It's been awhile since I posted any of my thoughts...so today I will post what I learned from Ecclesiastes 5 a few weeks ago. Again, I am using Warren Wiersbe's Be Satisfied commentary when looking at this book of the Bible.
In this chapter, Solomon issues three warnings that relate to the values of life.
In verses 1-7, he discusses how we should not rob the Lord. He notes that many were not sincere in their worship of God, and they left the sacred precincts in worse spritual condition than when they had entered. Their sin was robbing God of the reverence and honor that He deserved. Worshipping God is the highest ministry of the chirch and must come from devoted hearts and yielded wills.
I think this is so relevant to all of us today in America. We take going to church for granted. We take being able to own and read our Bible for granted. We take the worship music for granted. We have so many blessings in this country, that I think a lot of the time we are not focused on truly worshipping God - but we are just going through the motions. We read the Bible at church in our small groups, but are we realizing that this is the written words of God - He wrote this to us. We read a verse and then move on to our discussion - we don't truly focus on the fact that we should continually be in awe of God. We sing the songs at "worship" time, but are we really focused on worshipping God. This is our highest calling - to worship God and give Him praise - yet I think we rarely let ourselves do this. We worry about what others will think if we lift our hands toward the heavens, if we close our eyes to sing, if we cry out to God. Our world needs a reality check - the reality is that God created us, God is the highest, God deserves our worship, and worshipping Him is the greatest purpose of our lives. Solomon points out in these verses that offerings in the hands without obedience in the heart become sacrifices of fools, because only a fool thinks he can deceive God. Our church has tons of service areas and many pour themselves into them, but if we are not doing them with the purpose of glorifying God, the service means nothing.
In verses 2-3, Solomon focuses on careless praying. I think this is huge! Praying must not be entred into lightly or carelessly, but soberly and in the fear of God. Warren Wiersbe compares this to - if we were to prepare words to say to the President, we would do so ever so carefully and with proper behavior - but do we do this for God. God wants us to talk to Him, to share with Him, but prayer also needs to be taken very seriously as we need to praise the Most High through our prayers. It is not just useless chatter so we can hear ourselves talk or let others hear us. Prayer should be one of the deepest and most sincere forms of worship to God. And when we fail to do this, we are robbing God of His praise.
The last two warnings Solomon posits are not to rob others (vs. 8-9) and not to rob yourself (vs. 10-20). The last warning focuses on us thinking that wealth brings satisfaction and that it can solve all our problems - thus we are robbing ourselves of pure joy and freedom when we rely on wealth to satisfy us.
