Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Character, Identity
- Up: Up is the word we use for what we worship. If we are following God’s will, God will occupy the Up position. Our life, our identity, our mission, our family on mission is all derived from Up. This is why God needs to be in our Up position.
As I’ve found out all along in Deuteronomy, it would be easy to
talk about either character or identity in this chapter. Do we have what it takes to follow God? Do we have what it takes to not charge
interest, to desire proper sexuality, and to desire to keep our place of
worship spiritually clean? It is easy to
look at character and identity as we look at this chapter.
But for today I want to take a small portion of this chapter and
go deep with it. The middle of this
chapter has some verses regarding cult prostitution. This was a very common practice in ancient
cultures. People – priests and
priestesses, mostly – of ancient gods would often offer themselves up as sexual
opportunities for people desiring to worship their particular god. The belief was that sex with a cult
prostitute was as close as a person could get with the god. It was a practice intending to combine the
human desire for sexual ecstasy with religious interest.
Which leads me to Up. Of
course we should be worshipping God. But
how do we engage in the relationship with Him?
Do we need to tap into our human sexuality to worship God? Certainly not! Our relationship with God comes through the
study of His Word. It comes through
meditation about His ways. It comes through
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. God
is telling His people that there is a difference between how worldly people
attempt to get into relationship with their worldly gods and how spiritual
people get in touch with a spiritual God.
So what is in your Up position?
Is it God? How do you relate to
Him? Do the passions of your life give
the same message as to what is in your Up position?
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