I’m reading through Deuteronomy again. It’s been a while because I, like many Christians, tend to focus on New Testament writing. However, Paul told Timothy, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). When Paul reminded Timothy of that truth, most of the “scripture” available was the Old Testament. We should not neglect the Old Testament. We are not bound to the Law of Moses but in the pages of the O.T. there is a huge amount of revelation about how God deals with men and nations and how he deals with his covenant children. Those principles are extremely important to know since God is unchanging.
One of the things that my reading in Deuteronomy is reminding me of is the danger of thinking that a casual commitment to the things of God is “good enough.” Certainly, grace covers our weaknesses and even failures, but the issue is found more in our attitude than in our actions.
God is looking for a people who are sold out to him. Scripture is filled with promises and cautions for God’s people. These are often stated together and declare something like, “If you are careful to keep all my commandments, you will prosper in the land.” Notice that the blessings of God are conditional on a heart that desires to be pleasing to God in everything. I don’t think God is concerned about those who struggle with sin in their lives nearly as much as those who don’t struggle against the sin in their lives. We often walk in a sin that we somehow rationalize as something “God understands.” But God calls us to holiness or, at least, to a heart that sincerely desires it even though we fail from time to time. God calls us to carefully keep all his commandments.
That principle is not a legalistic approach to God or just the flavor of the Old Covenant. Jesus made some pretty extreme demands on those who would be a disciple. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Lk.14:26-27). Jesus is not telling us to literally hate anyone because we are to love even our enemies. But what he is saying is that if we have to choose between him and anything or anyone else, we must choose him and reject the other. If we love anyone or anything more than Jesus, we have stepped into the realm of idolatry.
Idolatry was the great sin that God warned Israel about over and over. God declares, “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Deut.5:8-10).
We typically read that command and dismiss it because we don’t have shrines in our homes to foreign gods. But if we pursue anything more than God, we are submitting to a form of idolatry. If I consistently give more attention, more loyalty, more love, more thought, or more priority to anything other than God, I have become an idolator.
Think of it this way. Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment” (Matt.22:37). When we love something or someone else more than God, we are functionally committing idolatry. Love is not always an emotion. It is often a choice. Simply put, do I choose God or something else that draws my affections away from God?
Again, this is a matter of the heart. When couples first fall in love, they think about the relationship all the time. They call. They rearrange their schedule to spend time with one another. They think about small gifts that express their affection. They long to be in each other’s presence. They put each other’s needs before their own. They try hard to please the one they love and have no interest in the affections of another…if their love is genuine. That is the kind of heart, God wants from his people. If either of them begins to place their affections elsewhere, the relationship is in trouble. So it is, with God. His love never strays, but ours has a tendency to do so.
Here we come back to our aspirational values versus our actual values. We may declare our love for God (aspirational), but the proof is in our choices (actual). I can’t tell you how often I have heard believers profess their faith and love for God when their lifestyle is little different from the lifestyle of unbelievers except for occasional church attendance. These believers often choose immoral relationships, partying with friends every weekend, their favorite recreation, etc. over time with God and their spiritual family. Their Facebook page documents their choices every day. If you ask them to serve, they just don’t have the time…but they have time for the things they really value. Of course, somethings aren’t so obvious. Our desires, our thought life, our choices of what we watch or listen to, etc. aren’t as apparent, but can be just as indicative of a heart that only chooses God when it is convenient and doesn’t cost us anything.
Idolatry creates a throne in our hearts for Satan and neither he nor God is willing to share the throne. The difference is that God asks, even pleads, and presents the truth for us to choose. He always calls us to those things that bless and redeem. Satan, however, calls us to lies and deception and eventual destruction. For those who profess Jesus, but withhold parts of their lives from his lordship, there is often a real delusion operating that they are loving and serving Jesus. Satan provides a perfect rationalization for everything in their lives outside of God’s will.
That is why David wisely asked God to search his heart and show him if there (Ps. 139:24) were any things in his life or his heart that were misaligned with the will of God.
What I see in my own life, as well as the life of others, is a contemporary attitude that says if I’m giving God some of the things he asks for, that is good enough. Then I’m careful not to think about my obedience too much because I might find I am out of sync with his will in several areas that I’m not sure I want to surrender this week. That is simply foolishness on my part because an attitude like that keeps me from many of the things God wants to bless me with and open the door for the destroyer to come in like a cancer.
As Israel was preparing to enter the promise land after forty years of wandering in the desert, Moses admonished them when he said, “See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom andunderstanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise andunderstanding people.” What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?” (Duet. 4:5-8).
God is not interested in getting our left overs or an obedience that it is just “good enough.” He wants our whole heart so we can receive all that he has for us and so that we can fully fulfill our destiny that he has written in his book (Ps. 139:16). The truth is that when we shortchange God, we are really shortchanging ourselves.
Lord give us a heart that loves you without reservation.
