God gave the Israelites the ten
commandments at Mount Sinai. His presence scared the Israelites and
they begged Moses to ask God not to speak to them again. God then
spoke to Moses and gave him several instructions to give to the
people. One was that they shouldn't make elaborate altars when they
worshipped and made sacrifices to Him.
"The altars you make for Me must be
simple altars of earth. Offer on such altars your sacrifices to Me
- your burnt offerings and peace offerings, your sheep and goats
and your cattle. Build altars in the place where I remind you who I
am, and I will come and bless you there. If you build altars from
stone, use only uncut stones." Exodus 20:24, 25
The reason why God instructed them
in this way is because God knew their frail hearts. God had to
teach them from scratch how to worship Him as they had no
guidelines up to this point. He also knew that if they made
elaborate altars, sooner or later they will start worshipping the
altar instead of Him. This certainly happened not long after this
when they made an idol of gold and worshipped it, but we will get
to that. God wanted them to focus their attention on Him and not on
what was in front of them. They were even forbidden to cut the
stones, for in case they took all the glory for themselves and
prided themselves in their handiwork.
Today we need to watch out to be
too elaborate in our worship of God that we tend to forget all
about Him. Jesus warns against this too in the parable of the two
men who prayed. One was a Pharisee. He was so proud of all that he
did for God. He stood in the temple and prayed an elaborate prayer
for all to hear. In contrast the tax collector stood at a distance
and couldn't even lift his eyes up to heaven. All he did was to
beat against his chest and ask God for forgiveness for his sins.
And Jesus said:
"I tell you, this sinner, not the
Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For the proud will be
humbled, but the humble will be honored." Luke 18:14
Humble yourself before God and
focus on Him. Don't pray elaborate prayers just to impress the
person next to you, but pray to God out of the depths of your
heart. God doesn't want elaborate worship, He wants worship out of
a humble heart. That is worth more than all the gold in the
world.
Dear Father, please forgive us our
sins. Forgive us if we tend to think we have 'made it' in Your
sight. We are Your humble servants and we love You. In Jesus' Name.
Amen