Training the Sacred for the Ordianry

What happens when the sacred becomes common and ordinary? There are things that God has set up and instituted and they are holy and sacred. The church is His body, communion, baptism are things that are sacred and set apart for God. The Word of God and the pieces that God has put in place for His bride, the church.  We need to take these things seriously as we approach God, as we read His word together and pray together in our acts of Worship. We are often in danger of being too casual with the sacred acts and times that we should bring in offering to God.

Marriage is sacred, the family is sacred, life is sacred. Those things have lost meaning in our culture and are set aside, cast aside and destroyed with very little thought or concern. We are on the verge of being a country that profanes what God has said is sacred. We have stopped caring about the things that God has said are sacred. You can buy a divorce on the internet these days for a quick and easy destruction of marriage. Families are split and torn and separated all the time without a thought. We hear people say "kids are resilient, they will be ok". We have simply justified the destruction of those things that God gave us for our benefit and for our good. 

This begins with me. Do I offer worship, or do I just go through the motions? Am I trying giving God my best?  Many of the sacred things in church we ignore and many of the things that are not sacred we elevate. We focus on appearance, worship styles, even want to critique the pastor on his preaching style and method. We often miss worship because we are not satisfied, and it makes me wonder who are we really worshiping? We are worried about the style of music, the people who are singing or playing or leading.

Sometimes I think we worship a God who worships us.

Is our worship ordinary? Are we giving what we have left or are we giving the best. Do we schedule God around our life or our life around God? What priority is God in our lives? Much of what God is proclaiming through the prophet is what we are guilty of. We give God lips service, we can talk a good game with church folks, but what do we look out outside? Where are our hearts? It may look like we are bringing in our gifts and our offerings to the temple, but are they blind and lame?

Jesus says this in Matthew 5:23-24, if you are offering your gift at the alter and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

What is in our lives comes out in our gifts. When we sing praise, it is the same mouth we use for cursing others? Do we speak encouragement and condemnation from the same mouth? What is the condition of our hearts, and how does it effect our worship?

Have our attitudes become focused on ourselves? The root of detestable worship is selfishness. We want to keep the best for ourselves, so God gets the leftovers. We want to have the things we want, so we give God what we don't want. We cling to those things which we like, that we want and we think they are going to make us happy and bring us joy. Even they become routine, they become addictions, they begin to ensnare us and we become broken and bitter and resentful and we don't worship God.

It's easy to give up the things we don't really care about. It's easy to drop the sins that have not ensnared us. What about the sins that we hold close, that we cherish? Are they standing in the way of worship? I worry that so often in the church we have created for ourselves that we are simply worshiping ourselves, making an idol of ourselves.