Stop bringing meaningless offerings!

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(Alexander Smellie, "The Hour of Silence" 1899)

"Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations--I cannot bear your evil assemblies! Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts, My soul hates! They have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them!" Isaiah 1:13-14

It is not mere outward ritual which God asks from me.

God desires my adoration:
a sense of His solemn and consummate holiness;
a bowing low in heart and mind before the sevenfold radiance of His majesty;
a realizing of His infinite condescension in suffering and dying for me.
I cannot be too reverent when I am face to face with Him.

God desires my confession:
a feeling of the evil of my doings, not superficial--but deep and penetrating;
an abhorring of myself, and a repentance in dust and ashes;
a cry from the depths, "In me dwells no good thing!"
I have need to understand more vividly, more humblingly, the exceeding sinfulness of sin.

God desires my petitions:
a sincere pouring out of my soul's desires;
a taking fast hold of God's almighty strength;
a clinging with both hands earnestly to the Rock of Ages.
Simply, naturally, explicitly, whole-heartedly, let me unbosom my necessities to Him--that He may answer them according to His wise and holy will.

God desires my thanksgiving:
thanksgiving which isthanks-living also;
a humble ceasing to do evil, and a patient learning to do well;
a glad and grateful obedience;
a bondslave's vow, "I love my Master--I will not go out free!"
Jesus Christ asks all, from the innermost pulsation of conscious being--to the most tangible outworks of my life!

Such is the service my God will welcome--my God who hates all meaningless offerings, and who is wearied with mere ritualism and formality.

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