Who is your God?

“You shall have no other gods before Me.” (Exodus 20:3) “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”(Deuteronomy 6:5) “Where your heart is, there will your treasure be also.”(Luke 12:34) Who or what do we worship? Who or what has captured our hearts and holds pre-eminence there? Do we love God with every fiber of our beings to the point that all other feelings towards other things and people seem like hatred in comparison? Is God our treasure? Look at the people in our society and culture who worship, thirst after, and doggedly pursue fame, adulation, power, and wealth. For many of them scandal, broken lives, broken families, ill health and sometimes death follow once they have “arrived”. Many are never satisfied with what they have, always needing more. Happiness is always one more deal, a different spouse, or another pay off away. They look for something to fill a hole in their lives, never finding it. Many then lose what they have pursued with their whole being. Self and what feels good is ultimately their god.

Do we prize family, country, or work before God? Patriotism, love of family, care of family, working to support oneself and family are all good things but when put in place of God, they are just as wrong as those things less noble. They are certainly subtler than other idols. Does our family time take precedence over time with God? Are we too busy with work or family to come to His house to worship with others? Which means more, our citizenship in Heaven or the one here on earth? All of these things are good things and are not to be despised so long as they don’t take the place that rightfully belongs to God. That which gets put in place of God can ultimately lead us away from God. When we are led away from God we fail and fall easily. Wander too far and we can become useless to God, maybe even hindrance to God and his Kingdom program.

So what will you do about the gods in your life or is The God, the God of your life? Recently I read a mission letter from a man who is taking the Gospel of Christ to Benin. He noted that the people of God are diverse, precious, and everywhere God is raising up a people for His name. While worshiping in downtown Dallas amongst the spires of finance, he reflected on a recent trip to Benin remembering worshiping with new converts amongst the voodoo shrines they had pulled down and destroyed after coming to Christ. The gods of the west are subtler than those of Africa he said, but no less powerful. The gods of the west will someday fall just as the voodoo shrines have fallen in parts of Benin. But how will the western gods fall? Will they fall because we choose to tear them down and put God in His rightful place or will they come down because God has to tear them from us in order to bring us back to Him?