Was it really for me?

One of the issues with the way the Israelites worshiped was the issue of the heart, too often on the odd occasion when they did give praise to God it was purely out of obligation rather than a real desire to honor God. I feel like the same is often true for us in the 21st century, especially at this time of year when we get so concerned with other things that church on Christmas Eve/Day becomes an obligation rather than a joy.

In Zechariah we see people come and ask God about how they should give honor to him:
The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-Melek, together with their men, to entreat the LORD 3 by asking the priests of the house of the LORD Almighty and the prophets, “Should I mourn and fast in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”
4 Then the word of the LORD Almighty came to me: 5 “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? 6 And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? 7 Are these not the words the LORD proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous, and the Negev and the western foothills were settled?’” (Zechariah 7:2-7 NIV)
The people are showing a great spiritual advance from where they have been at by even consulting God in the first place, the book of Zechariah has seen an amazing spiritual revival, and so they ask God if they should follow the traditions that they have been keeping for years. God responds by questioning why they have done this in the past, but of course God is omnipotent, he is all knowing so this isn't so much a questioning but a revelation. God shows these people their hearts in what they were doing. He reveals to them that they weren't really doing it out of love for God but rather out of obligation.

God continues:
And the word of the LORD came again to Zechariah: 9 “This is what the LORD Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’

11 “But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears. 12 They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry. (Zechariah 7:8-12 NIV)
God proves his point, if they were doing it out of love for God they would have shown that somewhere else but they didn't. God told them to do many other things and they didn't do any of that so it can be safe to say that when they did what they were supposed to it was out of obligation rather than out of a love for God.

For us we need to remember to honor God not out of obligation but out of love for him. Too often we do the Christmas church service because we feel we have to or because we want to make our friends or family happy, while that's noble it is not the reason we should be worshiping God, it should be as a response to his great love for us and as a way to show our love to him.