Profaning God's Sanctuary

 I am afraid that many believers do not prepare themselves well for going to God's house for worship. We call the place where we worship a sanctuary. That means a "holy place." It is not holy because of the building being special. It is holy because we go there to meet with God and worship Him. Remember what God told Moses in front of the burning bush? He told him to take his shoes off because he was on holy ground. We need to be careful how we approach God.

God was very angry with His people in the days of Ezekiel. (Ezekiel 23:39) The people would go and sacrifice their children to false idols, and then, the very same day they would come to God's sanctuary and profane it by coming with their wicked hearts. God was very angry about this. I am sure He is just as angry today when we go to worship with sin in our hearts, not fully trusting Him and obeying Him. Let's consider what we need to do.

The Bible is very clear that we can't worship God and the things of this world at the same time. We will have a divided heart and a divided mind. We need to take a close look at what we are watching, the video games we are playing, and the music we are listening to. If we are filling our hearts with the things of this world, we are squeezing God out. He is not going to compete with those things. He will let us go after them, if that is what we want. However, things will not go well with us without the presence of God in our lives.

Therefore on Saturday evenings and on Sunday mornings before we go to worship, we need to stop and take an inventory of our mind and heart. We must ask the Holy Spirit to show us anything in us that is opposed to God, that is not pleasing to God. Then, we need to sincerely confess it and be cleansed before we ever set foot in the church building. If we don't do that, we are profaning the sanctuary and making God angry with us. Let's decide we will never do that again.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read Ezekiel 24-26.