Isaiah 44

Idol Worship

Do you consider yourself an idol worshipper? I would imagine that based on the fact the you are reading this devotion that you are not. Or at least you don’t think you are. We live in a very exciting time. There are more gadgets, toys, and time wasters that at any other time in history. There is so much stuff in our lives. We have iPods to listen to, status’s to update, people to text, comments to reply to, movies to watch, TV shows to keep up on, and don’t even get me started on all the Facebook apps. And this does not include basic activities like school, eating, getting ready, and sleep. It’s amazing we have time for anything related to God.

In today’s passage the author is basically making fun of people for using the same wood that they used to make a fire and cook their meal with, to make and idol to worship. He calls them fools. It is pretty funny. We know that a chunk of wood is not going to gain us anything but these people actually thought they were real god’s. It really is foolishness.

Near the end of the chapter God reminds His people that He is the one that created them and that He will not forget them. Though their idols will leave them waiting and wanting, God remembers them and He removes their sin. How awesome is that? Not only does God wait on His people, He forgives them and blots out their sin completely. It makes idol worship seem all the more silly. Are you an idol worshipper?

You probably don’t have a chunk of wood sitting in your room that you pray to every night before going to sleep. But ask yourself this, would the amount of time you spend worshipping God(singing, praying, Bible reading, church, obedience) come even close to the amount of time you spend on the things mentioned above? What do you spend more time thinking about; the things of God or the things of Facebook? What would be more devastating for you, having your Bible taken away or having your cell phone taken away?(and don’t argue that your cell phone has the Bible on it because we all know you will miss texting the most). The “stuff” in our lives can keep us so busy and so focused that we forget about God. And when we forget about God we stop worshipping God and begin worshipping other things.

Most of the time we end up worshipping ourselves. We entertain ourselves, we talk about ourselves, we want the most friends on Facebook. The bottom line is, we are in it for us. We need to be reminded that we are God’s people. He is the one that created everything and He is the one that deserves our praise. Here is a challenge for you, take 15 minutes today to pray and ask God to show you ways in which you are being an idol worshipper. Think about it and write down what God shows you. God wants us to worship Him, the creator, not the creation.