Beloved: grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. It is with great pleasure that I welcome you into a new month, the month of April 2023. My prayer is that God will cause you to increase tremendously in all good and profitable things in the month, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Now, as we begin this new month, I want to enjoin you to make up your mind to be devoted to giving God true and honest worship. Why? First, it is because it is those who will give Him true and honest worship that He is seeking. Jesus says, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23-24NIV)
Did you see that? It is not everyone that draws near to God to worship Him that He accepts their worship. Rather, it is only those whose hearts are fully involved in their worship and who are truthful to Him in all that they do for Him that He accepts their worship. They are, in fact, the ones He is seeking to reveal Himself and His power to.
In 2Chronicles, chapter 16, verse 9, we are told this: “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him…” (NKJV) Think carefully about that. God is always on the lookout for those whose hearts are loyal or faithful to Him. Why? It is so that He can demonstrate His power on their behalf. So, if you are not daily witnessing the demonstration of God’s power in your life, even in seemingly little things of life, you may want to check yourself if you are truly loyal to Him, if He is the one your heart is always resting on for everything you need or want to get done.
See, those whose hearts are not loyal to God are simply wasting their worship (Mark 7:6-7). In other words, their worship is in vain and cannot be rewarded by God. Was Cain rewarded by God for the offering he brought to him? No! Or did God consider the effort he put into what he did and so overlook the fact that his heart was not right? No! Instead, everything he did was judged by God to be a waste. And that is how it will be for everyone whose heart is not loyal in their worship of God. All that they are doing will be treated as nothing but a waste. (Cf. Gen 4:3-7)
Another reason it is important you give God true and honest worship is that there is danger in not doing so. We are given the account of the death of a man called Ananiah and his wife Sapphira in Acts of the Apostles, chapter 5. Why did they die untimely the way they did? It was because their hearts were not loyal to God. They brought deceit into their worship and were instantly judged for it.
Now someone may not be judged by God instantly for not being loyal to Him in his worship. That does not mean that he will not be judged at some point. It may be that the cup of his disloyalty is not yet full. It may be that God is giving him time to repent. Or it may even be that certain people are interceding for him and asking God to show him mercy. But God will not stay still forever and not judge disloyal worshippers, if they will not repent. At some point, He will deal with them as their disloyalty deserves, so that others can learn from them.
So, if your heart is not fully with God in your worship, you need to humble yourself now and deal with the disloyalty or deceit in it, when there is still time for you to do so. That way, you will not end up wasting all that you are doing in the name of worshiping Him or expose yourself to His judgment. And my prayer is that God, in His mercy, will take care of every form of imperfection in your worship of Him, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Have a great week.
Copyright © 2023, Reality Desk, a ministry of Alaythia Bible Church –This material is the sole property of Reality Desk. It may be copied for personal non-commercial use only in its entirety free of charge. All copies must contain this copyright notice. Please direct any questions you may have to pastor@abcministry.com or call: 08037592851 (WhatsApp Number: 07085711280)