we read these words:

If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:  Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

Do you understand what the Lord was saying to the people?  He might as well be saying the same to us today:  “Stop pleasing yourself on my holy day: using music that pleases you, dressing to please yourself, doing things that are comfortable to you, and spending all your time on yourself and start finding delight in my day.”

Now, certainly I’m not advocating that we should start worshipping on Saturday, that Sunday is “our Sabaath” or anything of the sort.  And it’s completely true that we should worship God in everything that we do every day.

BUT, is Sunday any different for you?  Do you rejoice that you get to be in the house of the Lord, singing His praise, and fellowshipping with His people?  Do you delight in the idea that there’s a day set aside for Him– that you can shut the world out and just dote on the One that saved you?

Does your worship strive to be something that pleases Him– seeks out those things that He would like to hear, spends time doing things that would give Him glory, and focuses our undivided attention on Him?

If not, then we must get on our knees and beg for a revival in our hearts so that we stop focusing on things that will not satisfy– beg to be filled by Him alone!