Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.

New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations-
I cannot bear your evil 

Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates.

They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.

When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide my eyes from you;

even if you offer many prayers,
I will not listen (Isaiah 1:13-15). 

What is acceptable worship? Obviously from the scripture verse, some worship is unacceptable to God. Actually the word “unacceptable” doesn’t fully describe God’s displeasure. Lord despises some kinds of worship. He actually hates some worship services and calls them evil! There is such a thing as despicable worship.

But if there is such a thing, certainly it doesn’t happen at my church. Surely, God wouldn’t think of my faithful service in the church as destestable. No … it couldn’t be … could it?

I can’t bear the thought that there is a possibility that God would cringe in revulsion in response to me the moment I lift my hands up to worship Him. I shudder to think that He would clap his hands over his ears the moment I lift my voice to pray to Him. Could it really be that God would really reject His own people who serve Him, who cry out to Him, who pray to Him?

In order to understand why this could be, we need to know what constitutes a meaningless offering. In order to comprehend what is meaning less to God, we need to know what He considers meaning ful . The greatest commandment in the Bible, Jesus said, is to love God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength. And the second greatest command is like it, He said: love your neighbor as yourself. So the most important thing to God is love. In fact, the scriptures say that God is love. Paul explained that that we could do all kinds of ministry, perform dazzling miracles and correctly prophesy amazing secret knowledge, but that without true love, all of that would be meaningless. The apostle John explained that we can measure the true extent of our love for God by the amount we love our most despicable enemy or the most undesirable person we know.

Last night I had a dream in which I was spending some time with friends. One of the “friends” was being particularly unfriendly and mean to me. After I told her that she should be nicer, she became visibly upset and started crying. It was an emotionally charged dream, but I felt little pity for her. I rationalized my lack of compassion by thinking she deserved to be upset because she had been so unkind to me. Now I realize that I only love God as much as I callously had little concern for her.

That dream was for me a wake-up call that I have so very far to go to learn to love people like Jesus loves me. Every step I take to love my neighbor is an expression of love for the Father. When there is love, God sees a meaningful offering. When love is absent from a person’s life, every offering they present to God will be meaningless and detestable in His sight.

But there is hope for us. Truly God is love. And we know that love is patient and kind. By His kindness we are drawn to repentance. Lovingly, He invites us to turn back to Him:

Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword (Isaiah 1:18-20). 

If we will return to the Lord with all our heart and seek to live a godly life, learn to do right and love our neighbors, then God will let His mercy cover over us and all our sins will be washed away. By the miracle of Jesus’ blood, we can have forgiveness for our sins. Our part in the bargain is simply to trust and obey. If we come to God with a religious spirit, making lots of religious sacrifices, but never humbling ourselves in repentance, we will never learn the true meaning of forgiveness. If we never receive God’s mercy, we will never comprehend it or have it to give to others. And if we cannot show mercy to others, then we never will be able to love. Then everything we do for God will just be meaningless religious offerings that His soul hates. The process of becoming non-detestable in God’s eyes all starts with a willing and yielding heart that repents and receives forgiveness from God. Then having been forgiven, we will be given the ability to forgive others and share God’s love.

Lord, please forgive me for how I have wearied you with so many meaningless offerings over the years. Though my sins are as scarlet, let them be white as snow! With all my heart, I want to live a life of love. Let me receive Your forgiveness and love. Help me to show kindness and patience to those who really try my patience. Help me to love them because You first loved me. My deep desire is to become one of the worshippers that You seek: one that worships You in spirit and in truth. Transform me into a worshipper who is been made acceptable in Your eyes by receiving the blood of Christ and has learned to extend that blood covering over others. Lord, let me be the offering!