In one of today’s devotionals, the lesson focused on 1 Kings 18:17-40. This passage relates the confrontation between the pagan prophets and Elijah on Mt. Carmel. The outcome of this challenge is that God showed up and took care of business, of course, and the queen’s idols didn’t because they couldn’t. The true and living God demonstrated His sovereignty and power and the idols of the day were vanquished. The Israelite people promised to serve God and that should have brought peace for Elijah. It didn’t because followers of Baal and Asherah weren’t interested in truth, they were still worshiping their own ideas. This took place circa 856 BC.
Today, we pride ourselves that we are so much better educated, so much smarter and sophisticated, that we don’t worship idols. But, of course, we do. We have made idols of wealth, recognition, approval, sex, and personal or societal power, to name a few general headings. It is only in true submission to the Master that we begin to approach an inkling of actual wisdom, and we take these steps struggling almost desperately to avoid them. We think we’ll be giving up control over our lives if we acknowledge God’s sovereignty; actually, we’ll be turning over the control which we had yielded in arrogance and ignorance to Satan in his various shapes, to the God Whom so many of us say we believe in but deny His power. I think here of Matthew 11:28. How many times have I personally come to realize that the peace our Lord gives us is more valuable than money in the bank? That situation occurred repeatedly while we had Omega Builders. The money in the bank looked good for a few days and then shot out the door like a bottle rocket. The peace that He was finally able to give me – because I finally turned to Him and told Him I couldn’t handle the pressure of “no money for payroll this week” – made it possible for me to survive several years of financial struggle which I viewed as my personal burden.
There’s an old hymn with these words: “Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin; each victory will help you some other to win.” There’s more to the song, all good thoughts, but that part about each victory helping us to win others – that’s more truth than can be imagined. For me, turning over a major struggle, a problem that affected numerous people’s lives, opened a measure of peace that cannot be described adequately. I can only say that He got all of us through the difficulty then, and taught me to run, run right away, to His open arms, when I am afraid or feeling defeated by some issue. And to begin running first, not anguishing for days in the “What’m I gonna do?” stage. His solutions, when they come – and they always do – are almost never anything like what I thought would “fix it” but then Isaiah had it right in Chapter 55 when he said God’s ways and thoughts are much, much higher than ours, and I am eternally grateful that this is so.
Reading over the above, I have to confess that at some points in my life, my concern over financial stability occupied so much of my time and attention, it took center stage. And that to which our thoughts turn when we shift our minds into neutral – that is our idol. That is our god. The first time I read that idea, I immediately began a mental rebuttal. No, I said, it’s just what I had on my mind at the time. The problem with my argument became apparent when I started paying attention to those moments when I was “not thinking about anything in particular.” When I was in a quandary about money, I noticed that my “nothing in particular” was almost always – money!
In 2nd Corinthians Chapter 10, we are directed to take captive every thought, to make our minds and hearts obedient to Jesus. How well we know, if we know ourselves at all, how our actions arise from the whisperings of our thoughts, especially the thoughts that run on continuous loops in our minds. If we believe God’s Word, He gives us all the power and encouragement we need to be at peace with whatever this world fires at us. Granted, some of the missiles of the enemy are devastating and it takes time to regain our footing, but we can use His loving power as we seek Him through the weapons and remedies in His Word. 2nd Timothy describes our Ally, the Spirit, so well: a spirit of power, and love, and a sound mind. Some translations say “self-control” for “a sound mind.” Probably the same thing. The point is that we are gifted with intelligence that the Master expects us to use to learn more of Him as we go through life. If we do, the one true and living God can and will keep our focus on Him and we won’t waste time hung up on the prominent idols of today’s world
We can soak in the Word whenever we wish, usually, and it opens our hearts and lives to God’s matchless power and beauty. Jesus responded to people who came to Him for healing by speaking to their physical problems and then telling them to “pick up your mat and walk,” or to wash their eyes, or other little things to demonstrate their faith that He had met their needs. He still offers such incredible healing, and He still wants us to acknowledge our faith in His accomplishment of this by some very simple act. Read my bible. Pray. Listen. If I look to Him, if I “pick up my mat” I can walk through anything with Jesus. We all can.
May we never let icons of social thinking or passing problems – it ALL “comes to pass” – occlude our vision of Jesus as He reaches to us now and forever with His love and power. May we grasp, as Ephesians says, “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,” that we may worship Him in awe of His majesty, and as His beloved children.
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