Read Ecclesiastes 5:1–7
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. Ecclesiastes 5:1

Solomon had visited the courtroom, the marketplace, the highway, and the palace. Now he paid a visit to the temple. He watched the worshippers coming and going, praising God, praying, sacrificing, and making vows. He noted that many of them were not at all sincere in their worship and that they left the sacred precincts in worse spiritual condition than when they had entered. What was their sin? They were robbing God of the reverence and honor He deserved. Even though God’s glorious presence doesn’t dwell in our church buildings as it did in the temple, believers today still need to heed this warning.

The worship of God is the highest ministry of the church and must come from devoted hearts and yielded wills. For God’s people to participate in public worship while harboring unconfessed sin is to ask for God’s rebuke and judgment. Sacrifices are not substitutes for obedience. Offerings in the hands without obedient faith in the heart become the sacrifice of fools, because only fools think they can deceive God. Fools think they are doing good, but they are only doing evil. And God knows it.

Something to Ponder
How can you ensure that your own worship comes from a yielded will?