Who will you worship and serve, the God who blesses you or the gods you think will bless you?
Think of all the ways God blesses you daily, and yet we think other things will bless us more. How often do we think certain situations will bless our lives more than God can? For example, we live in a society that worships appearance, prestige, and success. These are good things, until they become gods in our lives. They become gods when we think they will bless and satisfy us more than a relationship with God.
God blesses us, daily, yet we think other things will bless us more. This is not a new idea. In the book of Joshua, Joshua lists all the ways God blessed the people. Here are just some of the ways God blessed the children of Israel: God made Abraham’s offspring many, brought them out of the plaque in Egypt, parted the red sea, led them out of the wilderness, destroyed their enemies, delivered them from their enemies, protected them, fought for them, and then gave them land to dwell in and fruit to eat (Joshua 24: 1-13). That is a lot of blessings.
Yet immediately after Joshua lists all of that, he warns the people that they get to make the decision of who to serve, and who to make their God.
Joshua 24:14-15 14 “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
God continuously blesses us, and what does he ask of us?
That we would choose daily to worship and serve him. What is interesting about this passage is the order of the sentences. First you have to stop worshiping (the lower case g) gods, and then you can serve (the upper case g) God.
How do we do that?
“Put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your heart to the LORD, the God of Israel.” -Joshua 24:23
What gods, lower case g, are you worshiping?
Serving God is a choice that we have to make daily. Each day we get to choose if we want to serve the eternal God of the universe or the fleeting gods of this world. It is your decision to make, so what will you choose?
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