No Other Gods?

Most of us who call ourselves by the name “Christian” would say that the God of the Bible is the one and only true God.  And most of us would also say that this is the only god we love and serve.  But are we sure about that?  Yesterday’s sermon at church and my own recent walk with God have got me thinking . . .

Most of my life, the first of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:3) has been interpreted in terms of order: make sure the God of the Bible has the first position in my life, and then everything else that I love can find a proper place beneath him.  But this is only part of the picture.  The wording in that first commandment isn’t even about what order God has in my life among a myriad of other gods.  It literally says that I am not to allow any other gods to be in God’s presence . . . ever.  It’s not OK to give “god status” to anything besides the God of the Bible.  Period.

Most of us Christians in our culture don’t think we actually have any other gods.  We work hard to keep God first and then believe that everything else we think about and do is OK.  We’ve heard all sermons on the god of money, the god of possessions, and the god of greed, so we think we’re doing OK because we haven’t succumbed to any of those on a regular basis.  But what other things, even good things, do we allow to share God’s presence in our lives?

Jesus had a lot to say about other gods, and most of it was hard to hear; so here are some things that God has laid on my heart for us all to think about.  Do we ever allow the god of control, which can lead to the gods of fear and worry, to share the same space as the one true God (Matthew 6:25-34)?  Do we ever allow the god of comfort to keep us from stepping out to do what God is telling us to do (Matthew 8:20)?  Do we ever allow the god of family, God’s precious gift to us, to occupy the space reserved for God’s presence in our lives (Matthew 10:37)?  I could go on, but you get the picture.  Just about anything in our lives can become a god (off-and-on or all the time) when we allow it to co-exist in God’s presence.

Maybe it’s time to rethink the hard sayings of Jesus and truly have no other gods besides the one true God.  Whether we think so or not, he is truly all we need.  God’s heart is to give us good gifts, but his presence in our lives fills every hole we think we have and provides us with everything we truly need.  The more we keep him in the position he deserves – as the ONLY god in our lives – the more we learn this and recognize how relationship with him trumps anything else that could possibly vie for our attention.      

Living with Purpose

At the gym where my husband works out, this is the time of year where everything is crowded.  People have made new year’s resolutions to lose weight or exercise, and for a few weeks they stick with it.  But my husband has noticed that by March or April, things get back to normal at the gym.  The “resolution” people have lost their resolve, and the gym just has the regular attendees again who are continuing with their more permanent resolve.

I am by nature a purpose-driven person; it’s just the way I was wired by God.  Pretty much everything I do has a purpose behind it, and I typically don’t do random things.  Not everyone is made that way; so that means that not everyone approaches the task of understanding or trusting God’s purposes in the same way either.  Sometimes I think that trusting God’s purposes might be more difficult for a purpose-driven person, because the constant quest for purpose and logic causes questions that others may not even consider.  One thing I have found is that trusting God’s purposes in my life cannot be separated from knowing and trusting the other parts of him: his sovereignty, his love, his grace and mercy, and everything else that his Word tells me about his character.

Romans 8:28 tells us that God is always working in everything for what is good for us.  He is not working to make us happy but rather to fulfill his purpose for us – which is whatever conforms us to “the likeness of his Son” (Romans 8:29).   God’s actions do not depend on ours.  He will do what he knows is best regardless of what we think is fair or what makes sense to us.  Our job is not to question or seek to control the outcome but simply to “join in” where God’s purposes are being worked out and trust those purposes to be the best solution.  Joining in where God is working involves listening for his voice above all of the other voices and trusting him to take what we call bad and make it good.

I want the purposes that drive me to be God-purposes.  I don’t want to resolve to do something just because it’s the right time of year or something that everyone is doing.  I want to choose to trust what God is doing at any given time in my life and know (without doubting) that he is doing what is best for me – so that I end up looking more and more like his Son and less and less like me or anyone else in this world.  Now that’s a resolution worth keeping!

Dealing With Disappointment

Today there are a lot of disappointed people in the area where I live.  They’re disappointed because of the outcome of the Super Bowl football game last night.  And they’re especially disappointed because of the way it came about and the real hope they had during the game that the outcome would be different.  If you watched the game, you know what I’m talking about.  We had it . . . we were so close . . . it seemed like it was going to happen . . . and then it was over.  Just like that – in the blink of an eye; and disappointment set in.

The hardest part about disappointment is that we feel hope let us down.  Whenever we have disappointments in life (real ones, not just football games), we feel worse because we got our hopes up.  We dared to hope, and what we hoped for didn’t happen.  Or it didn’t happen the way we hoped it would.  Something or someone let us down.  And lots of times it doesn’t take very long for disappointment to turn into discouragement.  We go from hope to disappointment to discouragement with lightning speed.

Life on this earth is full of ups and downs.  Some of them are as eternally unimportant as the outcome of the Super Bowl game; but others touch our hearts and souls on a deeper level.  How can we properly deal with disappointment so that we remain hopeful and avoid discouragement?  Fortunately, since many things about living have not changed since time began, the Bible can give us some help in this area.  By looking at what God says to us in his Word, we are able to choose a faith-filled response to life’s disappointments.

I am happy to know when I am disappointed what Psalm 22:5 tells me: that the Israelites in the Old Testament trusted in God and found out that he didn’t disappoint them.  I’m also glad to know what God promises in Isaiah 49:23: “. . . those who hope in me will not be disappointed.”  If my hope is directed in the right direction (hope in God), I can be sure that I will not be disappointed.  And if I am, I probably need to adjust my “hope focus”.  As Phil Keaggy suggested in a song many years ago, all I need to do is change the letter “d” to an “h” and I get a whole new concept: disappointment becomes His appointment! 

But let’s get real: regardless of how hard I try, I’m going to give in to disappointment sometimes.  I’m human, and I’m not always going to get it right.  So when disappointment comes, I need to keep it from turning into discouragement – because discouragement is the enemy’s playground and can lead me further away from walking by faith.  How do I do this?  Over and over in the Old Testament, God told his people that they could avoid discouragement by remembering that he was present with them.  Having God walking by my side in this life of faith is so much more important than having no disappointment.  Knowing that he is always with me helps me turn life’s disappointments back to hope, and Romans 5:5 can help me get this right: “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”  I’m so thankful for God’s presence in my life . . . time to shake off my latest disappointment and focus my hope in the right direction.