There is none like You among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like Yours. All the nations You have made shall come and worship before You, O Lord, and shall glorify Your name. For You are great and do wondrous things. You alone are God. (Verses 8-10)
...we know that an idol has no real existence, and that there is no God but one. For although there may be many so-called gods in heaven or on earth--as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"--yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
1 Corinthians 8:4-6
There is only one God with a capital G. Oh, there are other little g's trying to lord it over us, but they are not as powerful as they want to make us think. Idols, really. Manmade. Like movie stars. Or tyrants. Or the little Buddhas that stare at me in the nail salon as they sit, belly forward, surrounded by oranges. Pretty much anything can become an idol. Whatever becomes the most important thing in our lives. We may not know we are worshipping it until we realize we must have it or die. Alcohol, for instance. When drinking is more important than going home to family. Drugs, maybe. The high they give as they travel through the bloodstream to the brain telling us we must worship it or die. Some literally do--die, that is, for love of substance. It's perhaps not so obvious in our day, this idol worship. We aren't building a golden cow as the Israelites did in the wilderness and ascribing to what we just created out of gold some godlike power over us. The thing is, though, we are made to worship. To adore. Not to be adored. So the one we make into a god will topple and fall on us.
What then? Our little g's are at least visible. God we cannot see. Or touch. There is no longer an altar on which we can sacrifice to Him. No temple where He dwells in a resplendent glory. We trick ourselves with this thinking because a God we could access so easily wouldn't be the great God over all. How could He hold the world in His hands, fling stars and design galaxies if He were so small He could live forever, physically, in our midst? Our God would be too small, then.
In God's sweetness, He came down. We touched Him. Laughed with Him. God, through Jesus, looked into the eyes of those He'd made and pronounced His great love. Jesus ate our grain and drank our drink. Healed our bodies and forgave our sins. In synagogue, Messiah told the self-righteous that their rules were death and He is life. Dead people returned to life and worthless fig trees were put to death. Seas roared at us, but Jesus stepped out on them and walked the waves without a wake board. When there wasn't enough for five thousand people to eat, Jesus sat everyone down and fed them from five little loaves of bread and two fish. For this, we killed our God. Out of paradigm and irritating in His honesty, religion couldn't look at true righteousness without disgust. Pinned against a cross set up against the afternoon sky, Messiah cried out for our forgiveness, then commanded His Spirit to leave His broken body. God wasn't done, though, of course. Up and out of the tomb, raising Himself from the dead, Jesus lives still. The only true God. Our Lord. Every other idol is vain for it has no power in itself to deal with what we really need. With the reason we look for idols in the first place. We are empty.
On His last night with the disciples, Jesus promised to fill that empty space with the living water provided by the indwelling Holy Spirit. Joy unspeakable. Power unlimited. Access unprecedented. God, through Christ, in us! The hope of glory. Charging our existence with dynamite for living. We look to our idol, as Christians, and feel Him stirring change in us. Creating love where there was none. Hope in the impossible. Peace in the storm. Power in the process. Oh, yes. The Lord is our God and there is none like Him. Throw away the lesser gods. They still leave us empty, wanting more. Only God, with a capital, can make our lives more than just an existence because He made us and knows why He did.
...we know that an idol has no real existence, and that there is no God but one. For although there may be many so-called gods in heaven or on earth--as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"--yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
1 Corinthians 8:4-6
There is only one God with a capital G. Oh, there are other little g's trying to lord it over us, but they are not as powerful as they want to make us think. Idols, really. Manmade. Like movie stars. Or tyrants. Or the little Buddhas that stare at me in the nail salon as they sit, belly forward, surrounded by oranges. Pretty much anything can become an idol. Whatever becomes the most important thing in our lives. We may not know we are worshipping it until we realize we must have it or die. Alcohol, for instance. When drinking is more important than going home to family. Drugs, maybe. The high they give as they travel through the bloodstream to the brain telling us we must worship it or die. Some literally do--die, that is, for love of substance. It's perhaps not so obvious in our day, this idol worship. We aren't building a golden cow as the Israelites did in the wilderness and ascribing to what we just created out of gold some godlike power over us. The thing is, though, we are made to worship. To adore. Not to be adored. So the one we make into a god will topple and fall on us.
What then? Our little g's are at least visible. God we cannot see. Or touch. There is no longer an altar on which we can sacrifice to Him. No temple where He dwells in a resplendent glory. We trick ourselves with this thinking because a God we could access so easily wouldn't be the great God over all. How could He hold the world in His hands, fling stars and design galaxies if He were so small He could live forever, physically, in our midst? Our God would be too small, then.
In God's sweetness, He came down. We touched Him. Laughed with Him. God, through Jesus, looked into the eyes of those He'd made and pronounced His great love. Jesus ate our grain and drank our drink. Healed our bodies and forgave our sins. In synagogue, Messiah told the self-righteous that their rules were death and He is life. Dead people returned to life and worthless fig trees were put to death. Seas roared at us, but Jesus stepped out on them and walked the waves without a wake board. When there wasn't enough for five thousand people to eat, Jesus sat everyone down and fed them from five little loaves of bread and two fish. For this, we killed our God. Out of paradigm and irritating in His honesty, religion couldn't look at true righteousness without disgust. Pinned against a cross set up against the afternoon sky, Messiah cried out for our forgiveness, then commanded His Spirit to leave His broken body. God wasn't done, though, of course. Up and out of the tomb, raising Himself from the dead, Jesus lives still. The only true God. Our Lord. Every other idol is vain for it has no power in itself to deal with what we really need. With the reason we look for idols in the first place. We are empty.
On His last night with the disciples, Jesus promised to fill that empty space with the living water provided by the indwelling Holy Spirit. Joy unspeakable. Power unlimited. Access unprecedented. God, through Christ, in us! The hope of glory. Charging our existence with dynamite for living. We look to our idol, as Christians, and feel Him stirring change in us. Creating love where there was none. Hope in the impossible. Peace in the storm. Power in the process. Oh, yes. The Lord is our God and there is none like Him. Throw away the lesser gods. They still leave us empty, wanting more. Only God, with a capital, can make our lives more than just an existence because He made us and knows why He did.
No comments:
Post a Comment