"How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same."

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, 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.” 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. (Deuteronomy 12:29-31 NIV)

I don't know about you, but I can see a lot of similarities between the wandering and/or exiled Israelites and us Christians today. We never belong or fit in with this world or culture. The world may even hate us as it hated Jesus and killed him on his day a couple millennia ago.

The culture wars of this week are a powerful reminder of this fact for me. Our core beliefs found in Scripture are of God, our Creator and Designer, and our call to submit to Him our entire beings! Also, that God our Creator and Savior desires our sanctification from the many forms of sexual immorality that we are tempted to! (1 Thess. 4)

In my reading today in Deuteronomy the above passage stuck out to me because I think it reveals the true motives of many Christians who compromise God's desires for family and sexuality so that they can worship our culture's idols the same way that they do.

As God's people it's a shameful thing that we look to our culture for cues on how to live and what it means to be a 'good person'. Lots of TV shows that I watch will have these 'good people' sleeping around and/or with someone they aren't married to, breaking vows and promises, lashing out in anger, withholding forgiveness, nursing grudges, abusing drugs and alcohol, wasting thousands of dollars on shopping sprees... All in the name of being a 'victim' and still a 'good person'. And then we go do the same!

Part of our call to renew our minds (Romans 12) is to forsake our culture's categories of what is good and beautiful, especially when it goes against God's word. Let's be aware of when and how we seek examples from non-believing individuals, wondering how they treat their family or spend their money.

This passage of Moses' preaching to the people of Israel was such a powerful reminder to me this morning! There is no requirement to imitate everything about our culture, even in the midst of this culture war. It's a sign of making ourselves vulnerable to the wrong person if we do! So I'll go to God with my weakness and my questions.