Take a moment to read Deuteronomy 13 before reading the devotional below.
“That’s the worst!” I said and laughed. I was on a date with my wife, and we had ordered a deep dish pizza. Or at least we thought we had. Apparently the word “sicilian” doesn’t mean what I think it means. The pizza was actually a very thin crust. My wife smiled. She had been prepared to endure the deep dish pizza for my sake, but she’d clearly prefer this one. “Maybe not the worst,” she said. In that moment, my mind went to all the things that would really be “the worst.” Harm coming to my family was top of the list. Then harm coming to my church. The pizza clearly wasn’t really the worst. It was only third.
As Moses continues this inspired teaching about how to live as the people of God, he addresses what God genuinely thinks is “the worst.” One might think of murder as the worst sin, or lying, perhaps. Some might think of greed or adultery. God is very clear in this chapter: the worst thing is idolatry. There is nothing worse than putting something, anything, in the place that God Himself deserves. In our lives, God is like the keystone of an arch. If a keystone isn’t placed correctly, all the stones fall out of the arch. In our lives, if God doesn’t have the place he deserves, the rest of our lives fall apart.
If you keep God in the proper place in your life, you have a far better chance of keeping everything else in the right place. Guard his place in your life carefully, and he will guard the rest of your life. He promises to care for you, to protect you, to bless you. Why would you ever want to live apart from that?