I had one of our worship choruses in my head this morning:
How can I keep from singing Your praise
How can I ever say enough
How amazing is Your love
How can I keep from shouting your name…
Because it was on my mind, I gave consideration to the words I was singing and realized it is pretty easy keep myself from ‘singing His praise’ or ‘shouting His name’ … if I am half-hearted in my worship. We have already seen how Israel’s half-hearted worship manifested in half-hearted trust, half-hearted obedience, and half-hearted remembrance.
At the beginning of Judges 2, God calls them to account for their disobedience and lays out the consequences. No sooner had the angel of the Lord spoken these words that “the people lifted up their voices and wept. And they called the name of that place Bochim [weepers]. And they sacrificed there to the Lord.(2:4-5)” Unfortunately, it was soon very evident that their repentance was also half-hearted, for following the death of Joshua “the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. (2:11-12)”
Something to Apply:
Paul wrote of two types of sorrow: godly and worldly. “I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting…For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. (2 Corinthians 7:9a,10)” The Israelites called this spot “the place of weeping” and even made a sacrifice to the Lord, yet neither act evidenced godly sorrow. The next time you feel sorrow for thoughts, words, or deeds that fall short of God’s holiness, consider whether your sorrow is godly or worldly. The test is in the quality of your repentance. True repentance leads to turning to God and away from sin – a true change of heart.