Day 7: Honor Belongs to God Alone
"For you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God." — Exodus 34:14
There Is a Line Below Worship
Every Christian knows not to worship idols. Almost no Christian has thought carefully about honoring them.
But look at the wording of the commandment:
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image... You shall not bow down to them nor serve them." (Exodus 20:4-5)
Two separate prohibitions. Serve them — that is worship. Bow down to them — that is reverence, honor, deference, acknowledgment. God forbids both.
And it is the second one that catches sincere believers by surprise, because it can be done with a gesture, a gift, a token, or a ticket purchase — without a single word of prayer to anything.
Shoes, Flowers, and Museum Tickets
Shoes. Many Christians visiting Jerusalem take the standard tour, which includes the Dome of the Rock. What is the first thing required at the entrance? Remove your shoes.
Why? Because removing the shoes is an act of honor to the deity of the place. It is an ancient custom, and Scripture itself uses it — "Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground" (Exodus 3:5). Moses removed his sandals in reverence to the living God, whose presence made the ground holy.
To perform the same act at a shrine dedicated to another god is to render that god the same honor.
Flowers. The author of this teaching learned the principle at her own expense. Arriving in Hawaii for a speaking engagement, she was greeted at the church by two little girls, the pastor's daughters, each carrying a lei she had made herself. She received them with delight — she loved flowers, and the custom seemed beautiful.
That night was one of the worst of her ministry. Her mind went blank. She could not assemble two coherent sentences. In humiliation, she had to stop speaking. She knew she was under heavy attack and could not understand why her rebukes had no effect.
Pacing her room that night in tears, she was directed by the Holy Spirit to spend the next morning in the Honolulu public library researching the customs of the islands — specifically the lei.
What she found appalled her. The custom originated in the worship of the island gods. Leis were placed around the statues of the gods to appease them and to avert their demand for human sacrifice. People wore them as a token of honor and reverence, to stay in the gods' favor. Leis were placed around the necks of arriving visitors for the same purpose.
She had unwittingly accepted an emblem of honor to a false god. It brought her under a curse and gave the associated spirits legal right to attack. Only after she repented and broke that curse could she minister freely.
Museums. Around the world, ancient religious artifacts are being excavated, meticulously cleaned and restored, and installed in positions of honor where people pay money to view them. Consider what the centerpiece of any ancient culture actually was — its religion. So what is being restored and elevated is, overwhelmingly, the worship of other gods.
Scripture has an uncomfortably close parallel. In Ephesus, Demetrius the silversmith rallied the craftsmen: "Men, you know that we have our prosperity by this trade... not only is this trade of ours in danger of falling into disrepute, but also the temple of the great goddess Diana may be despised" (Acts 19:25-27).
Idols. A building housing them. Money paid to enter. Craftsmen profiting from souvenirs. The riot was ultimately about revenue. We have not changed as much as we like to think.
What God Actually Commanded Regarding Culture
Was God interested in preserving the culture of the Canaanites?
"You shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire." (Deuteronomy 7:5)
"You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it." (Deuteronomy 7:25)
"You will destroy their name from under heaven." (Deuteronomy 7:24)
That is not preservation. That is erasure — and God gave two reasons for it. First, because of the wickedness of the nations involved (Deuteronomy 9:4). Second, and more importantly for us, to keep His own people from being snared — from drifting by degrees from curiosity, to honor, to service.
And when the Ephesians came to Christ, they did not curate their old religion. "Many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed" (Acts 19:18-20).
They burned an enormous fortune. And the Word grew mightily — in that order.
The Hardest Sentence in This Study
When these principles were taught in Hawaii, some Christians became angry and accused the teacher of trying to take away their heritage.
That reaction is not unique to any one people. It surfaces everywhere, on every continent, in every ethnic group — because it touches something deep and genuinely precious.
So here is the sentence, and it applies to every reader without exception, whatever your ancestry: most earthly heritage contains some form of worship of other gods. European, African, Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American, Native American, Pacific Islander — dig far enough into any people's traditions and you will find its religion at the center.
There is real beauty in your heritage — its music, its language, its food, its family bonds, its courage, its stories. God made the nations and He delights in them; Revelation shows every tribe and tongue gathered before the throne. Not one good thing about your people is being taken from you.
But when you came to Jesus Christ, you changed citizenship. "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people" (1 Peter 2:9). You became a joint heir with Christ. And anything in your heritage that gives honor to another god must go — not because your people are worse than any other, but because every people carried this, and the King is jealous.
Why is that so hard to release? Often because of the very bondage that heritage has already brought into our lives.
The Marks We Wear
The same principle reaches all the way down to what is on your body and in your closet.
"You shall not follow a crowd to do evil." (Exodus 23:2) "Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good." (3 John 11)
Consider a commandment most of us have read past:
"You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor shall you practice divination or soothsaying. You shall not shave around the sides of your head, nor shall you disfigure the edges of your beard. You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the LORD." (Leviticus 19:26-28)
Look at the company that list keeps. Divination. Soothsaying. Blood. Cutting. Marking. These are not miscellaneous grooming rules — they sit inside a list of occult prohibitions, because throughout history these very practices were performed ceremonially to honor the spirit realm. Priests of pagan gods wore particular cuts and marks as visible signs of allegiance to the god they served.
Fads move around the world in weeks now, and a great many of them originate in places Christians would never knowingly go. Clothing and jewelry carrying occult designs give spirits something to attach to legally. It is worth asking why so many organizations, secular ones included, have found it necessary to ban certain band shirts and symbols from group events because of the behavior that follows them in.
And notice how often those involved in occult practice at any level bear a mark or tattoo of some kind. Demons like their servants marked.
What if you already have one? Then hear the good news, because the cross made provision for exactly this. Repent, ask God to forgive and cleanse you from the sin of receiving it, cover the tattoo with oil, and command every curse associated with it to be broken and every demon to flee in the name of Jesus Christ. If the design is an occult symbol or something openly lewd, consider having it covered or removed by a competent professional — especially if it was made for use in the service of darkness.
God is not asking Christians to wear a uniform. He is a God of enormous variety and delight. But remember who is called the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4), and remember this: fads become fads because they are popular with the world, and nothing belonging to Jesus Christ will ever be popular with the world.
Point to Ponder
You do not have to bow to a false god to honor one. Sometimes a gesture, a gift, or a ticket is enough.
Verse to Remember
"For you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God." — Exodus 34:14
Question to Consider
What have I honored, participated in, or worn — out of politeness, curiosity, nostalgia, or pride — without asking what it actually meant?
Today's Practice
Make a list, and be specific:
Places. Temples, mosques, shrines, sacred sites, or ceremonial grounds you have entered as a tourist. Did you remove shoes, bow, light incense, ring a bell, leave an offering, receive a blessing, or accept a token?
Tokens. Garlands, threads, bracelets, charms, red strings, blessed objects, or ceremonial gifts you have accepted.
Ceremonies. Ancestral rites, cultural ceremonies, blessings by shamans or priests of other religions, initiations, coming-of-age rituals with religious content.
Marks. Tattoos, brands, cuttings, and their meanings — including ones you got for reasons you now find hollow.
Clothing. Anything in your closet bearing occult symbols, band imagery with explicit occult content, or the emblems of other religions.
Then pray, out loud, over each item:
"Father, I confess that I gave honor to what is not God when I ______. I did not understand what I was doing, but I acknowledge it now as sin. Forgive me and cleanse me by the blood of Jesus Christ. In the name of Jesus Christ, I break every curse that came upon my life through that act, and I command every demon spirit associated with it to leave me now and never return."
Then remove and destroy what needs removing. Anoint any tattoo with oil and pray over it as above.
Finally, thank God for your family, your people, and your story — and hand Him everything in it that belonged to another god.
Prayer
Father, You are a jealous God, and I understand today that You are jealous the way a husband is jealous — not out of insecurity, but out of love that will not share.
Forgive me for the honor I have given away carelessly. For the shoes I removed. For the gifts I accepted. For the ceremonies I attended to be polite. For the symbols I wore because they looked good. For the parts of my past I have clung to because they told me who I was.
You tell me who I am. I am Yours — chosen, royal, holy, purchased. That is my heritage now, and it is better than anything I am setting down.
Cleanse me from every allegiance I made without knowing it. Let there be nothing in my life, on my body, or in my home that gives honor to anything but You. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Day 7 of 12 — When you changed kingdoms, you changed loyalties. Everything else follows from that.