Will God accept any worship I offer to Him?
He did not with Cain. Abel offered to God a sacrifice of the firstlings of his flock and their fat; Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. “And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, but He did not respect Cain and his offering” (Gen 4:4). God did not respect Cain and his offering. By contrast, Abel’s offering was “by faith” (Heb 11:4) and thus according to divine direction (Rom 10:17).
Will God accept any worship I offer to Him? He did not with Nadab and Abihu. “Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord” (Lev 10:1-2). God did not accept worship which He had not commanded. God’s silence must be respected.
Will God accept any worship I offer to Him? He did not with Israel in Malachi’s day. Israel went through formalities of worship, offering to God the defiled, the stolen, the lame, and the sick. “‘But now entreat God’s favor, that He may be gracious to us. While this is being done by your hands, will He accept you favorably?’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘Who is there even among you who would shut the doors, so that you would not kindle fire on My altar in vain? I have no pleasure in you,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘Nor will I accept an offering from your hands’” (Mal 1:9-10). God will not accept empty formalities of worship.
Clearly then, God will not accept any worship I offer to him…or was that just an Old Testament principle? Let’s see.
Jesus taught the gospel, calling men to repent because the kingdom of heaven was near (Matt 4:17, 23). And He charged men of His day with offering to God vain worship – worthless worship because of their human traditions: “And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Matt 15:9). And He told the Samaritan woman, “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Hiim. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:23-24). Here is a clear answer to our question in the New Testament. No, God will not accept any worship I offer to Him, because true worshipers must worship the Father in spirit and truth. Worship that God will accept must be according to truth, the revealed will of God, and offered sincerely from the inner man.
The apostles as Christ’s ambassadors likewise taught that God will not accept any worship I offer Him. “If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, do ye subject yourselves to ordinances, handle not, nor taste, nor touch (all which things are to perish with the using), after the precepts and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, and severity to the body; but are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh” (Col 2:20-23). “Will-worship” means worship that I want; it is worship of human origin, and it is condemned. The worship that pleases God is the worship that He wants.
Another case in point is our eating and drinking the Lord’s Supper. Simply eating the bread and drinking the fruit of the vine of the Lord’s Supper is not acceptable worship that pleases God, because if we eat and drink in an unworthy manner, we eat and drink judgment to ourselves (1 Cor 11:27-29). Eat and drink we must, but we must do it “discerning the Lord’s body” (v.29).
The things taught here may be “politically incorrect” in a culture where some believe that everything we do in life is worship or that using my talents, such as playing a musical instrument, is worship to God.
There is a consistent principle about worship that runs from cover to cover in the Bible, and that is that worship that honors God, worship that He accepts, is worship that He has authorized. This truth implicates as unacceptable worship a lot of worship that is being offered to God by religious bodies today.
We would do well to heed what God said in relation to Nadab’s and Abihu’s unacceptable worship: “By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; And before all the people I must be glorified” (Lev 10:3). Larry Jones