God Chooses How We Worship Him - Not Us

“But I’m doing this for God.”

How many times have you heard that sentence? How many times have you said it yourself? There’s something soothing about it - the conviction that as long as the intention is good, the form doesn’t matter. That God looks at the heart, not the details. That what counts is love, not obedience.

But the Bible tells a completely different story. A story of people who wanted to worship God - sincerely, zealously, wholeheartedly - and died for it. Not because they worshipped the wrong god. Because they worshipped the right God the wrong way.

God is not indifferent to how He is worshipped. He never was. And Scripture is brutally clear about this.

Nadab and Abihu - Strange Fire

This is one of the most shocking scenes in the entire Bible. And one of the least discussed in churches - probably because its implications are uncomfortable.

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’” And Aaron held his peace.

- Lev 10:1-3 (ESV)

Pause for a moment. These were not pagans. They were not rebels. They were the sons of the high priest. Priests themselves. People ordained for God’s service. They stood at the very center of worship - closer to God than anyone else in Israel.

And they made an offering. Incense. Fire. Everything looked devout. Everything looked like worship.

Except God had not commanded it.

Aaron - a father who just watched his two sons die - held his peace. He did not protest. He did not ask “why.” He knew. God is holy. And holiness means He sets the rules.

The Golden Calf - “A Feast to the LORD”

This story is well-known - but almost always told incorrectly. Most people think the Israelites rejected God and began worshipping a pagan idol. That’s not true. The truth is far more disturbing.

Read carefully:

And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.”

- Ex 32:4-5 (ESV)

Do you see it? “A feast to the LORD” - to YAHWEH. Aaron did not announce worship of Baal. He did not introduce a foreign deity. He built an altar and said: this is a festival for our God. The same God who brought them out of Egypt.

The problem was not whom they worshipped. The problem was how they worshipped Him.

They wanted something tangible. Something they could see, touch, kneel before. Moses was on the mountain. God was invisible. And the people needed something… concrete.

And what did God say?

And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’”

- Ex 32:7-8 (ESV)

“They have turned aside… out of the way that I commanded them.” God did not say, “How nice that they remembered me, though the format could be better.” He said: they have corrupted themselves. They turned aside from the way.

They tried to worship God. Sincerely. Wholeheartedly. With joy and enthusiasm - Scripture says they sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. A great religious celebration. Music. Dancing. Devotion.

And God called it corruption.

Because they did not ask how He wanted to be worshipped. They made up their own way.

Saul’s Sacrifice - Devout Disobedience

Saul is one of the most tragic figures in the Old Testament. Chosen by God as king. Anointed by the prophet. Endowed with the Spirit of God. And rejected - not for open rebellion, not for idolatry, but for something that looked like piety.

First scene: Saul waits for Samuel at Gilgal. Samuel was supposed to come and offer a sacrifice before the battle against the Philistines. But Samuel is late. The people are scattering. The Philistines are gathering strength. The situation is critical.

And Saul makes a decision: he will offer the sacrifice himself. For God. Before the battle. To seek the Lord’s favor.

Samuel said, “What have you done?” And Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash, I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord.’ So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.”

- 1 Sam 13:11-12 (ESV)

Hear those justifications? “The people were scattering.” “You didn’t come on time.” “The Philistines were gathering.” “I wanted to seek the Lord’s favor.” Every argument sounds reasonable. Every one seems devout. Who would blame him?

God would.

And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue.”

- 1 Sam 13:13-14 (ESV)

A kingdom lost. Not for idolatry. For an unauthorized sacrifice.

But Saul did not learn this lesson. In chapter 15, he receives a clear command: destroy the Amalekites and everything belonging to them. Completely. Saul wins the battle - but spares King Agag and the best animals. Why? “To sacrifice to the Lord.”

And then comes one of the most important statements in the entire Old Testament:

Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.

- 1 Sam 15:22-23 (ESV)

To obey is better than sacrifice. Period. God does not want your creativity in worship. He wants your obedience.

The Biblical Pattern - God Is Precise

These three stories are not exceptions. They are a pattern. God is precise about how He wants to be worshipped - and the Bible documents this at every turn.

When God told Moses to build the Tabernacle - the place of His dwelling among the people - He did not say, “Build something nice.” He gave instructions so detailed they cover dimensions, materials, colors, shapes, and even the type of wood and metal.

And see that you make them after the pattern for them, which is being shown you on the mountain.

- Ex 25:40 (ESV)

“After the pattern.” Not “according to your own judgment.” Not “according to your best intentions.” After the pattern that God Himself showed.

The second commandment - the one that is systematically skipped or minimized in many church traditions - says plainly:

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God.

- Ex 20:4-5 (ESV)

And Moses, summarizing the Law before entering the Promised Land, adds:

Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female.

- Deut 4:15-16 (ESV)

“You saw no form” - and that is precisely why you must not make any images. God deliberately did not reveal Himself in a form that could be reproduced. He does not want to be represented by human hands. He does not want to be reduced to a statue, a painting, an icon.

And finally - the verse that closes the discussion:

Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.

- Deut 12:32 (ESV)

Do not add. Do not take away. God does not give “general guidelines” and does not say “do whatever you want, as long as your heart is in the right place.” He gives specific instructions and expects them to be followed. Exactly.

What About Today?

And here we arrive at the point where many readers will begin to feel uneasy. Because if God is that precise about worship - if He struck Nadab and Abihu dead for “strange fire,” if He called the golden calf “corruption,” if He took Saul’s kingdom for an unauthorized sacrifice - then what about practices that millions of Christians treat as an obvious part of their faith today?

Before I say anything further - let me say this clearly: I am not writing this with contempt for the people who practice these things. Millions of sincere, God-loving people pray to Mary, venerate saints, kneel before statues. They do it because they were taught to. Because their parents did it. Because their priests said so. I respect their sincerity.

But sincerity does not change what the Bible says. Saul was sincere too. So were Nadab and Abihu.

One Mediator

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

- 1 Tim 2:5 (ESV)

One mediator. Not two. Not five. Not a mediatrix and a mediator. One. Christ Jesus.

When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He said:

Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.”

- Matt 6:9 (ESV)

“Our Father.” Not “Our Mary.” Not “Saint John, pray for us.” Jesus - God incarnate, who knew every aspect of spiritual reality - taught us to address the Father directly. Through Himself. Without any additional mediators.

Where in the New Testament do the apostles pray to Mary? Where does Paul write, “Call upon the saints who have departed”? Where does Peter teach about relics? Where does John recommend pilgrimages to places of apparitions?

Nowhere. Absolutely nowhere.

Statues, Images, Relics

The second commandment prohibits making images in the context of worship. “You shall not bow down to them.” When someone kneels before a statue of Mary, kisses a saint’s relic, wears a medallion as protection - what is that, if not exactly what the second commandment warns against?

The answer we usually hear is: “We don’t pray TO the statue, we pray THROUGH the statue” or “It’s not worship, it’s veneration.” But the Israelites at the golden calf didn’t think they were worshipping a piece of gold either. They worshipped YAHWEH - through an image. And God rejected it.

These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

- Col 2:23 (ESV)

“Self-made religion” - worship invented by humans. “Appearance of wisdom” - it looks devout, sounds spiritual, feels good. “Of no value” - in God’s eyes.

Why Do People Do This?

If the Bible is so clear, why do people keep inventing their own forms of worship? For the same reasons as always.

The need for something tangible. This is exactly the motivation behind the golden calf. “Make us gods who shall go before us” (Ex 32:1). Moses had vanished up the mountain. God was invisible. People needed something they could see and touch. Statues, paintings, medallions, relics - it’s the same mechanism. Faith in an invisible God is hard. It’s easier to kneel before something concrete.

The need for a “gentler” mediator. In many traditions, Mary is presented as the one who “softens” God’s wrath. A mother who pleads with a stern Father for mercy. But this is an image of God that the Bible does not know. God Himself is merciful. God Himself is full of grace. He does not need someone to convince Him to show mercy - He Himself is its source.

Convenience. This is blunt, but true. It’s easier to recite a rosary than to change your life. It’s easier to light a candle before a statue than to forgive your enemy. It’s easier to go on a pilgrimage than to open the Bible every day and confront what God actually says. External rituals can become a substitute for internal transformation.

Tradition. “We’ve always done it this way.” “My grandmother did it this way.” “Our church has taught this for centuries.” This is exactly the argument of the Pharisees. The tradition of the elders. And Jesus answered it unequivocally: “You have made void the word of God because of your tradition” (Matt 15:6). (I write more about this mechanism in the article Tradition vs. Scripture.)

And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men.”

- Isa 29:13 (ESV)

“A commandment taught by men.” Not God’s commandment. A human rule, passed from generation to generation, until people forgot that it was not God who established it.

What God Actually Wants

Jesus, speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well, uttered a sentence that should be inscribed above the entrance to every church:

But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

- John 4:23-24 (ESV)

In spirit - not in statues, not in relics, not in buildings and rituals. And in truth - not in tradition, not in human teachings, not in “the way we’ve always done it.”

The prophet Micah summarizes what God expects in a single sentence:

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

- Mic 6:8 (ESV)

Not - “invent your own worship.” Not - “do what you feel.” Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God. On His terms. According to His instructions.

God has told you how He wants to be worshipped. It is in Scripture. Everything you need is written there - clearly, plainly, without ambiguity.

The question is: are you listening to Him, or to yourself?

Open the Bible. Read it. And check whether what you do in your church - every prayer, every ritual, every practice - has a foundation in the Word of God. Not in tradition. Not in what “everyone does.” In the Word.

Because Nadab and Abihu thought they were doing well too. And Aaron held his peace.