As the New Year has begun a lot of us have already made resolutions trying to implement changes that we want to make in our lives.    They could be financial, family related, weight loss, or even a new job but hopefully one (or more) is spiritual.  And if you haven’t made a spiritual resolution yet let me suggest one.

Consider the resolution to not go to church unless you make true worship of Jesus the first priority of your life.   Now this is where you might do one of a couple of things.  Some of you will be appalled that I even suggested such a thing so you will be angry with me and not read any further.  Some of you that think that you already do this will check out and not continue reading.  And then some of you will consider that I am off my rocker and simply dismiss me but I urge all of you to hang in there and really consider the rest of this article.  See this article is more for you; the one who claims to know Christ and to be a worshipper of Him than someone who doesn’t make that claim. 

Now don’t get me wrong those who don’t know Jesus in a personal relationship definitely need to get that worked out in their lives.  If you don’t know Him your life will never know true peace, true freedom, and true joy.  In the Gospel of John the fourteenth chapter Jesus says “…I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  What does that mean, you ask?  Well that simply means this; if you want to go to Heaven and spend eternity with God you must know Jesus and believe that He died on the cross for you.  That when He shed His blood it made all of your sins and wrongdoings go away in God’s eyes.  And it is that simple!  Sometimes religions make it much harder than that but it isn’t.   It is Jesus and Jesus alone.

And this brings us right back to those of us who claim to already be worshippers of Jesus.  With the beginning of a New Year I challenge you to start out with a new prayer of worship.  And this prayer would be that God would come in and radically change your heart to see Him in a new and fresh light this year.  Now you say well this sounds like every other “New Years” article that a pastor might write but I assure you that it isn’t. 

God wants to make an impact on your life in the area of worship.  And by worship I don’t mean singing songs before the pastor speaks I mean the way that we live and glorify God.  As one spends their life in church they can know the right things to say and all of the right things do in man’s eyes and can sit in a pew every Sunday and think that those things make them closer to God.  See you can do the right things and you can give your time, your money, and think that that is what makes God happy.  But that isn’t what brings you closer to God and that is not what makes God happy.  And it is definitely not what the Bible teaches on the subject. In fact God specifically says that He would rather us close the doors of our churches than offer half-hearted worship and obedience.   In Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament in the tenth verse of the first chapter God says this:

^“10Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the LORD of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hand.” ESV

God doesn’t want robots that say and do all the right things.  He wants people to truly love Him with all of their hearts and desires.  He wants people to be passionate about His Son and what He did on the Cross.  He wants people that will search after Him and allow Him to work in their lives.  When He speaks they will listen and they will follow.  We have made so much of Church about the rules and regulations that we have taken a lot of the true worship of God out of Church. 

Jesus spoke to this very thing in the book of Matthew when he was speaking to the religious group of that day the Pharisees.  He instructed them that you do all of the right things on the outside but inside you are still defiled.  This is what He said

             Matthew 23:25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

            It is not what the outside appears to be that makes God happy but the true inside state of your heart and your relationship with Jesus that does.  See the only way to really know what Jesus is about and what God desires for us is to dig through the Bible and learn about His character and about His ways.  It is very easy for us as people to begin to think that we have some influence into our salvation or our righteousness by what we do.  That is why keeping all of those religious rules feels so good.  But what God really wants is our dependency upon Him and to release our control and just worship Him with our life.

So the spiritual resolution for 2010 should be that we would not go to church unless we are going to worship and glorify God with the truth of Jesus in our hearts.   That we will put down all of the religion and all of the extra stuff that we have added to Jesus and just simply worship and praise Him.  And we should do that as the Bible instructs us to in Psalm 98:4

⁴Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.

God Bless ~ Pastor Tyler Harrison
Berean Church