The Bible makes it clear that what the Lord most wants from us is neither slavish obedience to His laws (though a rightly-motivated embracing of His laws is an essential part of biblical religion) nor casual engagement with worship rituals (though He has made plain in His Word those elements of worship – like reading Scripture, preaching, singing, praying, etc. – which He desires). Jesus was very direct in His criticism of the Pharisees for following details of the law as proud works of self-righteousness (Matthew 23:23), and He called out the people of His time for their failure by thinking they were worshiping God when their hearts were “far from Him” (Matthew 15:7-9).
When Jesus was asked about the first and greatest commandment, He didn’t respond with something new and previously unknown. No, He quoted from what was in His day one of the best-known verses from the Old Testament, a virtual Jewish John 3:16! Known as “The Great Shema” (because of the opening words in Hebrew: “Shema, Israel”), it was Deuteronomy 6:5. “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
When Paul wrote his second letter to the church at Corinth, he addressed the issue of their progress toward spiritual maturity. In 2 Corinthians 12:14, he identified what he most wanted from them. It is the same thing the Lord desires of us in our daily lives as well as in our worship. The Apostle wrote, “for I seek not what is yours but you.” There it is; what God wants from us is … us! Our whole selves! It is the same theme about which Paul wrote in Romans 12:1-2, where we read, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”