When Culture Must Go

Deuteronomy 11-12; Psalm 70; Proverbs 12:4

 

As Christians we are no longer like the Israelites, steamrolling into the land God has promised us and destroying everything that stands in front of us. We won’t see that again (or shouldn’t) until Jesus comes back—and then we’ll see it big-time. But we can still learn a lesson from what God commanded the Israelites to do:

 

Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains and on the hills and under every spreading tree where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.

 

You must not worship the LORD your God in their way. – Deut. 12:2-4

 

In their way. Worship is a part of culture. Different people worship different ways. Different gods demand different sacrifices. And our God has given us only one Way to live. Jesus said, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

 

So we confess with our mouths that Jesus really is Lord, and we believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead (Rom. 10:9-13). We call on Jesus and obey Him, and we don’t add in any other god’s ideas. Islam’s ideas are out. Any part of Judaism not arising from the Scriptures is out. Hinduism is out. Buddhism is out. Materialism, consumerism, self-help-ism—they’re all out. We live in the same lands. We own some of the same items. But our culture is not their culture, and we use the goods God gives us in different ways. Because God Himself says, “See that you do all I command you; do not add to it and do not take away from it” (Deut. 12:32).

 

There is only one culture for Christians—the culture that hears and obeys Jesus Christ.

 

Father, rid me of all the ways I live in obedience to anyone but You. May my ideas for serving You come not from other gods, no matter how attractive they make themselves. May I test everything by what You say. And may I gladly jettison anything that You do not want. I want to please You as I walk by faith in Jesus.