This morning was one of those “weird” mornings where God makes everything work together. My oldest son and I began our trek to church around 6:20 in the morning, and we talked about things in our lives that become idols. In my personal study, I read about God calling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (as a test), proving Abraham’s faith in God and His promises. I was excited, and called my son in to talk about it. He then told me that his own study was about Israel and the golden calf. It’s amazing, isn’t it? God was preparing us for the conversation and its aftermath, and we didn’t even know it. For my son and I, God was also warning us of the things which we are running to, and, consciously or not, making idols of.
How often do believers do that? Consider the things we turn in to idols: livelihoods, entertainment, phones (oh Lord help us all), our kids, recreation, our marriages, church traditions and styles of singing, and many other things beside. We hold some things as sacred while ignoring, or not pursuing the Sacred One. We can have knowledge of the Bible and what it says, but it stops at the head, and does not penetrate our hearts. It’s why Jesus preached “but seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, THEN all these things” [and the implications is the things that you need] “will be added unto you.”
Loved ones, our pursuits need to be for God alone. God pours His love in to us, and it overflows from us in to all others, and never runs out or dries up. And in that love, which is His to begin with, we should pursue all things. He is a God that will not share our affections with anyone or anything, understanding our proclivity to make idols, and so He wants to properly direct our focus. As we surrender to Him, our love becomes perfected, and our contentment and satisfaction is in Him alone. So destroy idols in your life, and the pathway to them. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Then He will give you all that you need.
Matthew 6:19-34
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
