Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God

Deu 8:11 Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments...


We aren't raised to worship. We aren't. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that most of us aren't raised to worship God. I must had God because we are raised to worship at the alter of self-serving. Worship as I was growing up meant getting dressed in my Sunday best and going off to Sunday school for an hour and then to Sunday service for another hour and then once I returned home off came the Sunday best and it was put away until the next week. Two hours with a little extra for travel thrown in, so let's round it off to three hours and then worshipping God was all over. The rest of the day wasn't a normal day though, not really. It was the day to get in all the fun we could because the next day was a school day and everyone knew that school interfered with having fun. At worst, the rest of the day meant cramming in the free time fun and possibly a few hours of homework study before school came all too fast the next day. We were taught to compartmentalize God into that two hours and into before dinner prayers, and a quick learned by rote night time prayer. God was in our lives just put into little time slots.


A day of restful worship of God wasn't always a day of restful worship but rather a few hours of rest in worship and then back into the grind of things. Even my father used that day for yard working and my mother for preparing nice meals- work. A day of worship didn't mean a full day of worship and so the reality of God setting aside an entire 24 hour period seems almost ludicrous. 24 hours spent worshipping God? But how? What happens after the two hours of worship with others (if that is what one does in light of all the knowledge out there)?


Why am I dwelling on this one commandment when Deuteronomy 8:11 says - 'Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments...'


I think I'm dwelling on the fourth commandment because it's the only one prefaced with the word- REMEMBER.


We do forget the Lord our God. We do it all the time. We compartmentalize Him and His place in our lives. If you have 24 hours in which to worship Him it's very hard to forget Him during that time whether or not you are worshipping Him *rightly* so to speak.


Set aside the Sabbath day- sundown Friday to sundown Saturday and use it only for the glory of God. You'll realize quickly how much of your life is centered around yourself and your own devices and not God. How do you worship for 24 hours? It's easy to worship ourselves all the time we just have to sit back and do whatever it is we want to do for whatever reason we want to do it. Yes, we have to work, but after work is over it's play time, or free time, even if it's just to rest for ourselves, take a nap, read a book, take a long hot bath. We've perfected the art of self-worship. Is it different for those raised to worship God for a full day? Or do they tend to fall into the same trap in a different way? Do they get bogged down into a lifeless routine?


There is danger of forgetting God in many, many ways. People live their entire lives without thinking of God or caring to remember anything He might have had to say let only keeping His commandments.


There is a danger in forgetting God, in forgetting His commandments, His ways. If we forget God we will be forgotten by Him. It's a sad, sad situation that we will be in because the pain and heartache of this world is all we truly have here mingled with a few ups that lull us into believing that it's a good enough life that we don't need God in it to mess things up. A life devoted to God is a life of extra hardship but it's reward far outweighs anything even remotely satisfying to us on earth now.


May God bless us and help us to learn to worship Him as He commands, a worship that is filled with rewards for us if only we'd truly see it that way. Let us not forget the LORD our God.


By the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior now and forever.


Amen.