Year 7, Day 163: Deuteronomy 12

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I think the heart of Deuteronomy 12 nails humanity.  Moses tells the people not to worship at the places of worship for the people before them.  Then he tells them to only worship at the place God designates.  Eventually he boils down the message very plainly.  He tells them not to follow the whims and wills of their own hearts - doing right in their own eyes - but to listen and obey God’s direction.

On the surface, this is absolutely a chapter about where to worship.  On the surface, this is a chapter about practicing our interaction with God.  But the real meat in the passage is deeper than this.  The real meat in this passage is about our human desires and laying them aside to instead submit to God.

I think that it is very poignant to bind the two concepts of worship and submission.  No, I’m not trying to say that there is only one place to worship God and that we should go back to animal sacrificing.  Jesus makes it very clear in the New Testament that such practice is not necessary.  Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that the time is coming when we will worship God wherever our heart finds itself.  In fact, even at the end of this chapter Moses himself makes a similar declaration.

Why I think it is neat to bind the concepts of worship and submission is because I think that the very first act of true worship is genuine submission.  I believe that in order to worship God, the first thing that I must do is to lay my desires aside.  I must come into the presence of God with a humble and contrite heart that desires to listen rather than assert myself.

That’s the part that I see the world and culture around me struggle with so mightily.  To confess, that’s the part that I struggle with so mightily as well.  Going through the act of worship is a rather easy task – especially when you have someone, or a group of someones, doing all of the work for you and you just have to sit or stand at the appropriate time.  Going through the act of worship is not difficult.  What is difficult is going through the act in a humble and contrite manner that seeks to listen and change more than assert and prove oneself.  That is what makes the worship of God true and different from any other experience we have as a culture.

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