THROUGH THE BIBLE IN THREE YEARS
After attending church with his father one Sunday morning and before getting into bed that evening, a
little boy knelt at his bedside to pray.
He said, "Dear Lord, we had a good time at church today, but I do wish You had been there."
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________SCRIPTURE________________________________
Ex 20:3
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
KJV
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_______THOUGHT__________________________________
There was no other commandment with which Israel, in the Old Testament, had so much trouble as this first one.
They had been enlightened as to the True and Living God, yet they took on the superstitions of others.
Over years and centuries they became lax in their worship of God, and more obvious in idolatry.
Soon, even their worship of God was tainted with idolatrous mannerisms.
God reproved them often, but they continued generation after generation until God was no longer known.
The heathen bows to a pot-bellied god of wood or stone and we think it is incredulous.
Surely we in America have been more "enlightened."
In no other country has the Gospel been preached more.
Yet people, even Christians, are fraught with the same difficulty as Israel and the unenlightened.
The spiritual Israel of the Christian church still entwines itself with idolatrous mannerisms today.
As Spurgeon once said, "The principle, the sin, the folly is the same in either case, only that in ours the
crime is more aggravated because we have more light, and sin in the face of it."
Oh, most of us don't worship golden calves, but we have our "baals" of different kinds and types.
Some worship fortune, fame, or even intellectualism. Some worship children or even grandchildren.
Some worship work.
Some worship self, and it is evident in a "gimme" or "please me" attitude.
And still some others try to reinvent God by redefining Him narrowly or to fit our own expectations.
"Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods?" (Jeremiah 16:20)
There is only ONE True and Living God.
And He has expressed himself fully in the Person of Jesus Christ.
The Bible is the revelation of our great Creator, Sustainer and Eternal Savior.
Oh! Come! Let us truly worship HIM!
Let us place Him at the center of our lives and plan all our activities around Him.
Let us expend our energy and resources for His glory and not our own pleasure.
Let us demonstrate to the world by our livelihood that we are "accepted in the Beloved."
Let us take Him as He reveals Himself.
Love ya,
Bruce