Defiance toward God's Story by Pretending

 

And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot, for it is sealed.” And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot read.” And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.” (Isaiah 29:11-14 ESV).

 

As I wrote in the last few days, sometimes we defy God deliberately; and, at other times we try to resist him passively, giving God the silent treatment as we refuse to pray, worship, or even talk about him. We also resist God when we pretend to be following Him. We merely go through the motions, even though our hearts aren’t in it. There are times when we do this simply because we believe our pain is too great to let anyone see it. There are other more insidious reasons for hypocrisy. Those are the most damaging.

 

Sometimes we do that in our marriages or families. We may dutifully go through the motions of fulfilling our spouse’s demands, while inwardly bristling at the burdens placed on us. Or we may technically do the tasks on our parent’s chore list, but the look on our face shows that we’re not doing it willingly.

 

Sometimes we also do that with God. We appear to be participating wholeheartedly in the things of God, but it’s mostly for appearances. We may sing in worship or participate in the discussion at a Bible study, but our participation has more to do with not wanting to look bad in front of our friends than really wanting to honor God. One of the scary aspects of organized religion is that we can easily “fake it.” It’s possible to go through the motions in church for years while carefully keeping God at arm’s length. The result is usually a grim religiosity lacking in faithfulness and joy.

 

Whatever the motivation, God is asking us for truth in our relationship. He doesn’t desire our meaningless activities. He desires a genuine relationship… the good, the bad, and the ugly. All of it He is working together for our great good!