Daily Devotional for Saturday, October 22 

Vanity of Idol Worship

The desire to worship among humans is universal. From the most primitive societies to the most advanced, men search for something outside of and greater than themselves. We innately recognize that our lives with no transcendent purpose are quite meaningless. Yet, that is just what humanistic thought would teach us. It would teach us that life is no more than random happenstance, meaningful only insofar as we find it within ourselves. Human life becomes about what is good for us and makes our short existence pleasant. After all, they say, this is all there is, so one better make it as good as we can. Some would teach that this truly is our best (and only) life, now. 

Graven images are man’s desire to worship at the most basic level. We understand in our hearts that there is a transcendent being, so we make a physical representation of that being that we can see, touch and feel. In that simple way, we make our god and worship and serve it. Are we not glad that we have advanced beyond that simple thinking today? We have not advanced as far as we think we have! We may not be molding golden calves from our earrings, but we have our own idols. We all have something we place at the top of our list, and we all derive purpose, from something bigger than us. It may be money or sports, or sex and drugs but there is something. 

Even those who profess to know the one true God fall into this trap and serve vain and useless gods rather than the One we nominally claim to know. When will we see the vanity and folly of this and put God back in His proper place, as number one in our lives?

JUST A THOUGHT: Christian, who or what is number one in your life? If it is not your Heavenly Father, you are serving an idol.

Wally Fry