Going through the motions

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5).

Charnock says we have a knowledge of God by nature, and that same nature understands that God must be glorified as God — with the best of who we are, the purest and most spiritual powers we have. It is to our shame that some will pray or perform other acts of ‘worship’ as a parrot who learns by rote, not glorifying God in Spirit or with the will or with understanding.

Going through the motions. That is what we call this ‘rote’ that Charnock talks about. I know the song, so my mouth sings it, but my mind is making lunch or thinking about some mundane issue of life. I pray the words, but my heart is not in it or I listen to His Word, but my mind wanders to unimportant other things.

Today is Sunday. Soon I will be in a place of worship with other believers. There I have the opportunity to give my heart to God in corporate worship. What blesses me right now is knowing this is possible. I can worship Him, not only because I know God by nature, but because I have a relationship with Him through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. All the tensions and the worries of the week, the pressures of life, and even the joys, fade into the shadows in the light of knowing this amazing God who loves me and accepts me as I am. Because He loves me, I want to rise above those times of faltering and feeble worship and give Him the whole-hearted honor He deserves. At the same time, I know I cannot do it unless He enables me. How foolish this prideful, independent refusal to be needy that will go through the motions rather than ask Him for help.