Surrendering the High Places

 

I just finished reading through all of Kings and Chronicles in the Old Testament, and one of the repeated themes that I kept seeing was a phrase that went something like:

"He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord... Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places."

At first glance, it seems like a small detail, but it reveals something significant.

Now this isn’t my first time reading through these books, and I have noticed this phrase before. Most often I am struck by how God used both good and evil kings to fulfill His purposes. But this time, I kept thinking about this repeated phrase. I began to see it in light of some recent topics I’ve been studying—God’s holiness and our surrender to Him.

The high places were places of compromise. Even when the worship there was supposedly directed to Yahweh, it was worship on human terms rather than God's terms. They represented areas where God's people had not fully surrendered to Him. The people continued to worship Yahweh while mixing in pagan practices. Many of the godly kings genuinely loved the Lord, yet they left the high places standing.

As I read this, I was reminded of God’s call to us to be holy. He calls us to be holy as He is holy (Leviticus 11:44,45).

In the New Testament, Paul writes:

"Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God." (2 Corinthians 7:1)

And Peter echoes the command first given in Leviticus:

"As He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct." (1 Peter 1:15–16)

The call to holiness means there can be no areas of our lives that we intentionally leave unsurrendered to God. By His grace and through the work of the Holy Spirit, we are to tear down our own "high places."

Those high places may look different for each of us. They may be cherished sins we excuse, bitterness we refuse to release, pride we protect, fears we cling to, or idols that quietly compete for our affection. They are the places where we want Jesus to be Savior but hesitate to let Him be Lord.

The truth is, those places never remain neutral. What we tolerate eventually shapes us. The very things we refuse to surrender often become the places where we struggle the most.

Thankfully, the gospel doesn't leave us there. God doesn't expose our high places to shame us but to free us. He patiently, lovingly calls us to repentance, not because He wants something from us, but because He desires something better for us—deeper fellowship with Him and lives that increasingly reflect His holiness.

As I finished reading Kings and Chronicles, I found myself asking a simple but searching question:

What high places still remain in my own heart?

It's a question worth asking because God isn't interested in partial surrender. He is worthy of all of us.

Pure Religion: What Genuine Faith Looks Like

This morning, as I read these verses, I noticed something I had not really paid attention to before. Often, when people speak about the Christian faith, they say, “True religion means caring for orphans and widows.” They often use those words as if James were giving a command. But when I looked closer, I saw that James is not speaking in command language here. He is describing what a life surrendered to Christ will look like.

James is showing us the outward evidence of inward faith. The word he uses for religion refers to the visible expression of worship—our acts of devotion toward God. In other words, James is not talking about empty rituals, but about a faith that can be seen in everyday life.

He gives us three clear marks of pure and genuine religion: a controlled tongue, caring for those in need, and remaining unstained by the world.

First, our words matter deeply to God. Scripture repeatedly reminds us that the tongue has power to heal or wound, to build up or tear down. Jesus warned that we will give account for careless words, and James himself says the tongue is difficult to tame. If our worship on Sunday is sincere, it should shape the way we speak on Monday.

Second, genuine faith moves us toward the vulnerable. Caring for widows, orphans, and those in need has always mattered to the heart of God. Compassion is not an optional extra for believers. It is one of the ways Christ’s love becomes visible through us.

Third, James says pure religion remains unstained by the world. This does not mean withdrawing from people or living in fear. It means refusing to let the values, desires, and corruption of this world shape our hearts more than Christ does. We are called to live differently because we belong to Him.

Many people emphasize caring for others, and rightly so. But James does not separate these things. If our speech is careless, if our hearts love the world, or if we ignore those in need, something is out of order. Pure religion touches every part of life.

So today, prayerfully consider before the Lord:

• Is your relationship with Jesus positively affecting others?
• Are your words building people up or tearing them down?
• Are you caring for those in need with both compassion and truth?
• Is your love for Christ shaping you more than the world is?

Pure religion is not found in appearances or empty claims. It is seen in a life being changed by Jesus—one word, one choice, and one act of love at a time.