This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
In vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines human precepts.
Let's honor God with our lips and also with our hearts. Let's not hide behind the veneer of ritual when the world needs our love. What would this failing look like? It is when are more interested in showing off our membership in the Church than in living it out. We retweet funny memes or have clever bumper stickers. But are these things really oriented toward dialogue and evangelization? If so, great! If not, let's not celebrate our in-group membership at the expense of the souls of others. People should know that we are Christians, not by the boundaries we create, but by the boundaries we bridge. They should know we are Christians by our love. If we keep our lips in sync with our hearts we have nothing to worry about.
We need to make the presence of God the primary thing.
If the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain you,
how much less this temple which I have built!
When God is central and not ourselves we worship rightly and love with the love that he himself gives us, impelled by the Spirit he places in our hearts. The world cannot contain him, much less our words or our worship. But when we give him room at the center of our hearts he does transform us. He gives us integrity and puts our words and our lives into harmony.
Listen to the petitions of your servant and of your people Israel
which they offer in this place.
Listen from your heavenly dwelling and grant pardon.
If it is all about us our words become empty, meaningless, vapid, and powerless. When it is all about God it is all about his words, and his words contain within themselves the power and the love for which the world is longing.
I had rather one day in your courts
than a thousand elsewhere;
I had rather lie at the threshold of the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
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