I promise God right now that I will not let my relationship to Him be determined by place. Godliness is not produced by topography.
How vividly Jesus made this point to the woman at the well (John 4). She was emphatic about Mount Gerizim, “the place where men ought to worship” (4:20). Jesus replied that it did not matter where she worshiped; it was the how that she had to be correct about. The how of worship is in spirit, that is, in being properly tuned to God spiritually.
I am impressed with Jeremiah’s parable of the ripe and spoiled figs (Jeremiah 24). The good figs were the Jews who had been taken captive to Babylon, while the rotten figs were the Jews who remained in the Holy Land.
The parable ends forever the sin of place. Babylon was supposed to be the evil place, Judah the good. But that was not true of the figs for the rotten ones were in the good place; the good ones in the rotten place.
How this speaks to my heart just now! Babylon with all its evils did not corrupt the captive Jews. Why? Because the right kind of geography was inside them, not outside. Their hearts were right though their surroundings were evil. It was exactly the reverse with the Judean Jews, whose hearts were wrong though their surroundings were right.
How often I have blamed my friends, my family, my job, or my environment for hindering my progress with God. False! The blame lies in my own negligent heart. The battle is won or lost within myself. Babylon can become my purest heaven, or Judea my deepest hell, depending upon the state of my heart. God, I thank You that Jesus was a “tender plant” in a dry desert (Isaiah 53:2, KJV). You want to make me the opposite of my surroundings, a touch of heavenly beauty in a barren land.
“God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).
Daily with the King 