TREASURES FROM THE BIBLE, Week of July 5-11, 2021, “How does Jehovah want us to worship him?” (10 min.), Prepared Speech.

TREASURES FROM THE BIBLE, July 5-11, 2021: “How does Jehovah want us to worship him?” (10 min.), Speech.

"How does Jehovah want us to worship him?" (10 mins.)

Jehovah demands exclusive devotion from those who are and want to be part of his people. God's servants leave their lives behind to put on the new Christian personality and dedicate themselves to God. This implies that it will always occupy the first place, there is nothing more important and profound changes have had to be made so that Jehovah is in our heart, in our mind and in our soul.

The priorities of this system are material and fleeting. The priorities of a servant of God are eternal and generate true happiness. However, we continue to live in this material system dominated by Satan and it is normal that although we have different priorities from other people, we share many of the same problems.

But a Christian faithful and loyal to Jehovah relies on him for these problems and throws his burden on him, not letting these problems dominate his life. The only thing that dominates our lives is our sacred, pure and loyal service to Jehovah. Everything else, as the Bible says, will be added. Problems don't control our lives because we let the Bible guide us through them.

An example of a problem in this system is money, and the solution that many people find is to work and work longer hours, neglecting what is really important, such as their family. A Christian knows that this is not a problem nor should it dominate their lives, there are many solutions that the Bible gives us to this problem and many others. A modest life raises our happiness a lot, because money is not relevant, the main thing in that life are the things that really give life.

This is how a Christian lives in this system, ignoring what the world says to have, do or achieve. If not what the Bible says, we obey Jehovah and his Word just as God commanded us, just as he commanded the Israelites. We know his commandments, and we have the bad example of the Israelites so that the same does not happen to us.

What Jehovah asks of us is always for our well-being, our happiness and so that we can enjoy a better future, a future that truly is life.

Deuteronomy 11:13

"And if you absolutely obey the commandments that I am commanding you today, you love Jehovah your God and serve him with all your heart and with all your soul."

If we do so as we just read, the later verses say what the Israelites would receive. Rains without fail for the earth in due time, cereals, new wine, oil, vegetation for the animals, abundance of food… and many and many more blessings. They would have everything, they would not have to worry about anything, just trust that Jehovah would provide everything he promised.

And what did he ask them in return? Only your obedience. Just as a father expects his beloved son. Because he knows that this way he will be safe, protected and happy, he will not get into trouble.

That Jehovah cares for each one of us, that each of his commandments is for our good, are some of the reasons why it costs us so little to obey what he tells us. Because we love him, we fear him, and the last thing we want to do is fail him or make him feel bad about our actions and actions.

How does a Christian make Jehovah proud of our obedience? We know that we are imperfect, we know that we do many things wrong every day, and we also know that we strive to be better people, better Christians every day. Jehovah sees the effort we make to obey him, that his commandments guide our lives and conduct.

This effort is reflected in our daily service to Jehovah because we do it with all our souls. And not only of all soul, but of all heart and mind as well. These concepts are repeated in biblical verses and Jesus also used the word mind.

When we refer to the soul, this means that our entire body obeys that command or what we are doing. Therefore, when we say that we must serve Jehovah with our whole soul, it is that our whole being, our whole person is focused on obeying and doing things according to him.

However, this concept of soul is supported and complemented by others, such as heart and mind. And this is very important because it reflects the importance of the obedience that we must demonstrate.

The example that the faithful and prudent slave gives us is that of a slave, who attends to his obligations with all his soul, with all his body, his capacities, etc. But this does not mean that he wants to do it from the heart, that if he could he would be elsewhere.

Likewise, our obedience and sacred service to Jehovah must be whole-souled, but also whole-hearted and whole-minded; we have to do it with full motivation and conviction and with the desire to please him.

Jehovah demanded that everything having to do with false religion be destroyed. If we obey with all soul, heart and mind, we will too. And this implies that although we as Christians do not have any of this, we will move away from anything or person that may be a stumbling block in this regard.

Because we do it with all our hearts, we are aware of the importance of Jehovah's commands and we do not leave any loose ends that could be contaminating our Christian personality.

Deuteronomy 12: 2,3

“You must completely destroy all the places where the nations you will conquer have served their gods, whether they are on high mountains, on hills, or under any leafy tree. They must destroy their altars, smash their sacred columns, burn their sacred posts in fire and tear down the sculpted images of their gods, thus erasing their names from that place. "

The order was very clear, there is no doubt of the exclusive devotion that Jehovah wants. Although those poles or elements will no longer be used for these practices, they had to destroy and burn everything that had any relationship or was used at some point in time for it.

We are to reflect on everything we do in our lives at all times, and see if there is something, a small hint that can make us put material feelings or desires first in our lives before Jehovah. And if there is, burn it immediately.

Jehovah wants us to worship only him, and in the way he asks of us. He only commanded Israel to have a single altar to worship him, unlike the many who had these false religions and their multiple forms. Our service to Jehovah is very clear, we know how and where to do it and what we should give of ourselves.

We must remember that today there are many forms of idolatry ... it does not have to be an image or a carved figure. Anything that takes time away from our service to God, anything we want to do more than our service to Jehovah, anything that comes first in our lives would be displacing God and our worship would be in jeopardy.

To prevent this from happening, we must not be like a slave. We must dedicate our lives in all soul, heart and mind to Jehovah, we have to reject everything that has to do with false religion and everything that involves us distancing ourselves from God.

In this way, we will be spiritually healthy serving God together as a united people just as we do every day of our lives in the company of our brothers and families.