Day Four of last week dealt with our resources, and in light of the focus of the rest of the week on idolatry and counterfeits in our lives, specifically showing that the way we use our resources reflects what we most highly value. If there is an idol that is weighing heavily in our life, then it is likely that our money will find it's way to it...just like the saying goes, "follow the money." But God calls us, as followers of Him, to be people who are utilizing the resources that He has blessed us with to help those who need our help....the orphan, the poor, the foreigner, the widow and the innocent. For us today, that may translate into anyone who truly is in need, the helpless and the vulnerable. I can think of so many categories of people today that our hearts should break for and for whom we should funnel our resources to: the children across the world who are starving or who are in need of just clean water; those who are being caught up in the sex trafficking industry; those without any means of provision of the most basic of needs; refugees being driven from countries which have endured endless years of civil war; women, and men, who are old and lonely, just needing a friendly voice to ensure them that they are not forgotten; the mentally ill and the mentally challenged; and the unborn who need our voice to cry out for their chance to have life!
Are our hearts, and pocketbooks, turned towards these needs over and above our materialistic wants? If not, we may need an idol check! I think this is the message of Jeremiah 22:16, " 'He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know Me?' declares the Lord."
When we have come to know who God truly is, we will see that He is a God of great compassion, and He asks the same of us. And then a reminder that all gifts are not monetary---we should also examine the use of our time and talents. These are all resources that have been gifted to us by God our Father, not for our glorification, but for His.
On Day Five we covered the ways and reasons that we make fakes when we have access to the real. Why would Israel have done that? Why do we do it? Don't we often try to "create" another god when we feel that God has gone silent? That we're talking to a blank wall with no answers? When our relationship has cooled (and whose fault would that be?) and when we feel God is distant and far, far away? Those are the times when it is so easy for us to make a fake...it was for the Israelites as well. Of course they actually "made" a false god, they carved a wooden idol or bought one formed of gold or silver. But as we saw in our comparison, their man-made gods couldn't talk or walk; they were made by men; they were perishable and worthless. In opposition, God is great and powerful, speaking over all the nations; He is alive and eternal, and His wrath will be felt by the earth and those who stand in opposition to Him; He created everything and everything was created for Him; He controls the universe, and He controls every cell in our individual bodies. How foolish the people of Israel were to worship worthless man-made idols in lieu of Almighty God. How foolish we continue to be when we worship the idols that we contrive in our minds and convince ourselves that they will give us what we need. They will never satisfy, because they are worthless and by worshiping them, we, ourselves, become worthless. We also practice a form of idolatry when we try to modify God to be the god we want Him to be, rather than who He truly is. He is not our "genie in a bottle" ready to give us our every desire. Rather, He is our good and perfect Father, ready to give us exactly what He knows we truly need to become the person He designed us to be. That's when we will find real satisfaction - when we are finally everything that God saw in us when He created us without any of the encumbrances of sin in our lives.
Trusting in His good and perfect plan for us is where He wants us to live every day. Trusting Him removes us from the temptation of idolatry. Trusting Him gets rid of the need, or the temptation, to "make a fake"!
OK - so recapping the week of Recognizing Counterfeits and the Real Deal! To recognize a counterfeit, we need to know the real thing...stay close to God, read His Word, know His nature, trust in His provision...then when you are tempted to replace Him you'll see that nothing else comes close to what God already is to you. He is your EVERYTHING. He is always ready to satisfy our never-ending thirst with an everlasting fountain of Water. Revelation22:17, "The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come.' Let anyone who hears this say, 'Come.' Let anyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who desires drink freely from the water of life." How can we refuse such an invitation?
We keep drawing water from broken cisterns that are polluted and leaky so we can be "self-sufficient", rather than relying on God's pure and eternal fountain from which He is ready to provide us.
Come! Let's go to the seashore!
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