Spotting the Phony

The headline was eye catching - "Man Tried to Pay Wal-Mart With $1 Million Dollar Bill". My first reaction was "Really? And he expected to get away with it?" However, according to the report, after the Sales Clerk rang up his purchases totaling $476, the man casually handed the clerk the million-dollar bill and patiently awaited his change. When the clerk questioned him, "he began arguing and insisting that it was real. This despite the fact that since 1969, the largest US bill in circulation is $100. Wal-Mart called the police and astoundingly, the man stuck around! He was subsequently arrested and charged with “attempting to obtain property by false pretense and uttering a forged instrument.”

Instinctively, some of us are thinking the man must have been crazy to do something like that. Maybe he is and maybe he is not. Somehow, he had convinced himself that he could pull off tendering a phony bill and getting away with it. It did not matter that its denomination was illegitimate or that it would have been impossible to get over $999,500 in change from the clerk. As far as he was concerned, "it was real," and even the arrival of law enforcement officers did not clue him in to the fact that he was now in deep trouble.

What does this story have to do with us as believers? I dare say there is an important truth we can learn from it. In the kind of worship that we offer to God, and the way we live our lives, are we like the man with the phony bill? Totally unacceptable but we convince ourselves that what we offer is real? The religious leaders of Jesus' day found themselves in that position, so much so that Jesus affirmed, "But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (Matthew 15:9). From as far back as in the Old Testament, men have tried to offer worship to God that is very different from what He deems acceptable. To one generation He admonished them, "You cannot worship me in that way" (Deut 12:31 NKJV). Not much has changed since, and God continues to spot the phony from the real thing.

How is the legitimacy of your worship? Is it "holy, acceptable unto God" (Romans 12:1), and are we worshipping "in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24)? Remember, no matter how much we convince ourselves otherwise, anything less is phony and will be rejected. Isn't it about time you examine what you are offering?