February 10

Day 243: Private and Convenient

Moses had said and done all he could to prepare the people of Israel to be blessed. Blessed in being given and enter into a lush, already cultivated land they did not deserve.

At the same time, they were to do more than just inhabit and reap produce; they were to conquer the current inhabitants. And in so doing, they were charged to eliminate and eradicate every sign of pagan worship they would come across.

Moses told them they would find a land where there was a shrine under almost every tree. And in almost every town square. And in almost every home. Worship that was privatized, and convenient.

So Moses tells the people, 'this will not be so for you.' Worship will be according to God's mandates. His people would worship God according to God's direction and design.

While the people likely heard and nodded their heads accordingly, they were already at a disadvantage. Deuteronomy 12:8 (sounding a whole lot like the predominant theme in Judges) says, "You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes."

Given the immediate context, God (though His spokesman, Moses) is saying, 'You will worship Me the way I choose; not the way you choose, and certainly not the way the pagans worship their gods.'

And what was God choosing? That once in their new homeland, they would go to a place God would later select for that worship to take place. A centralized location, a course correction from privatization and convenience.

While at first blush this seems like God is restrictive and demanding, I sense it's really God evidencing His great compassion for His people.

God knew and knows His people to be self-indulgent sinners. He knows full well each of us want to define, individually, how we will be and do. All of us, redeemed or not, are innately predisposed to think we know best.

And what we think we know best is to pursue privatization and convenience. But while we may each want to reserve the right to think it best to acknowledge God exclusively in private and convenient fashion, this leaves us very unaware. In fact, if left to ourselves, we end up drowning.

We all need deliverance from ourselves. The writer, Dane Ortlund says it quite well. "God delivers and redelivers sinners who find themselves drowning in the sewage of their life."

God was trying to protect His people from themselves, from drowning in sewage. So He ordains for them a place and practice for worship. Worship would not be private, but corporate. Worship would not be convenient, but inconvenient.

This has direct bearing on us. Of all people we Alaskans have a propensity to admire the outdoors. If you've ever blown off a Sunday morning with your church, and instead found a forest trail, or the top of a mountain, you've also found a way to justify yourself in doing so.

I've had more than one person tell me, "Last Sunday, I decided to worship God outdoors, in His Creation." Problem is, it's nothing more than a smoke screen for, "I just what to do whatever is right in my own eyes."

I've had more than one person tell me, people who were previously a part of our church and then moved away, "I'm not attending any church right now. It's been too hard to make friends." Again, a smoke screen for, "I just want to do whatever is right in my own eyes."

We're living in an in-between time. Back then, God established Jerusalem as the worship location. In the future, He will do so again. But in this in-between time we're in, God's chosen place is not a place, but a people. The Church. The Church, incarnated in local churches.

God doesn't want any of us to drown. He doesn't want any of us trying to keep afloat in the sewage of our own lives.

He is the one who delivers and redelivers us all the time. He is our compassionate God who knows what's best for us.

And His best for us does not include worship that is private and convenient.