Serious Devotion

Serious Devotion

This is what the Sovereign LORD says to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys: I am about to bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places.

Ezekiel 6:3

IN WORD It’s a harsh judgment. The description of the devastation God will bring against the high places—and the people who cultivate them—is ominous and frightening. It is an indictment of idolatry that should be enough to make its practitioners repent. It’s a clear sign that God is serious about worship.

There’s a purity of worship to which God calls us repeatedly throughout Scripture. He’s rather emphatic about it. It isn’t just a suggestion or a request. It’s a life-or-death command that we are told to follow. And because most of us are fickle followers, we’re given a promise of divine assistance through the power of the Holy Spirit. Our true, pure worship is a holy preoccupation of the Father. Whenever we take it casually, we can simply read this passage for a wake-up call. God’s desire for our wholehearted, single-minded worship is intense.

Most of us grow up wondering what career we will have or who we will marry. We envision our life and fill our dreams with hopes and adventures. We make plans and pursue them as though these issues will define our lives. But they won’t. The most important issue we need to clear up is less about what we do and more about who we worship. A wholehearted devotion to the One who created and redeemed us is paramount. It’s the most important thing we can ever decide.

IN DEED Try a little exercise: Compare the amount of time you spend thinking about how to accomplish your career and relationship goals with the time you spend thinking about how to purify your worship. If you’re like most people, the most important issue loses that contest.

Turn that tide. Make what’s most important to God also most important to you. Get in line with His holy agenda for your life, and judge your high places before He has to. Be as serious about your worship as He is.

No one has ever lost out by excessive devotion to Christ.

—H. A. IRONSIDE