Entering God's Presence

 Every morning when I get ready for the day, I have to decide what I should wear. Most of the time I am pretty casual in what I wear. I wear my blue jeans and an appropriate shirt. Usually that is an acceptable way to dress when I go see other people. However, there are times when I wear slacks and a nice long-sleeved shirt. I could even put on a suit and a tie, if that is what I need to wear to be received well by others on that occasion. Let's take that same principle and apply it to how we prepare to be with the Lord in worship.

God was very angry at the people of Judah in the days of Ezekiel. He was ready to destroy them, and He wanted them to understand just what made Him so angry. (Ezekiel 23:39) "On the very day that they sacrificed their children to their idols, they boldly came into My Temple to worship. They came in and defiled My House." We can't just go into God's presence to meet with Him and worship Him, when we have blatant, unrepentant sin in our life. We come with an unclean heart that He rejects.

When we get up in the morning, I believe we ought to spend the first part of our day in prayer to the Lord. It is a personal time of worshiping the Lord by showing Him He is worthy of all of our praise and thanks. It is when we show Him in word and in deed that He is Lord of our life. We can't do that if we have committed sins the day before, and we have not confessed those sins, so we can be clean. If we come to Him thinking we will get spiritual points for praying and reading our Bible, we are wrong. God needs to see a clean heart as we approach Him.

The same is true for Sunday worship with our church family. We can't go to church on Sunday after having sinned in the days before and the week before, not having taken those sins seriously and confessing those sins. If we do, God sees that we are defiled by sin, so when we come to His House, so to speak, we are defiling His House, the church, too. We must make sure our house, our heart, is clean before we try to worship the Lord, or He will not accept us sincere worshipers. Please, take time to get your heart right before going to God in the morning and to church on Sunday.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read Ezekiel 24-26..