Deuteronomy 12 - Worshipping for God, Not Ourselves: A Divine Priority
The clear teaching on how God desires worship from His people is very specific here. When God is repeating Himself, it is always a sign that what He is saying is something humans will struggle with more than other things. Thankfully, God leaves no question here as to what the priority must be when it comes to worshiping Him. I think of the song "Heart of Worship" when it comes to this topic. It is one of the biggest valid concerns that more traditional sects have against more modern worship music just to use a modern example. The heart must be towards worshiping God or it is not pleasing to God. The other message here that is taught is that our worship needs to be on God's terms, not our own. Just because we enjoy something or are interested in something, that does not automatically mean it is worship to God. God has statutes, moral law, and expectations of His people and those should come far before any cope we manufacture to tell ourselves that we are doing something with the right heart attitude. The heart can only serve one master.
We often trick ourselves into thinking that there are two paths where only one leads to pleasing God. The better way to view this from our limited human perspective is actually three paths. Our hearts are deceptive beyond what we can perceive without the Holy Spirit's guidance and it is way too common for us to claim we are doing something good because we have the mere intent of pleasing God. Jesus rebuked this behavior sternly in Matthew 15 when he rebukes the Pharisees who were claiming to love God more by donating all their belongings to the synagogue as an excuse not to care for their parents using those resources. God has explicit commands and moral law that rebukes certain behaviors and encourages other behaviors.
Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” 3 He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 5 But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,”[a] 6 he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word[b] of God.
We must always be extremely honest, self-aware, and careful that our hearts are not deceived in this way when participating in anything. If we truly say we enjoy something that is sinful more than something that is pleasing to God, how can we claim to love God? Jesus' teaching on this topic goes much further than just the context of money He is preaching this on.
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust[e] destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.[f]
This is perfectly consistent with the teaching in Deuteronomy 12 as well. "You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes" We are to worship God the way God wants us to worship. If we are educated on the way God wants us to serve Him, yet we try to convince ourselves we don't have to abide by these rules because "our hearts are in the right place", we need to examine that claim very closely as there is a 100% chance that our hearts are not in the right place. Our worship should always line up with what God wants from us over what we want to do "for God". God is in control, not us; the decision is not ours to make, it is His. Nobody can claim to love and serve God while rejecting His desires for their lives. This is one of the most consistently convicting things to dwell on and I need to regularly pray and reflect on it in my own life.