Zechariah chapter 7 tells us that worship motivated by the desire to please self rather than God is condemned.
Such worship is shown through selfishness, unwillingness to follow God’s pattern of worship, refusal to worship, laziness, or just going to worship to get rid of our feelings of guilt rather than to please God.
We are hypocritical when engaging in self-pleasing worship.
Through Zechariah, God describes what He desires from His people: “Administer true justice, show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other” (Zechariah 7:9-10).This is the heart ready to worship. God wants us to show mercy and compassion with loving hearts desiring to be please to God and not to benefit ourselves in some selfish way.
If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:3).
We must love, not just do.
I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm-neither hot nor cold-I am about to spit you out of my mouth (Revelation 3:15).
May this never describe us!
Zechariah describes the true nature of those who are selfish in their worship:
They refused to pay attention (vs. 11).
They stubbornly turned their back and stopped up their ears (vs. 11).
They made their hearts hard as flint (vs. 12).
They would not listen to the law or to the words of the Lord (vs. 12).
God wants our hearts. He is always to be first place and not second. When we put God after everything else then it is an insult to Him. He wants us and our hearts for our own good.
When we put God first, He has promised to be faithful and righteous to us. These are the words found in Zechariah 8:8:
They will be my people, and I will be faithful and righteous to them as their God.
God wants your whole heart and it is not too late to give it to Him!
For the elders, Gary Woodall