Friday, March 11, 2011

When I saw today’s heading, “Seeking God to give us pure hearts”, my mind immediately thought of the worship song “Give us clean hands”. The lyrics go like this:

We bow our hearts
We bend our knees
Oh Spirit come make us humble
We turn our eyes
From evil things
Oh Lord we cast down our idols

So give us clean hands
and give us pure hearts
Let us not lift our souls to another
Oh give us clean hands
and give us pure hearts
Let us not lift our souls to another
Oh God let this be
a generation that seeks
Who seeks Your face, Oh God of Jacob
Oh God let us be
a generation that seeks
Who seeks Your face, Oh God of Jacob

This is one of the reasons I believe we as a nation are in the shape we are: far from God. We as the Church have followed after the world in seeking other gods; the god of money, fame, even church. Yes, church can be a god. When we focus on doing church instead of being the church it can become a god; man- made religion trying to work our way to heaven by doing church, our church becomes an idol. We compare our “church” to the one down the street and we compete with them for visitors. Our “church” becomes the focus instead of Christ’s Church. Let us instead Love Jesus instead of loving our “church”. God, give us clean hands and a pure heart and let us not lift our souls to another; not ourselves or our “church”.

Pastor David Carrick, CR Grace Church