Lip service?
What is a heart that is close to God?
What defines human rules?
Please read Matthew 15:8-9
Vs. 8 “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’”
The above passage was Jesus quoting a passage from Isaiah 29 and He was obviously saying it to describe some very religious people. They worship in vain and their teachings are just human rules- sounds like a rather bad place to be especially when you are out-ed by Jesus on it.
If this is a heart that is far from Him- I would like to be on the opposite end of this stick but how? What is a heart that is far from God? Is it the drug addict, the alcoholic or the gangster or the prostitute?
None of the above!
The heart that is furthest from God is the one that thinks it’s closest.
“I am closer to God than you because I do this and not that!”- says the deceived person who tries to offer God something by following some idea of what they think God wants.
This is in the same passage as when Jesus said, it’s not what the mouth takes in that defiles but what comes out of the mouth from the heart.
What in the world does all this mean?
1) Doing will never equal Being in Gods book- Only Jesus can change the heart not your effort and trying to keep some set of rules.
2) God doesn’t want some religious lip service garbage – If He did why create people- robots are so much easier.
3) Honoring God with the heart means Loving like the Love from Above that ONLY He can give.
Keep in mind the people He was talking about kept all the rules in the Bible up to that point in fact they kept them better than anyone ever could- their life depended on it and yet they were the most distant from God.
If rules could do what He did then why the cross?
Don’t Worry- Be Grace-Full!!
The law is a Great tool but if used incorrectly the outcome is terrible!