Here is the thing, everyone worships something.
It’s not a Christian thing. It’s not even a religious thing. Worship is a human thing. We are all worshipers. We hold things in places of glory in our lives. And we do that to the exclusion of everything else. We sacrifice for those things. In Old Testament times that meant going to the temple and sacrificing animals. Today, it means we give our time. We give them our talents. We give them our money. We love them. Some of us worship our jobs. Some of us worship our cars; our money; sex; sports. Some of us worship ourselves.
We are all called to worship God. And to have no other Gods before Him. You are called to worship the king of the universe. Our Creator. The Creator of all things. But our temptation is to worship CREATED things in place of the Creator.
Romans 1:24-25 “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because
they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!”
The thing is, we subconsciously believe that created things will save us. We think they will make us happy. If you are a guy who believes that only success and money will make you happy, its possible that you will sacrifice everything for it. You will sacrifice your health. You will sacrifice your family. Because you think it will make you happy. If you are a girl who is terrified of being alone your whole life you might sacrifice things to be with someone you shouldn’t be with. You might sacrifice your dignity. You might sacrifice your body. Because being alone is bad and a boy will make you happy. These things are idols. We worship them. We sacrifice for them. We love them.
We become like what we worship. If you worship food you will become a glutton. If you worship alcohol you will become a drunk. If you worship sex you will become a pervert. It’s because we become dedicated to those things. They promise to make you happy but it’s a lie. Remember Romans. They “…exchanged the truth of God for a lie..”. But only God will make you happy
(editors note: probably more accurate to say 'only God has the ability to bring you true joy' in that we only truly find ourselves in light of who God is.')I'm reminded of our current series in Genesis when Adam and Eve believed they needed something more than what they already had in their relationship with God. They trusted in something else bringing them their true 'identity or happiness' and so they took the bite. It's not even that they bit something terrible... they just put their trust in themselves to decide as opposed to their creator. Thy were worshipping in a sense themselves... we do the same things in what we give ourselves to.
We have to repent of worshiping things other than God. He is jealous. And to worship anything else is to exchange God’s truth for lies. It's not what we were made for and it's not what God deserves. Lets make sure we worship Creator.
-Jason and Patrick
