Amos 5:21-23
“I hate all your show and pretense –
the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies.
I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings.
I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings.
Away with your noisy hymns of praise!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.”

WHOA
What is said about your worship? What is said about my worship?
God takes this serious man.

I was reading –meditating on this passage today, and God has prompted me to take a look at my worship –to look at the worship of The Gathering. “Is it all about me?” –HE says.

A few years ago I was faced with the truth… To me my worship was pure, it was honest, it was authentic. I could say with all my heart that there was nothing fake about me when I stood before the church and led worship. The 25 minutes I spent with our church family was 100% real. THANK GOD He placed me in a place where the truth is more important than the image – now there’s another story to tackle, but I don’t need help chasing rabbits… My Pastor looked me square in the eyes and said, “you ARE faking it.”

What???

I was forced to really look at it. Worship is not the 25 minutes on Sunday. Worship is how my entire life responds to who God is and what He has done. Can a person be pure on the platform if they neglect spending one on one time with the LORD? Can a person be pure if they do not continually submit to the power and authority of the person of Christ? I consider myself to be transparent. Well transparency in public must be transparency in private. I don’t have anything to hide – just some things I don’t want others to know.

So, back to Amos.
It’s so good for me to look at this passage and check my response to God. How do I react to my children when I’m tired and they’re obviously not? When all they want is 5 minutes with me to SHOW them I love them, do I let MY exhaustion win (self), or do I recognize that they are my babies, God’s gift to me and give them something so simple. If I allow my “self” to win, I have dishonored God and missed an opportunity to worship him.. -not to mention hurt the most precious feelings of my babies. So, if I do not worship Him in times like this, what does my worship look like to him on a Sunday? Do we “turn it on” at the right time? Or does it always flow no matter who, no matter where.

I don’t Ever want to “be a show.”

Thank You, Father, for Your WORD and its TRUTH. May the fragrance of my worship fill Your heart.