DEAD WORKS
Don’t tear your clothing in your grief; instead, tear your hearts.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful. He is not easily angered. He is filled with kindness and is eager not to punish you. Joel 2:13;
This month, I have taken a lot of days to talk to you about the need to pursue intimacy with God because it is the basis for any kind of meaningful existence in the universe God has created. I will say it again and again that all man is and will ever be is in God, with God and through God because man is nothing without God. Relationship with God is a heartfelt spiritual experience that impacts on our material existence and not the other way round.
Those who worship God, worship Him with their spirit and not primarily with their actions. That is why the prophet Joel admonishes us to tear our hearts and not our clothes. The Pharisees were perfect in their activities and rituals. They fought and alienated those whose activities were not perfect in their own eyes. Not even the Lord Jesus was spared of their critical eyes and wrath. They worked hard to see Him eliminated by nailing Him on the cross.
But Jesus was diligent enough in the course of His ministry to let us know that the Pharisees were full of dead works, white sepulchres filled with dead bones. He shed light on what true worship is when He told the woman at the well in john 4:24 “God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” God seeks true worship and intimacy with his children. The state of your heart matters much to God.
Liberation thought: We are temples of the living God.
Further reading: John 4:23-24, Isaiah 1:16 – 20
Prayer:
Create in me a clean heart oh God and renew a right spirit within me, in the name of Jesus!
I receive every grace I need to empower my spirit to subdue my flesh, in the mighty name of Jesus