“The Lord says: ‘These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.’” (Isaiah 29:13, NIV)
They just could not grasp the simple truth that a heart given to God was all that God wanted from His children in worship and righteous living. The Pharisees and the Scribes could not get close to God through their endless rituals because their hearts were far from Him. Their casual disregard for the essence of God’s heart as they obsessed over their dedication to a multitude of rules of their creation did not bring them closer to God but left them far away from Him. Their zealous concentration on thinking what they exhibited was righteousness, blinded them to the magnitude of failures to be righteous in their deeds.
We can be just like them. We can be zealous in our thinking, believing we are showing God to others holding to religious matters, while forgetting that God must matter above all else for Him to really show in what we do. What is on the outside of a cup might in appearance look clean and appealing but what is on the inside in our hearts is the only thing of substance and significance. Our religious fervor and piety are worthless to God if God is not the substance and significance of what matters to us. Worry about what is inside of you and the outside will take care of itself.
“When He had called all the multitude to Himself, He said to them, ‘Hear Me, everyone, and understand: There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!’” (Mark 7:14-16, NKJV)
