Discover His heart: He accepts our worship that is untainted by the worship of any other
One afternoon several years ago I watched an interesting exchange on the Oprah Winfrey show between Oprah and guest Shirley MacLaine regarding Shirley’s religious beliefs. As Shirley explained her belief that anything or all things can be god if they are meaningful to you, I detected through Oprah’s nodding and verbal exchange an acceptance of this notion, an odd response from a former evangelical girl.
Through the years, we have seen a slow acceptance of these new age ideas by those who certainly should know better. For many, a belief system that is more encompassing, more accepting of different views and with fewer restrictions whether based on truth or not is more appealing than acceptance of a single God, a single Redeemer. Israel found itself in this same position after the Assyrians settled in their land.
@ 2 Kings 17
The invading Assyrians took captive over 20,000 Israelites from Samaria, sent them to live in Assyria and replaced them with groups of people from their own territories. Many believe that their ulterior motive was to infiltrate the population through intermarriage in hopes that it would weaken the people’s loyalty and destroy national ties as they had done in other cultures. This new people group became known as the Samaritans. I’ve always understood that the Jews of Judea hated the Samaritans because of the Jewish intermarriage with the Assyrians. They believed that it diluted the bloodline of God’s chosen people; but from this story, I realize that their hatred was based on so much more.
There was a slight glitch in the Assyrian plan when the Lord sent lions to devour the new residents. “So a message was sent to the king of Assyria: ‘The people you have sent to live in the towns of Samaria do not know the religious customs of the God of the land. He has sent lions among them to destroy them because they have not worshiped Him correctly.’” (26) The king sent one of the exiled Israelite priests back to Samaria to teach the new residents how to worship God.
As corrupt as the Jewish priests had been, it was like the blind leading the blind, and the Assyrian residents continued to worship their own gods and the God of Israel. Soon their offspring, the Samaritans, did the same. Not good. The new religion of the Samaritans in Israel was more encompassing, more accepting of different views and with fewer restrictions. This sounds familiar.
God’s warning at that time is every bit as appropriate for us today as it was for Israel, “You must not worship other gods. Do not forget the covenant I made with you, and do not worship others gods. You must worship only the Lord your God. He is the one who will rescue you from all your enemies.” (37-39) While we are free to worship as we please, hopefully we have learned that it is terribly dangerous to embrace anything that dilutes our belief in the only true and living God and the powerful redemption through His son Jesus. I really don’t care if I’m unpopular and considered intolerant on this point, I’m not going to budge!
Moving Forward: Call me stubborn if you want, but I won’t allow the genteel, all-accepting philosophy of this day to infiltrate my belief in God and in my Redeemer. “For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him against that day.” (2 Timothy 1:12KJV)
Tomorrow @ Psalm 87-89
Phyllis Benigas 