Honoring God

Sometimes it can seem very easy for people boil Christianity into a list of do's and don'ts.  There are times when Christians seem to be known for what they are against then what they are for.  There are congregations and denominations that hold onto their traditions that they miss out on what God is calling them to do.  There is nothing wrong with having some traditional practices, but it becomes a problem when our traditions override the commandments of the Lord our God.

There was a time when the Pharisees came up to Jesus and they were upset because His disciples didn't wash their hands in certain way.  That is they didn't do it as the tradition of the elders taught them to do it.   We can read of this account in Matthew 15:1:20 (NLT) which says,

"1 Some Pharisees and teachers of religious law now arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus. They asked him, 
                                                                           

2 “Why do your disciples disobey our age-old tradition? For they ignore our tradition of ceremonial hand washing before they eat.”

3 Jesus replied, “And why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct commandments of God?

4 For instance, God says, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’

5 But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’

6 In this way, you say they don’t need to honor their parents. And so you cancel the word of God for the sake of your own tradition.

7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote,

8 ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

9 Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’ ”

10 Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “Listen,” he said, “and try to understand.

11 It’s not what goes into your mouth that defiles you; you are defiled by the words that come out of your mouth.”

12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said?”

13 Jesus replied, “Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be uprooted,

14 so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.”

15 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Explain to us the parable that says people aren’t defiled by what they eat.”

16 “Don’t you understand yet?” Jesus asked.

17 “Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.

18 But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you.

19 For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander.

20 These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands will never defile you.”

The Pharisees where handing down the traditions that they had learned for the elders.  These traditions were rules created by men to help people keep the law of God, but over time the rules of men seemed to have become more important to the Pharisees than keeping the Word of God.  

Their worship became a farce because they were more interested in keeping tradition than having a relationship with the true living God which comes by faith and trusting in His grace.  They ended up honoring God by what they said with their words, but their hearts were actually far away from God.  They worshiped in vain for their worship wasn't worship at all, but instead their worship were rules taught by men.

Keeping rules won't make us clean or make us right with God.  Our hearts need to be right with God and we can't do that on our own because of our sin nature.  We have all sinned and we have all fallen short of God's standards.  We are totally depraved.  That means that we are sinners and there is nothing in our own power we can do to change that.  There are no amount of good works we can do that can make us right with God.  

What we need is to be born again.  We need a change of heart.  That is something only God can do.  Only God can clean us up on the inside.  God made a way for us to have a clean heart and to be born again.  God sent Jesus Christ to die on the Cross for our sins.  Jesus took the punishment that you and I so rightly deserve.  We must come to Him by faith and trust in His grace.  

We must realize that keeping rules and doing rituals will no save us no matter how hard we try and practice them.  There is only One that can save us and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.  We must repent of our sins and trust Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.  When we receive Christ as Savior the Holy Spirit comes to live within us causing us to be born again.  We are now children of God not because of anything we have done, but what He has done through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We need to come to the Lord by faith and continue to live for Him by faith.  God knows our hearts and wants to have an intimate relationship with Him.  That relationship won't come through keeping traditions and rules that have been created by mere men, but only through Jesus Christ by faith.

May we lay down our traditions and allow the Holy Spirit to control our lives and lead us in the direction that He would have us to go for His Glory, Honor, and Praise.  

Lord,

We praise Your Name.

Help us to honor You with our hearts that You made new when we come to You by faith.

Lead us and guide us by Your Holy Spirit.

Come soon Lord Jesus.

In Jesus Name we pray,

Amen.