Stand in Awe

DEVOTION

ECCLESIASTES

STAND IN AWE

Eccl 5:1-7

5:1 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.

2 Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. 3 As a dream comes when there are many cares, so the speech of a fool when there are many words.4 when you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. 5 It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it. 6 Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. And do not protest to the [temple] messenger, "My vow was a mistake." Why should God be angry at what you say and destroy the work of your hands? 7 Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore stand in awe of God.

NIV

In our relationship with the Lord we should not be too casual as what seems to be the case in this post-modern era. It seems some churches have made worship into a big show, sparing no expense to entertain the crowd or try to create an emotional response, or a rounding applause for a job well done. The other noticeable offense within the sanctuary of God is this busy-bodied loud chatter of noise rather than a guarded step and an ear to listen. Is this not the sanctuary where we come to meet with the living God? Have we prepared our heart to worship or are we too busy chatting away about some dumb subject that has nothing to do with God? Are we not to come to offer our bodies as living sacrifices which is our acceptable form of spiritual worship? We should guard of steps when we go to the house of God. We should be in an attitude of praise and worship before and as we enter the sanctuary prepared to meet with the living God and not be like the fool who does not know how wrong he is. In our relationship with God let us not be the chitty chatter of all times. We do no need to pray as though we are on parade to show everyone how spiritual we are with all the right words. We should not be quick to speak to God, or hasty to utter anything before him. So often we run off with our mouth before engaging our brain. Although we are supposed to see God on this intimate personal level as loving us so much, we should also remember, as Solomon puts it, we are on earth, God is in heaven. He is so far superior to anything or anyone. He is so smart, we are so dumb. He knows everything, we know nothing. He is God, the creator of all that is created. We are the created and we should know our place in this creation, his children. What child tells their parent what to do? What obedient child does whatever they want to do, without the parental consent? Aha, at last the truth comes out. We are not an obedient child. Let us not promise God we will do everything he says, and then break that promise. How wrong is that? No, let us just strive to do his bidding, not making excuses for failure, or promising to do better. Let us not allow our mouth to lead us into sin by promising God we will do better when we know in our heart we cannot. We should not say we are anything but a sinner saved by grace. We simply cannot be good enough. We cannot be pure enough, nor can we be obedient enough. We need to stop trying to fool ourselves because we are not fooling God. All we can do is stand in awe of him. All our words, our actions, our lists of do’s and don’ts, all our good deeds, all our efforts to be this perfect bundle of spiritual flesh is meaningless in light of his holiness, his perfection, and his majesty. What we are left with is to stand in awe of him.