Five Finger Recovery: Do I serve other gods?

May 14, 2014: Five Finger Recovery: Do I serve other gods? Please "Share" this new Precious Prodigal Post: http://bit.ly/1gB56ZN

Exodus 20: 3 “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

God brought the Israelites out of Egypt, and He gave them some guidelines about who He was and what He expected of them. He started by telling them He was the one who brought them “out of the house of bondage” and they were not to have any other gods before Him. (Exodus 20:2-3) God wanted them to do whatever they did for an audience of One.

The Israelites had been living within the culture of the Egyptians, who worshipped many gods. Jehovah God wanted them to know that He was not one of many. He was and is the one true God, and His first commandment to them was that they were neither to worship nor serve any other gods.

We’re too enlightened to have idols stashed away in a back room. And you’ve heard preachers compare the way we love our homes, our cars, our jobs, and our hobbies to worshipping idols. Oh…and let’s not forget sports. If you’ve been to a state rivalry football game, you know what I’m talking about (Think Alabama vs Auburn or Florida vs FSU). I’m aware those things can be a problem, but I think what God wants from me goes further than that.

Our Sunday School teacher asked, “What’s wrong with giving God the biggest compartment in our tackle box?” My husband immediately answered, “I don’t have a compartment that big!” And he’s right. God doesn’t want to be the biggest part of our lives. He wants to be the reason…the purpose for our lives. His question convicted my heart and made me ask if I really put God before anything else in my life. The totally honest answer to that is, “Sometimes.”

All of us have some gift from God, and we may already be using it to serve Him. The musicians and singers at your church would be examples of that, as would pastors, the writers and poets I know, and…well, you get the idea. I’d like to think I’m writing, the singers are singing, the preacher is preaching…all for an audience of One, that Jehovah is our only God. But is that always true?

You see, the thing we think about when we first wake up and before we fall asleep and sometimes when we wake up in the middle of the night…that thing our mind is consumed with all during the day…that is our god. It might be our gift or talent, our heartbreak or our prodigal. It might even be our ministry.

If you wrote an inspirational best seller, took food to a shut-in, won someone to Christ, taught your kids the Scriptures, prayed for hours, preached, sang, or worked your little fingers to the bone, what was your motive? Was it serving others? Sorry. You’re close, but no cigar.

If my service is for others, I will soon be discouraged and so will you. People are just people, and they will certainly disappoint us at some point. The only One who won’t disappoint is the One I should be doing it for in the first place. And if it’s not about Him, it’s possible I have other gods before Him.

Challenge for Today: Can you, just for today, examine your motives honestly and ask yourself whether you do what you do for an audience of One?