An Authentic Worshipful Life Requires Pure Intentionality to Follow God
I want you to know there are things I do with the best intentions that flop. The year my sweet Pastor husband learned he was gluten intolerant, I set out to create him his own delicious Thanksgiving dessert. It looked beautiful, just like the picture! He swallowed one bite, and said, “you should probably taste this.” An odd response for sure.
I nibbled the instructed one bite, and my beautiful looking dessert went into the trash. It was horrendous! I intended to please my sweet Pastor husband, but it was an Epic Fail. Life is like that. Thankfully my sweet Pastor husband was grateful for the attempt. The story periodically gets retold, and he continues to taste all my fresh attempts to create a delicious gluten-free dessert.
Worship Requires Intentionality
Hezekiah, the king we’ve been studying as an example for a worshipful life, reveals that genuine worship includes a pure intentionality to follow God. His intent was to honor and obey his Lord.
“Hezekiah relied on the LORD God of Israel; not one of the kings of Judah was like him, either before him or after him. He remained faithful to the LORD and did not turn from following him but kept the commands the LORD had commanded Moses.”
2 Kings 18:5-6
Worship is a Choice of Commitment
As you may remember, Hezekiah became king when he was 25 years old. He didn’t have much life experience, nor was his father, Ahaz, a marvelous mentor. There was no king school to attend, no online master course on how to be a good king, and no Wikipedia to answer any questions.
Still, the description of Hezekiah is one who chose to trust Yahweh, the One True God. He adopted actions and attitudes based on commands from the Elohim of Israel, the nation of Israel’s personal God, ruler, and judge. Hezekiah embraced all the instructions provided through Yahweh’s servant Moses.
Hezekiah’s Holy Objective
From the beginning of Hezekiah’s reign, he revealed his holy objective to place God as the true leader of Judah. In the very first month of Hezekiah’s rule, he opened the temple and repaired its doors (2 Chronicles 29:3).
A quick skim of 2 Kings 16 and 2 Chronicles 28 communicates a picture of the various ways Ahaz, Hezekiah’s father, desecrated the temple of God. For example, Ahaz cut the temple utensils into pieces, and he sent the silver and gold found in the temple to the king of Assyria, to appease him. Also, he instructed an altar be built like one he saw in Damascus, then Ahaz had God’s bronze altar removed and the new altar installed in its place.
Consecrating the Temple
Hezekiah determined to return the temple to its rightful place of honor, knowing Yahweh was worthy to be worshiped. Unlike Ahaz, who offered his own sacrifices, Hezekiah understood offering sacrifices wasn’t the king’s job, it was the job of the Levites.
“[Hezekiah] said to them, ‘Hear me, Levites. Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the LORD, the God of your ancestors. Remove everything impure from the holy place. For our ancestors were unfaithful and did what is evil in the sight of the LORD our God. They abandoned him, turned their faces away from the LORD’s dwelling place, and turned their backs on him.”
2 Chronicles 29:5-6
It took the Levites 16 days to clean out the temple and consecrate it. They removed all that didn’t belong, cleansed the altar of burnt offerings and its utensils, as well as the table for the Bread of the Presence and its utensils. The temple wasn’t returned to its full glory, but it was purified and ready for the people to meet with God.
Offering Sacrifices
Second Chronicles 29:20 tells us Hezekiah got up early the very next morning, gathered the city officials and marched to the temple. They offered sacrifices to Yahweh for the sins of the people. Hezekiah understood they all required a clean slate before God.
Hezekiah wasn’t attempting to win the latest poll for the best king ever. He didn’t have a hidden agenda to accumulate more points with God than someone else. Hezekiah wasn’t thinking about himself at all. Hezekiah focused on honoring only God, obeying what Scripture commanded, because he reverenced Yahweh.
A Continued Intentionality
And then, Hezekiah took his intentionality a step further. Hezekiah desired to do more than set an appropriate example of worship as the king. He encouraged the people to take the next step in their personal worship.
“Hezekiah concluded, ‘Now you are consecrated to the LORD. Come near and bring sacrifices and thanksgiving offerings to the LORD’s temple.’…”
2 Chronicles 29:31a
Hezekiah persisted with more reforms, and even invited the northern Kingdom of Israel to come to the temple of God and celebrate Passover. His pure intentionality to follow God determined one step and then the next and then the next. He was committed to esteeming, praising, and obeying God as God deserved and nothing less.
“[Hezekiah] was diligent in every deed that he began in the service of God’s temple, in the instruction and the commands, in order to seek his God, and he prospered.”
2 Chronicles 31:21
Our Consecration; Our Intentionality
Nice story, right? What does that have to do with us? We are no longer required to offer animals on a sacrificial altar, because Christ is our sacrificial lamb, and He covered the necessary payment our sin required. However, we still must consecrate ourselves, and take the next step in our personal worship.
Paul tells us in Romans 12:1, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship.” Peter tells us, “…you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for [God’s] possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)
Comparing Ourselves to Hezekiah
To truly learn intentionality from Hezekiah, we should study his actions and then generate parallel actions for ourselves that will grow us in our consecration and personal worship.
- He embraced God’s instructions given through Moses; We must embrace the instructions found in God’s Word.
- He wanted God to be Judah’s leader; We must choose God as our leader, the One we follow.
- He kept a clean slate before God through offering sacrifices; We must maintain a clean slate before God by allowing Him to search our hearts, listening to His Spirit and asking for forgiveness on a consistent basis.
- He encouraged personal worship in others; We are called to go and make disciples.
- He celebrated what God had done by observing Passover; We must celebrate God’s grace and love in our lives as we participate in communion and worship services with other believers.
Hezekiah’s intentionality was pure, untarnished. Our willingness to present ourselves and be obedient to Christ should not be contaminated with any selfish gain. For instance, we can trap ourselves in a cycle where we are more concerned about looking good to our Christian community, then seeking and honoring Jesus. Personal pride can also snare us as we attempt to check off actions or attitudes on our “Best Christian Checklist.”
Authentic Worship
Our motives should be blameless. We must wholly purpose to honor, glorify, and obey the One True God, because He is GOD. When we act with pure intentionality to follow God, we allow God to choose how we will live, and act, and think without cutting corners. Our genuine, uncontaminated aim is obedience to Christ and to delight Him in every way we can; our goal is authentic worship.
You Got This Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash
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