Today on the Afternoon Drive, we continued our series for Praise Thursday called “Hallelujah Here Below”, written by the members of Elevation Worship.
Here’s today’s devotional!
There’s something funny about having guests over. Most of us clean our houses from top to bottom until it looks like a model home: perfect and unused. This is exactly what we’re doing at my house right now. We’re finally pretty moved in, and I’m throwing a party this weekend, so we’ve spent days cleaning it and trying to get it ready for its first round of guests. While that might be fine to do for parties, sometimes we try to do the same thing with our worship.
We try so hard to get everything in order before we have God over. We spend our time dusting off our shelves and hiding what we don’t want Him to see. Making sure everything is in tip-top shape, clean, and unused. We think that once our place is perfect, then it’s time to worship Him and invite Him in. But this, however is far from the case, and even though it’s not the case, we still try to do this in our lives to get into a good place with God.
We feel that if we get the promotion, fix up our finances, get our kids to do what we say, and repair our relationships, then we’ll finally be able to get into a good place with God. Our lives are messy — and it’s easy to feel like God can’t do anything with a mess. But in Exodus 20:25, God tells His people that, “If you make an altar of stones for me, do not build it with dressed stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it.”
“Dressed stones” meant stones that were cut and shined — stones that were nearly perfect. God actually asked for imperfection. He could have told His people to worship Him with an altar of perfect, solid gold bricks. Instead, He asked for undressed stones.
Even if our altar is made of imperfect stones, God still delights in our offering. Struggling, hurting, broken — it’s what He asked for. He is knocking at the door of your home. Let Him in, mess and all.
Exodus 20:25
“And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.”
Our prayer for today:
“Lord, I thank you that you still delight in our offerings even when our alters are made of imperfect stones. Our lives our messy, God, and I know that we often think that You can’t do anything with our messes; that we need to clean up our act before we come to the altar. But I thank you that this isn’t the case. You’re not asking us to worship you from an altar of perfect, solid gold bricks. You ask for undressed stones. Imperfections and all. We don’t have to get everything in order before we come to you. You don’t want perfection from our worship, you just want our worship. Give us the strength to come to you and worship you even when our lives are messy, undressed stones and all. You’re knocking at our doors. Give us the strength to let You in.”
Amen.”
Thanks for listening!
– Hannah and Lilly
Driving Notes 