“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name to dwell there.” (Deuteronomy 26:1-2)
Today, as throughout history, the worship of many religions focuses on gods and spirits, or addresses the dead or is for the benefit of the dead. We see this in Buddhism, Shintoism, the New Age religions as well as in some parts of Christianity. Prayer is often made to a dead person to enlist his or her aid or made on behalf of the dead person to ensure their entrance into heaven or nirvana. While it can be a comfort for those who mourn to talk to their departed loved ones, they cannot hear or answer us for, if they are in heaven, they are focused on the Lord. And if they are not, well they are utterly beyond our help.
Such practices are abominations to God. He alone, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is worthy of all our worship. In addition, The Word of God declares that Jesus Christ alone is our mediator with the Father. No human being is as powerful nor as loving and kind as He. And, according to Jesus, all our prayers, worship, and attention should be directed to God, our Father.
In our reading from the book of Deuteronomy we see this principle. Deuteronomy focuses on the Law of God, on His requirements for the behavior of His people. One of those requirements, the first commandment in fact, is that we worship Him alone. To emphasize this, the Lord required offerings and sacrifices to be made at one central sanctuary, and only to the Lord God Almighty. All worship was to be focused on Him. He alone is worthy of thanksgiving and praise for all that He has done. He alone is the creator and sustainer of all life.
Therefore, all prayer is to be addressed to Him to seek His aid, or to thank and praise Him for Who He is and what He has done and continues to do. He is Almighty God. He loves us so much that He came down to earth as a man to die for our sins. None of the other so-called gods worshipped in our world is as loving and as compassionate as He.