Day 18 – Groves

“Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the LORD thy God, which thou shalt make thee.” Deuteronomy 16:21 KJV
Mentioned on day two of this devotional is the meaning of grove: a field with the same type of trees. Elaborating on this definition, a grove is a wooded area of the same type of trees with little undergrowth. It can be wild (olive grove) or agricultural (orange grove). Grove implies more pastoral, less maintained land with fewer people working there. Jesus frequently visited the olive grove, which made me wonder about this law.
The Hebrew Strongs translation (H842) for the word groves in this verse is “ãshêrâh” referring to the ancient pagan goddess Asherah. Wooden poles (Asherah poles) were erected as a symbol of idol worship and God implemented this law and mentions in verse 22 that He hates them. Not that he hates groves such as the definition we were looking at. See, sometimes we let our attention drift from God’s altar to what the grove of the world offers us.
It is the same in our lives and ministries. We focus on man-made, seemingly harmless “groves” instead of the Creator of spiritual groves. Do we, like Jesus, choose to pray in the olive groves or are we building and allowing Ahserah poles?
Prayer: Father, it is sometimes in ignorance that we build and allow Asherah poles close to Your altar, taking our focus from You to the world. Other times we build them without realizing what we are doing. We might think it is in Your Name when we should know any form of idol worship is a thing You hate. Forgive us Father for the groves we visited were not created by You. Help us to break them down as Gideon did. Amen.

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