Dave’s Monday Blast – July 10, 2017
What do you do with a disobedient God? When I read the title….I just had to read the article by Pastor Albert Tate. What’s the first commandment? “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). You could make the case that there is really one sin beneath all other sin: Idolatry. It’s when we begin to bow down and worship at some counterfeit god. It’s when we take the one true God off His throne.
We’ve received this commandment. So did the children of Israel. In Exodus Chapter 32 we find them in a place of tension. They’ve made it out of Egypt, but now they find themselves waiting. They’re waiting for Moses, who’s up on a mountain top. They’re waiting for God.
Have you ever found yourself in a place of waiting? (Dumb question I know)! You’re walking with God, but He seems silent. Distant. Far away. Or you’re in the middle of a storm, and you find that the greatness, the voice, the power, the presence, the deliverance of God seems very, very distant.
We don’t like to talk about his part of our faith, but it’s there. You find yourself gazing to heaven, wondering what to do with a God like this, who goes off script, who doesn’t answer prayers in the way you want them answered. You wonder what to do with a DISOBEDIENT GOD! (Or at least I do)!
The children of Israel chose to replace God with one of their own making…a golden calf that they could push around at will. We’re no less likely to create idols today than we were those many years ago.
So…it begs the question…what happens when we INTENTIONALLY choose to replace a disobedient God? You don’t see very many golden calves today. Instead, you’ll find idols of the heart. These idols are good or bad things that become ultimate things. They’re the things we put savior-like expectations on. We look to these things to save us. We reach for what is familiar at the expense of the one who is faithful.
If you’re not reaching for God, what are you reaching for my friends?
Over the next two weeks we will consider some of “our idols” and discuss how to shake that desire to reach for a replacement idol that we “think” we can control.
