Excuses

Burroughs poses the question, "Suppose we do not find our hearts prepared [for the duty of God's worship] as we desire. Would it be better to leave off duty than perform it?" After all, God cares about our hearts more than mere ceremony. In Amos 5, God reprimands His people for their ceremony and rejects their worthless, empty worship. While on one hand there is a danger of meaningless acts of "worship," on the other hand, if we stop our going to church, praying, reading the Word, or whatever else we deem our hearts unfit for, we become spiritually lazy. It is a temptation to be lazy disguised as spiritual piety. In reading about this struggle I was reminded of C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters. We tend to excuse our laziness and inability to resist temptation from a Wormwood, who's whispering, "You don't have to do this now, your heart's not right anyways. It's ok to just wait until a better time." But if we allow ourselves just once to excuse ourselves from God, it only becomes easier and easier to do so. Burroughs affirms that the cure is not to stop coming to God, but to run to Him and get our hearts right. He compares the benefit of continuing in our duties to the way sin affects us: "As one sin prepares the heart for another sin, so one duty prepares for another." 

If our hearts are not right with God, our duty is not to keep our distance, but to run to Him in humility, realizing our own weakness and continually seeking Him out. It is important to note that at the end of God's admonition of false worship in Amos, He tells His people to "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Draw near to God, cleanse your hands, purify your heart, and allow Him to change you.