"But you are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling...there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you have vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. There, in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the Lord your God has blessed you."

Deut 12:5-7

Horrible things occurred ‘on the high mountains … and under every spreading tree’ (v. 2), the worst of which is mentioned in verse 31. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in his 1983 Templeton Address, summarized the dreadful things that had happened in the Western world in the twentieth century in four words, ‘Men have forgotten God’. Review the six references in this chapter to ‘the place the Lord your God will choose’. A particular place is not named, and it is not said that there will be only one. The key thing is that the Lord has his name (his well-defined, clearly revealed nature) and his habitation (his settled place among his people) there. Three times in this chapter, the Israelites are specifically commanded to rejoice there (vv. 7, 12, 18). Later, the temple at Jerusalem became this special place. Later still, biblical worship sprang away from a place to a Person, when the ‘Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us’ (jn 1:14). The Lord is worshipped around the world in an amazing variety of buildings, but when these are blown up, swept away, forbidden, or closed, the worship can still continue because we are worshipping a Person who has promised to be with us always.

Closing Prayer

Thank you, Jesus, that always, everywhere, in every circumstance, I have access to the Father through you. Thank you for the people I meet in my place of worship (edited from Encounter with God).