Stop bringing meaningless offerings!

(Alexander Smellie, "The Hour of Silence" 1899)  LISTEN to audio!  Download audio

"Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me.
 New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—I cannot bear your evil assemblies!
 Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts, My soul hates!
 They have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them!" Isaiah 1:13-14

It is not mere outward ritual which God asks from me.

God desires my adoration:
  a sense of His solemn and consummate holiness;
  a bowing low in heart and mind before the sevenfold radiance of His majesty;
  a realizing of His infinite condescension in suffering and dying for me.
I cannot be too reverent when I am face to face with Him.

God desires my confession:
  a feeling of the evil of my doings, not superficial—but deep and penetrating;
  an abhorring of myself, and a repentance in dust and ashes;
  a cry from the depths, "In me dwells no good thing!"
I have need to understand more vividly, more humblingly—the exceeding sinfulness of sin.

God desires my petitions:
  a sincere pouring out of my soul's desires;
  a taking fast hold of God's almighty strength;
  a clinging with both hands earnestly to the Rock of Ages!
Simply, naturally, explicitly, whole-heartedly—let me unbosom my necessities to Him, that He may answer them according to His wise and holy will.

God desires my thanksgiving:
  thanksgiving which is thanks-living also;
  a humble ceasing to do evil, and a patient learning to do well;
  a glad and grateful obedience;
  a bondslave's vow, "I love my Master—I will not go out free!"
Jesus Christ asks all, from the innermost pulsation of conscious being—to the most tangible outworks of my life!

Such is the service my God will welcome—my God who hates all meaningless offerings, and who is wearied with mere ritualism and formality.