Friday, September 2: Deuteronomy 23- Illicit money and the worship of God.

Verse 18: You must not bring the earnings of a female prostitute or of a male prostitute into the house of the LORD your God to pay any vow, because the LORD your God detests them both.

If I read this ancient rule correctly, if I were to make money through a means God detests, then I should not use that money to pay off a vow to the Lord, and likely by extrapolation my tithe.

The more I muse on this the more it makes sense. Since the Lord is not pleased by participating in this activity in the first place, why would I think that using its proceeds to make good on a vow would please God.

The Lord desires integrity… meaning the whole of my life is committed to Him. If my whole life is committed to Him then I would not be involved in illicit activities in the first place, right?

As I sit with these words before me, God’s prompting is to examine my life from the 200-foot level, taking the full view and asking, “Am I honoring God in my endeavors? Are my actions, relationships and even my motivations honoring to the Lord? Am I the same person in the shadows as in the light? Am I a man of integrity?”

These are powerful questions to ponder…

How about you?

Search me and know my ways. See if there is any wickedness or hiddenness in me. And Lord as You find things, please do whatever surgery is necessary to root the evil and wrong from my life. I pray this with fear and trepidation in Jesus’ name. Amen.

 

No comments:

Post a Comment