Jul 11
15
If I have gone through the general routine of the worship
of my church, and then think that I have done something
acceptable to God, while yet my heart has not communed
with him in humble repentance, or faith, or love, or joy, or
consecration; I make a great mistake.
You may keep on with your religious performances for
seventy years or more; you may not neglect a single rubric
in the whole ritual; but it is all nothing unless the soul has
fellowship with God.
Godliness is a spiritual thing; for “God is a Spirit; and they
that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
So far as our forms or worship help us towards this
spiritual communion, they are good, but no farther.
Everything brought to God as a sacrifice must be alive.
Its blood must be poured out warm at the altar’s foot.
Oh that you and I might feel that lifting of the soul to God,
and that buoyancy of heart, which true spiritual worship
alone can bring to us! May our ritual, whether we have much or little,
be ourguide to God, and not our chain to hold us back from
God!