One Place of Worship

There has been a lot of talk about all kinds of gods, media gods, money gods, pron gods, gods who die because they are not worshiped anymore, ect. Again going back to the bible and the OT when God (note the capital "G) was talking to Moses and giving instructions about the "People of God" moving into their inheritance he (God) made it very clear to Moses that the people were to and I quote, "Destroy completely all the places on the high mountain and on the hills and under every spreading tree where the nations you are dispossessing worship 'there 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." This had to happen before Moses and the tribes of Israel could worship God in their new land. The one true God could not have any trace of any other god on the ground that was going to be used to worship him. We must destroy all the high mountains and hills and all other gods (money, media,pride and so forth) in our hearts because our hearts are our worship place our ground so to speak and no other gods are to be there. "To the Lord your God belong the heavens, EVEN THE HIGHEST HEAVENS the earth and everything in it. Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer." In other words make your heart pure as a place of worship for the one God who always was and always will be wheather or not if we continue to BELIEVE in him or not. This God does not die and continues to exist in spite of us or because of us. He is our creator but does not MAKE us come to him in worship he gave us FREE WILL and we either give him our hearts or we don't. If we do decide to worship him he made it very clear to Moses that we must destroy any other gods first before we can come to him.

reply to post by Grandma

the only problem with that as i see it is this: it is undeniable that people as a rule MUST dedicate more of their time to god Money, or god Media, to survive and have a roof over their heads. see, to survive todays world, you must SACRAFICE more time and energy to your job to get the money needed to survive. i doubt there is anyone besides a few select monks who are able to sevote more time and energy into worship of God than they do other things. how could one possibly expect to give God an equal slot in all of this and still support a family. if u work 12 hours a day and need a minimum of 6 hours to sleep, plus shower time and eating time, one is not left with much time for worship, even if you go to a church or read scripture every sunday, you are still supporting the other gods i have mentioned more so than the true God. Now you did mention something about doing this in your heart, which would come into play and help bridge the gap a lot. i do understand that if God is still the chief concern in your heart, then you are giving him a bigger slot of your energy that way, but there IS STILL a place in that heart for the other gods....how can one completely destroy these other places in the way you have described? i just do not see how it is possible, the demands (yes, demands) that God lays out in the old testament are just simply to much to be considered possible. if everyone on earth lived the life of a monk, we would have nothing. no one to even print the bibles we were supposed to be reading. i am not trying to bring your idea less credit, but trying to understand your position better.

Whats better then a family debate?

The issue I have is this. If its about free will and HOPE that we come to God and place Thee in our hearts, WHY was all hope lost for these nations that supposedly 'did not know God'. Are you saying God lost hope, not only in these nations, but also their children? And why, if this was Gods way of letting us know which God was right, WHY then when Jesus came (God in the flesh, right?) all of the sudden, Gods attitude has changed? There were still 'false' Gods in the time of Jesus, but now all of the sudden, God has grace? With in these nations that were doing wrong in Gods eyes, there were children. Was there no hope for these children??? And look at all the wrong things Gods people did do. How many commandments did they brake?? Oh, but God chose them, so he shall forgive them and keep hope in them because they were chosen, right?

And if its all about our 'free will' where in the world was the respect for those nations that did wrong for their FREE WILL. Were they not supposed to have free will? God gets upset and impatient since they didnt obey? This sounds like a forceful God...

God in not like us, changing his mind all the time. God is consistent. To say God did take that land from the nations that were doing wrong just because he CHOSE Abraham (who did not walk a straight road) and also God made 12 tribes out of a man who was helped by his mother to trick his Father (Isaac) to receive the inheritance...why was God only forgiving to them but not to these other nations? If this is Gods work,how prejudice is this? How hopeless he was to these other nations? Why didnt Jesus fulfill the promise and take the land and give it to the ones who were to inherit it? Wasn't he to fulfill the promise? Ah, but Jesus was about Gods grace, so the promise I guess wasn't meant to be kept. If God meant for true 'peace on earth' he would not continue to separate man into groups, he would not continue to point out our differences, he would not look at ONE nations, he would reach out to them all. I guess all the OT hero's were so special that their wrongs were not wrongs enough to be killed, like the other nations. Do you really think there is blood on Gods hands due to the loss of hope in a nation AND their children? Why wouldn't God show them grace in the OT? Ah, oh yeah, because it wasnt time for grace yet, it was a time for the LAW. OK, so God brings the law, do not kill yada yada....and then he instructs them to go against the law he gave, but Im sure God made a excuse for this somewhere.

Best intentions here mother

LV

reply to post by Enigma Publius

My dear son: Yes, it is true the people in the OT found it very difficult to follow THE LAW that God gave to Moses. They wondered around in the desert for 40 years because of their straying away from following the commandments.
Jesus came in the NT to show us yes the Law was important and we still strive to follow it but because of GRACE we were shown the true nature of God. His love, mercy, and forgiveness. We don't need to live the life of a monk to be able to worship the Lord. We just need to try to live as the spirit directs us and be humble in our walk and love one another as our Father loves us. We are all a part of the FAMILY and help each other worship God through our daily tasks and comings and goings.