Thurs.’s Devo - Today’s Idols

Read: 2 Kings 9:14-10:31, Acts 17:1-34, Ps. 144:1-15, Pr. 17:27-28 Jehu was a force. He was determined to be God’s hand of judgment on the house of Ahab. Jehu had all of Ahab’s sons beheaded and set at the city gate for all to see. He destroyed the rest of the house of Ahab in the name of God to fulfill Elijah’s prophecy. He took out all the priests of Baal in one fell swoop. But…once he had done all this for God and God was pleased, he went to worshipping the golden calfs that Jeroboam worshipped. In Acts, God gave Paul wisdom in how to speak to an idol-worshipping people. He found an altar with the inscription: “To an Unknown God”. He used that to launch his sermon. God sent Paul to introduce them to this ‘unknown god’. He is the God of the universe who is the only god that can save them. I am reading the book, “The Fault in Our Stars”. The reason I’m reading it is because one of the girls I teach is reading it and being a teen writer, I wanted to see what they deemed as good reading. Her comment was how well written it was. It is well written, but it is such a picture of the idols of this generation. The main characters have the rhetoric of a college philosophy professor and use it to intimidate the reader and everyone else in their path. Their “Bible” is the book “An Imperial Affection”. Their god is the author. The sad part is when they meet him, he is not the god of love or compassion, but uses their weapon of intelligent command of words on them to make them feel as foolish as they make everyone else feel. I haven’t finished the book so I will stop there. Sadly, this philosophy leaves God out and makes the belief of Him sound foolish and unintelligent. They should read Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. It just reminds me that our gods are not images carved, but ideas verbalized. Lord, I pray for our next generation of Christian warriors, that they not get enamored by worldly knowledge but the wisdom that comes from above. You cannot be confined by words. You are The Word.