| Good morning everyone, Our theme for this month: “Knowing God” Our Bible verse for today: “Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them.” Exodus 20:3-5 (CSB) Our thought for today: “We don’t need idols” Right off the bat in the Ten Commandments God instructs us that we are not to create idols for ourselves that serve as gods, represent gods, or in any way supplant the One True God. But why would we be tempted to do so to begin with? What’s the attraction of an idol? Although we can make an idol out of anything and give it the place and priority that essentially makes it a “god” in our lives, traditionally and historically an idol was something created by human hands to represent a deity, and it was then worshiped. The reason this has always been true is because as Solomon taught in Ecclesiastes 3:11, “God has placed eternity in the heart of man.” In other words, God created human beings with an innate understanding that there is more than just this life; there is a spiritual world and there is a God; and we yearn to know that God and to have life after death. So, in an attempt to fulfill that yearning deep in the human heart, from the beginning of time humans have created idols to represent their understanding of God, and they then worshiped those idols. To deal once and for all with this deep yearning in the human heart, God came to us in the person of Jesus Christ. This is what the Incarnation is all about. Immanuel, God with us. By showing Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ, God addressed and resolved the human desire for idols which are intended to represent God, or a god. As A.W. Tozer noted in his book, “The Knowledge of the Holy”, “If we insist upon trying to imagine Him, we end with an idol.” That’s true because our imagination will naturally lead us to create a god for ourselves who satisfies our own ideas of what God should be like. But Jesus changed all that. Through Jesus we see God as He wants to be seen. This is why deep and careful study of the Gospels is so vital to our spiritual growth. Again, quoting from Tozer, “The yearning to Know what cannot be known, to comprehend the Incomprehensible, to touch and taste the Unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man. Deep calleth unto deep … the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its Source. How can this be realized? The answer of the Bible is simply “though Jesus Christ our Lord.” Because of the Incarnation of Christ, we don’t need idols. If we want an image of God, we only need to look to Jesus. God bless, Pastor Jim |
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