May Reading from The Message

Do you attend a church or a business? Is God ultimately the one leading your community of believers? In Ecclesiastes we are given a warning to not drown out God’s voice with our own ideas or trip over our own pride when we enter His house.

Watch your step when you enter God’s house. Enter to learn. That’s far better than mindlessly offering a sacrifice, Doing more harm than good.

Don’t shoot off your mouth, or speak before you think. Don’t be too quick to tell God what you think he wants to hear. God’s in charge, not you—the less you speak, the better.

Overwork makes for restless sleep. Over talk shows you up as a fool.

When you tell God you’ll do something, do it—now. God takes no pleasure in foolish drivel. Vow it, then do it. Far better not to vow in the first place than to vow and not pay up.

Don’t let your mouth make a total sinner of you. When called to account, you won’t get by with “Sorry, I didn’t mean it.” Why risk provoking God to angry retaliation?

But against all illusion and fantasy and empty talk there’s always this rock foundation: Fear God!

Scripture Insight

Beware the Business of Religion

When we enter into the realm of Christian religion, we open ourselves to an existence that is characterized by God speaking to us, promising to love us and to guide us, to show us mercy and to train us, to forgive us and to form us into the image of his Son. The danger in our gathering together to worship such a God is that we might speak when we should be listening. We might chat among ourselves about our morals and our meetings, and in doing so, drown out the voice of God.

The danger is that we might get so busy running a religious institution that we don’t have the time or energy left for a personal encounter with God. The danger is that we might treat the whole business of religion as just that—a business. A business that we’re in charge of, that we plan on our own and pull off on our own. And so the admonition to “watch your step when you enter God’s house” (Ecclesiastes 5:1) is a good one, aimed at keeping us from stumbling over our own pride.

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