-- Sunday, 7/11/10 -- WHAT IS YOUR GOD MADE OF? -- Judges 3:7
J.R. & Bonnie Ricks
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WHAT IS YOUR GOD MADE OF? -- Judges 3:7 NIV
The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.
Baal was the most commonly worshipped god in Canaan. Generally, the Canaanites cast their image of Baal in the form of a bull. Remember the golden calf the Israelites made while Moses was up on the mountain? Same god. To these people, the bull symbolized strength, endurance, and fertility. Baal had a female consort called Asherah, who was generally represented by tall wooden pillars that substituted for sacred trees. These people actually worshipped a god that they had made with their own hands! Can you believe anyone could be that stupid? No?
How about us? We worship the almighty dollar pretty easily, don't we? Every piece of folding money and every coin used in any country in the world is made by the hands of man. That's a little "bullish" isn't it? Or we worship our jobs… or our relationships -spouses, children, etc. Some of us have even been known to bow down to a Mustang or a Jaguar!
The point is, you and I construct our idols with our own hands just like the Canaanites did. And anything or anyone that we allow to come before God instantly attains idol status! We allow our hobbies to become more important than our time spent in prayer. We allow our jobs to get in the way of our time spent serving God. We'll put in overtime at work a lot quicker than we'll volunteer for a church project. We'll call a friend and ask for advice a lot quicker than we'll get down on our knees and ask God what to do. We'll pay all our bills, get the extra things we needed, put something in savings, leave enough to make it until next paycheck, and THEN write our check to the church out of what's left, right? After all, God has all the money in the world, what does He need with ours! No matter that He tells us to give Him the first and the best of what we have. God is off there in heaven somewhere; He doesn't realize how tough it is to get by nowadays.
Take a look at your relationship with God. What is your God made of? Is Jesus truly the Lord of your life? Or is He just one of the secondary gods that you serve? It's your decision.
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