“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:14-15, ESV

We make choices daily (even not deciding is deciding!) whether to listen to false testimonies, lies, gossip, and promotions of products that do not deliver on their promise to “transform our lives”, or to “stay away from him because he is evil, or “do not believe what she says because we do not like her”. We hear these voices from individuals and from the never-ending wealth of information that is easily obtained on our phones as we scroll as well as television, radio, and all other devices we have readily attached to us!

We all do it!  We allow ourselves to be bombarded with many voices who clamor for our attention.  But, this isn’t new to us, is it?  How can we combat and control all the voices?  We can’t but God can.  Jesus says to “seek God first…”.  Paul, the Apostle, tells us how:

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” Romans 12:1-2, MSG

Here is the defined choice:  Media streams of information can inform us of what is good and is used to proclaim the redemption of the Lord but it is also used to distract us from God who loves us and wants His best for us.  God encourages us throughout His Word to love Him with all our hearts, minds, and souls.  God commanded his people then and now us to trust and obey Him “so that all will go well with us.” God knows us by name and knows exactly what we need at just the right time.  Trust Him.  Obey Him.

Deuteronomy 12

The One Place of Worship

These are the decrees and laws you must be careful to follow in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess—as long as you live in the land. ² Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains, on the hills and under every spreading tree, where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. ³ 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.

⁴ You must not worship the Lord your God in their way. ⁵ But you are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go; ⁶ there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you have vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. ⁷ There, in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the Lord your God has blessed you.

⁸ You are not to do as we do here today, everyone doing as they see fit, ⁹ since you have not yet reached the resting place and the inheritance the Lord your God is giving you. ¹⁰ But you will cross the Jordan and settle in the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and he will give you rest from all your enemies around you so that you will live in safety. ¹¹ Then to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name—there you are to bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, and all the choice possessions you have vowed to the Lord. ¹² And there rejoice before the Lord your God—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites from your towns who have no allotment or inheritance of their own. ¹³ Be careful not to sacrifice your burnt offerings anywhere you please. ¹⁴ Offer them only at the place the Lord will choose in one of your tribes, and there observe everything I command you.

¹⁵ Nevertheless, you may slaughter your animals in any of your towns and eat as much of the meat as you want, as if it were gazelle or deer, according to the blessing the Lord your God gives you. Both the ceremonially unclean and the clean may eat it. ¹⁶ But you must not eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water. ¹⁷ You must not eat in your own towns the tithe of your grain and new wine and olive oil, or the firstborn of your herds and flocks, or whatever you have vowed to give, or your freewill offerings or special gifts. ¹⁸ Instead, you are to eat them in the presence of the Lord your God at the place the Lord your God will choose—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites from your towns—and you are to rejoice before the Lord your God in everything you put your hand to. ¹⁹ Be careful not to neglect the Levites as long as you live in your land.

²⁰ When the Lord your God has enlarged your territory as he promised you, and you crave meat and say, “I would like some meat,” then you may eat as much of it as you want. ²¹ If the place where the Lord your God chooses to put his Name is too far away from you, you may slaughter animals from the herds and flocks the Lord has given you, as I have commanded you, and in your own towns you may eat as much of them as you want. ²² Eat them as you would gazelle or deer. Both the ceremonially unclean and the clean may eat. ²³ But be sure you do not eat the blood, because the blood is the life, and you must not eat the life with the meat. ²⁴ You must not eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water. ²⁵ Do not eat it, so that it may go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

²⁶ But take your consecrated things and whatever you have vowed to give, and go to the place the Lord will choose. ²⁷ Present your burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord your God, both the meat and the blood. The blood of your sacrifices must be poured beside the altar of the Lord your God, but you may eat the meat. ²⁸ Be careful to obey all these regulations I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the Lord your God.

²⁹ The Lord your God will cut off before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land, ³⁰ and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.” ³¹ You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.

³² See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Moses pointed out that anything idolatrous remaining in the land was dangerous because it might become a tool for the devil to use in tempting Israel. Oh, dear friends, if only we could rid ourselves of all the tools of this world used to distract, deceive, and dismantle our faith in God, the Father, Jesus the One and Only who saved the world from sin by His shed blood, and in His Holy Spirit who guides us to all that is God—all that is Truth!  But then again, isn’t that up to us individually to decide what we allow to come into our thoughts and guide our behaviors?  Isn’t up to us to turn the media off when we know what they are saying is not pleasing to God or good for our growing, intimate relationship with God who we say we love with ALL our hearts, minds, and souls? God gave us the ability to choose between Him or His enemy. AND God helps us when we call on His Name!  There is no one like our God!

Joshua, who follows Moses in leadership, will proclaim to God’s Chosen People in the heat of battle against the enemies, “Choose this day whom you will serve.”  Joshua  follows up with this statement of resolve; “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD!” (Joshua 24:14-15)

When faced with challenges in this life or doubts about something that doesn’t seem right in the eyes of God; we remember the decisive words of Joshua with our own declaration of our love and loyalty for God. Randy and I pause, pray, and have decided many times when challenges come into our lives to say out loud and in our hearts; “As for us and our house, the generations will know that we will love, trust, obey and serve God, the Father!”  All we are and all we have belongs to God who gave all He had for us so that we might live forever with Him.  We choose God!

What we think about most is what or who we worship.  What or who is occupying your mind right now?  Get rid of all that is not God in your mind.  Intentionally fix your full attention on God and listen to Him and watch a transformation within you take place!  This cannot happen if anything stands between us and God, blocking our view of God. In the plethora of voices, may we all stop, be still, let go of our devices and listen for God’s voice with readiness in our hearts to choose to follow what HE says today. God never fails. God always loves. God is faithful—even when we are not—God is faithsful.

Lord,

Thank you for allowing us to make the choice to follow you because we love you with all our hearts, minds, and souls.  Thank you for loving us first, teaching us through your Son how to love you back with the command to also love each other.  When your Love is our first thought, all goes well with our thinking.  I worship you. I trust you with my life for you are Life!

In Jesus Name, Amen