There!

“These are the statutes and rules that you shall be careful to do in the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way. But you shall seek the place that the LORD your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go, and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. And there you shall eat before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the LORD your God has blessed you.

“You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the LORD your God is giving you. But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, then to the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the LORD. And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you. Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place that you see, but at the place that the LORD will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I am commanding you.” [1]

It is a fallacious idea that one may worship the Living God in whatever manner one chooses. Nevertheless, the errant concept has become so ingrained in contemporary thought as to reign unchallenged in the finest thoughts of current social thinkers. Indeed, this concept that one may worship God however one may wish reigns as prevalent in almost every society since the days of Cain and Abel.

I am reminded of an incident which occurred while visiting during a period when I was overseeing a church restart in the Lower Mainland of this province. While conducting visits to people who were recommended by members of the congregation, I encountered a woman who expressed in a rather humorous fashion the thought she could worship God in her own way. When I inquired whether she had a church connection, she replied that she was a member of the United Church of Canada. “Oh,” I responded, “your husband previously informed me that you didn’t go to church.”

“That’s right,” she replied, “we don’t go to church, but we are members. I just couldn’t go to any church other than our United Church.”

She went on to relate that the family was heavily involved with their beach property in Birch Bay, and that precluded attending the services of a church.

The church I pastored was contemplating initiating a Friday evening service, so I invited her to consider joining us in worship during an upcoming evening. To my invitation she replied, “I am not interested. I worship God in my own way. I believe, ‘Do unto others as you want them do unto you,’ and I want to be left alone.”

Though she likely had not given the matter much thought; she was voicing the concept that God is a luxury—a convenience. She was restating in modern tongue an ancient fallacy. You cannot serve God as you choose! You cannot be “master of your own fate” and have a viable and vital relationship to God. You must serve God THERE.

“THERE” IS A SPECIFIC PLACE — “You shall seek the place that LORD your God will choose” [DEUTERONOMY 12:5a]. You are possessed by error if you think you can restrict the place of worship to physical parameters. Perhaps you recall the dialogue between Jesus and the woman of Samaria whom he encountered at the well of Sychar? After the Master had confronted this woman with the knowledge that Messiah was coming and that He was to be worshipped, she responded with a sense of awe.