Isaiah 1 and the Grace of God

I don't know if there are many people out there like me: frustrated, dissatisfied,  and overall disappointed with myself. This poisonous attitude often leaking to judging others, eventually leading me to conform God to my own image, in thinking that He is just as disgusted and cynical of the Church  as I am sometimes.

I am guilty of making my own god, one that is not worthy of worship. One that thinks like me, has unsteady emotions like me, one that is foolish like me.

But in fact, God is not like me at all. His love towards us is perfectly steadfast because of the work of Christ; not fickle and reliant on our works.

This truth immediately conflicted with the god whom I've created; in which my ailed mind took a passage of scripture, Isaiah 1, to support the embittered attitude of this unworthy god. God mended much in me by reconciling the frustration God seemed to have for His people at the time and the complete satisfaction He has for us in Christ.

Isaiah 1 seems to deal much with the rebellion of His people and the pretentious worship that they had for Him. Initially, I jumped on the bandwagon, pointing my finger at the Church saying that they (we) are just as pretentious. Not realizing that the true God was displeased with the worship because of the spirit of rebellion it carried. Worship is all about the acknowledgement of who God is, and by "worshiping" Him, but neglecting who He really is (the God of justice, the rescuer of the oppressed, the protector of the widow) they were indeed not worshipping Him but a lesser god who seemed to be ok with injustice, oppression, and complacency.

Indeed, God is completely pleased with us through Christ, today and forevermore; unchanging and more reliable that the dawn. What puts us in danger is not our susceptibility to sin, but worshipping a constructed god; putting an impostor, who cannot forgive sins, in the place of Christ who indeed has trampled it for eternity. Therefore, the believers who carry a defeated attitude engage in worship just as pretentious as those who neglect justice. Worship and our lives of worship is about Jesus and his works and not about what we've done. If we focus on behavior modification that comes from the flesh instead of the face of Christ, which leads to true transformation, we are indeed not walking in the truth of the New Covenant but the death that is found in the old. The good that shall come from the Church is completely rooted in Christ, not in our intent to do good works and there is so much freedom in that.