Isaiah 1:11
To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.

We can’t just keep going through the motions, offering up sacrifice after sacrifice with no sorrow behind them, no repentance behind them, no change of heart provoking them. If we are going through our worship and through our prayers with no heart for God, then it is just a vain ritual that is not pleasing to Him. If we are continually offering up a multitude of sacrifices because we keep on sinning in a multitude of ways, then we are not doing what is pleasing to God.

The sacrifices were set up to provide forgiveness for sin. The law was written with all the intricate rules and processes spelled out—what type of offering to use and when and how. The process was always the same. The conditions were always the same. But there was one necessary part that seemed to be lacking, and that was a heart of repentance. The action of sacrifice itself is not what causes a change or reaches into God’s heart. It is what is in our own heart that makes a difference in what we do.

So often in our lives, we get caught up on the processes and procedures. We get stuck following the rules and obeying the letter of the law. But all along, God wants us to have the right attitude and for our hearts to be in the right place. He doesn’t want us to offer meaningless sacrifices just to obey the law. He wants us to be sorry for what we’ve done that displeased Him and make an effort not to do it anymore, to forsake some things and cast off our old ways. And He wants us to do it for Him because we want to, not because we think we have to.

Are we making these kinds of vain sacrifices before the Lord? Are we going before Him with a list of confessions with no real heart to change behind them? Are we continually asking forgiveness for a sin we have no intention of forsaking? Are we coming before God with the wrong attitude about repentance? Let’s examine our hearts and check our attitudes. And if necessary, let’s lay those things out before the Lord and truly seek forgiveness with a humble heart of true repentance.