Scripture:
“‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
Observation:
Honoring God is not enough. Believing in God is not enough. Worshipping God is not enough. Pointing others to God is not enough. Our hearts must also be near to him while we do these things.
Application:
We must be vigilant with our heart. It isn’t enough to go through the motions. It isn’t enough to believe or to say all the right things. I don’t want to end up like these people, these religious Pharisees who were “close” to God with their words but weren’t actually close to him with their hearts.
We must realize that God will not be mocked. We cannot pretend with God. We must fight to get our heart in under the control & love of God by constantly meditating on the things of God. We cannot take for granted that our heart is in the right place, we have to take stock of it, we have to put it under a microscope.
In the Psalms, David tells God, “Search me!” He wanted God to look at his heart and all it’s depths. We must do the same with our hearts as to not be deceived like these Pharisees were.
Prayer:
Lord, search me! Know me, let me know myself and my heart. Let me not be deceived. Let not my heart and my actions not be aligned.