Chasing Superstitions

"He explained, "This is where the priests will cook the meat from the guilt offerings and sin offerings and bake the flour from the grain offerings into bread. They will do it here to avoid carrying the sacrifices through the outer courtyard and harming the people by transmitting holiness to them." (Ez. 46:20 NLT)

I thought the underlined passage was an interesting choice of words that I didn't quite understand. Peeking into Matthew Henry's Commentary regarding the passage, the guideline to not bring the cooked offering into the people exists in order to prevent the people from developing a superstition of ascribing holiness to the sacrificial animal rather than to God Himself.

What that reminded me of are the little superstitions that we adopt so easily. It doesn't matter if you are religious or secular, we easily ascribe luck to this object or that circumstance in hopes that we might find a key to favor or avoid curses.

I remember a couple years back when my favorite football team was having a particularly hot season and need to keep winning games, they fell behind 21 points in the first quarter. Looking around, I realized that my wife never watched the games with me all season, so I promptly banished her out of the room. What kind of crazy thinking was this (let's forget that my team later rallied and won the game in the 4th quarter)? What kind of difference could my wife's eyes on the television have on the outcome of a football game thousands of miles away? I was attributing power to a crazy personal superstition.

In this passage, God reveals Himself to desire our whole hearts to Him alone. We will all die and undergo judgment. What superstition will be rely upon then? What would we charm and persuade God with? -- Our hearts. That is what God desires. Our whole hearts committed unto Him in worship every second of our lives. No, not just God be my Savior, but it also means, I call you Lord of my life and humble myself to worship only you - not man, not myself, not money, not superstition. I will only chase You, my Lord and Savior.

Lord Jesus, in all the ways that I've been applying superstition, in all the ways that I've been worshipping the blessing rather than the Blessor, please expose and help me to delete these things from my life. Thank You for this word today, and for Your continued patience and grace to Your servant. In Jesus' name, AMEN.