SCRIPTURE: The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught. Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.” Isaiah 29:13-14 NIV
THOUGHT: God wants you to be astounded. What does that mean to you?
God has been trying to impress you and I with his presence and power and goodness. The Creator of the earth and animals and plants and humans wants us to be astonished, amazed, dazed, surprised, awed into silence. Fall-down-on-our-face-worship-stunned.
When you’re trying to grasp a truth, sometimes it helps to look at the opposite: What God doesn’t want. God doesn’t want your mouth and lips without your heart. He doesn’t want whatever humans call “worship” that follows a prescription, a human liturgy that doesn’t move the deepest places of our hearts where we’re stuck, or dishonest, or full of pride. A “talk to the hand” mentality where we stiff arm God’s presence, keeping our hearts at a safe distance from the smoke and fire (see Ex. 20:18-19) we will surely encounter there.
God’s solution to empty worship is just as amazing as God is. Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish. Wonder upon wonder from the Creator and Sustainer, but the crash and burn of human wisdom and intelligence. That is the way to worship. I wonder how close we are?
PRAYER: Oh God, I would rather live in a world where human wisdom and intelligence could live side-by-side with awe, astonishment, and true worship of you, but that doesn’t seem to be where we’re heading. So, do your finest work on the human heart. Make human wisdom perish, and human intelligence vanish, and in the clearing we’ll fall down and worship you.
Dear Reader,
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Blogger Amy Clemens is the author of Walking When You’d Rather Fly: Meditations on Faith After the Fall. In it she explores childhood sexual abuse and how it impacted her faith (or lack thereof) for four decades. You’ll find not only her story, but better yet, the Big Story of God.
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