Day 139/365- Psalm 78:36-37

"Lip Service"

But all they gave him was lip service;
they lied to him with their tongues.
Their hearts were not loyal to him.
They did not keep his covenant. (Psalm 78:36, 37 NLT)

Lip service. We have all given it one time or another. We get pulled over by a police officer & we say, "I didn't know I was speeding!" We give lip service to the law while breaking it at the same time. We tell someone we will help them while we have no intention of being there.

Maybe the most evident way we have done this is with God. We sing songs with our hands lifted high & then leave the worship center with our lives going back to normal. We tell God we love him with little to no obedience. We sing of forgiveness with no repentance. We hear messages that encourage while we live in open rebellion against God. And Psalm 78 calls this lying.

Pretty harsh stuff here. We all have good intentions when it comes to what we tell God. We all intend to raise godly kids, spend more time in prayer & Bible reading, give more of our money to things that matter most. So what happens? Why do we make such well-intentioned promises but can't deliver? Lip service. Our lips & our lives never sync, they never intersect, they don't seem to be on the same page. How do we fix this?

It's really not rocket science. Ours lives & our lips sync up with obedience. We just obey God as he has clearly revealed his will in his Word. We allow him to shape us into the people we were created to be. If we focus on our lives first, our lips will follow. If we focus on our lips, our lives may or may not follow through.

So, next time we are in corporate worship we should ask ourselves, "Am I just giving lip service or is what I'm saying to God a reflection of my life?" It doesn't just have to be in church. In fact, the key to this is taking it outside the four walls! The next time the Holy Spirit prompts us to give or reveals an area of change we need to pursue or convicts us of anything, don't say a word, just obey!