Deuteronomy 12 begins with God commanding the Israelites to destroy the pagan altars, idols, and places of worship they would find in the Promised Land. The people living in Canaan worshiped many false gods, often in ways that involved immoral and evil practices. God did not want Israel mixing the worship of the true God with the practices of the surrounding nations. The point he was making was simple. You cannot worship the true God while holding onto false gods. Jesus also calls us to completely turn away from sin and false worship. In Matthew 6:4 Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.’ Following Jesus means more than just adding Him to our lives. He becomes Lord of our lives. When we use God only when he is convenient for us we are making ourselves the lord of our lives. God will not be second place to anything. The easiest thing to choose over God is ourselves. Going through this life by going with the flow or doing things because it feels right is a. dangerous way to live. We are naturally sinful people. We will talk ourselves into doing what we want every time if we don’t take the time to listen and search for God. This is why it is so important to read our Bibles and to pray constantly. Deuteronomy 12:8 says, “You are not to do as we are doing here today; everyone is doing whatever seems right in his own sight.” This is a major theme throughout the Bible. Human beings have naturally always wanted to decide for themselves what is right and wrong, but God calls His people to trust His definition of truth. Jesus calls us to submit our lives to Him as Lord. Following Jesus means we don’t create our own version of Christianity based on what feels right to us. In John 14:15 Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commands.” This doesn’t mean we earn salvation through obedience. We are saved through faith in Jesus, but genuine faith changes how we live. Jesus transforms the heart so we can desire to obey God from love rather than religious obligation. We don’t do good works to GET saved. We do good works because we ARE saved. We should do all things with joy because of what Jesus has done for us. Some important questions for us to ask ourselves today are these:
What do I think about the most when I have nothing else distracting me?
What am I most afraid of losing?
What do I depend on for my security besides God?
Is there anything I love more than I love God?
If God asked me to give something up, would I be willing to obey Him?
Am I seeking God’s approval or people’s approval?
Before making important decisions, do I genuinely seek God’s direction?
Do I ask, “What does God want?” or simply, “What do I want?”
Am I willing to obey God even when obedience costs me something?
Do I follow God’s Word when it agrees with my desires but ignore it when it doesn’t?
Is there an area of my life where I already know what God wants me to do, but I am refusing to do it?
If we are honest with ourselves, these are very hard questions to answer. Unless we are just perfect, we aren’t going to have the right answers to all of these questions all of the time. We are going to go through seasons in life where we fall of track and we are going to go through seasons in life where we drift away from God because he isn’t where he needs to be in our lives. What we should take from this chapter is knowing that our God demands more from us than just dragging him along as we do whatever feels right to us in life. We should be praying and meditating on his word to synchronize ourselves with where God wants us to go, who God wants us to be, or what God wants us to do in life. Little choices turn into big choices. Let’s challenge ourselves today to try to do what God would want us to do today instead of what we want to do. Love y’all! Have a great day!
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