Articles | 12-28-2002
Worthless Worship
Is it possible to spend all our lives making a sincere effort to worship God just to find out when we stand before Him that our worship was worthless? In Mark 7:7 Jesus answers that question by saying to the Jewish Pharisees - "in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." And then He goes on to say, "laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men." The point our Lord is making is that their attempts at worship were worthless because they were substituting man-made traditions for God-given commandments.
The practice of the Pharisees is alive and well in our own day! Many are sincerely seeking to serve God but instead of doing so according to the commandments of God, they are following the traditions of men. They may be doing so out of ignorance or because they have embraced the faulty teaching of some religious leader, but either way, in the eyes of God their religion is worthless.
Now, how can we know if this is true of us? We can only know if we diligently search the Scriptures to determine what God has commanded. We cannot afford to simply take the word of some man on such an important issue. We will stand before God and answer to Him for what we have done. If we learn then that our attempts to serve Him were worthless it will forever be too late. May that not be the lot of any of you. Come and search the Bible with us.
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