WORSHIP THE GIVER NOT THE GIFTS Mike Heil II Kings 18:4 “He removed the high places and broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel burned incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan” God reveals an important lesson to us through this verse. In the wilderness God had brought deliverance and healing when Moses created the bronze serpent. However, later Israel took the bronze serpent, which God has used to bless them, and made it an object of worship. In the early church and medieval times the church often did the very same thing. They worshiped artifacts and objects, which is idolatry. Most all have heard of the search for the holy grail, which was a quest to find the cup from the Lord’s supper so it might be worshipped. The church must always be careful to worship God (Jehovah) and not His blessings. Such worship is a natural tendency of the flesh, which wants something tangible, something that can be seen, to set its worship upon. But we are a people who "live by faith", and faith believes the unseen. Faith knows these blessing we have received in the natural realm are out of the goodness and love of our wonderful Lord who dwells in the unseen realm. We are to move past the blessing to the Blesser, and give Him alone our worship. We worship "in spirit and in truth" . . . not in the flesh. We are blessed in so many ways: peace in life, deliverance from Satan, health, friends who support us, and family that love us. All these come from the life of God we have freely received. We should be thankful for them but never make them the focus of our life.
Posted on: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 23:25:02 +0000