It’s totally been forever since I’ve last posted, and I apologize.  This has been a crazy busy year.  Right now I actually have some time though and feel like writing some thoughts, so here goes!

I have been reading through some of the Old Testament, and it seems that a common occurrence was people turning away from God and worshiping idols.  For example: “You have done more evil than all who lived before you.  You have made for yourself other gods, idols made of metal; you have provoked me to anger and thrust me behind your back.”  -1 Kings 14:9

These are the unhappy words of God.  It’s crazy to think that these people to whom God had performed so many miracles and saved them so many times would just turn away from the Lord and worship idols.  It seems in most cases that when we hear the word ‘idol’ we think of a little statue, so when we hear the word ‘idol’ it doesn’t really mean much to us.  We couldn’t be more wrong though.

In this day in age, I believe we have more idols than the people back in the Old Testament ever did.  Idols are really anything that we focus more on than we do on God.  Idols can be people, shows, websites, toys…you get the picture.  Recently I went to Uprise Festival in Shippensburg.  There were a lot of great bands there, and it was a great time of worship.  On Saturday night, Emily had gotten us to the front row of the middle section, so we were in a fantastic spot.  However, there were a bunch of girls around us that didn’t seem very enthused.  Family Force 5 was pretty crazy and we were dancing around, but the girls barely moved.  Then TFK and Red rocked the stage, but the girls only sat down and complained that the bands were taking too long.  We figured they were there for Lecrae, but when he came on they still just stood there and didn’t sing or dance along.  All of a sudden though, when Skillet came on, they went absolutely crazy!  They were screaming and jumping around and shouting for the lead singer John Cooper.

You would have thought these girls were at an Nsync concert or something the way they kept screaming that they loved John Cooper.  Now John Cooper is a pretty cool guy if you don’t know him.  He plays the bass and sings and has a unique voice and just knows how to rock and worship the Lord.

Well these girls thought he was the hottest thing on the planet and wanted him to marry them.  Unfortunately for them though, John is way older and already happily married with kids.

Anyways, it just really bothered me that these girls were only there to see John Cooper.  It seems they totally missed the message John and the rest of Skillet were bringing and were only focusing on how hot he looked.  Now I don’t know their hearts and I have no room to judge; I’m merely just pointing out my observations.  I mean I love Skillet.  They can really jam and I just love worshiping the Lord with their music.  But I don’t worship them.  They are mere mortals who are talented musicians that help people like me to worship God.  It is wrong to worship anything or anyone other than God.

It’s the first commandment actually, that you shall have no other gods before the Lord Almighty.  If you’re going to go to a concert so you can scream at a member of the band that you love them and want to marry them, that tells me that they are an idol to you.  I don’t think it’s wrong to admire them though.  If God has blessed them with an awesome talent that they are using to bring glory to God, then yea, cheer them on!  But obsessing over them and not focusing on God is the wrong way to go.  I’m not perfect in any way concerning this.  It’s very hard not to keep our focus on God when there are so many things in this world that bombard us for their attention.

But we have to press on.  We need to remember that the Lord is our one and only God and nothing in this world compares to His glory.  As 2 Samuel 7:22 says, “How great you are, O Sovereign Lord!  There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears.”  And 2 Samuel 22:32: “For who is God besides the Lord?  And who is the Rock except our God?”

These two verses were David speaking.  It’s just so awesome how much love David had for the Lord.  I would very much recommend you read 1 and 2 Samuel and the Psalms.  They really show how much David worshiped and loved the Lord  (They also show his sin to let us know that he was human as well).  If we can turn our focus away from silly worldly things and give all the glory to God though, how much more we can get out of it!

As Jonah 2:8 says, “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.”  To worship a person other than our Lord is to deny God’s love for us.  Why would we want to do this?  I’m not saying stop everything and become a monk.  Let’s be realistic.  Look at your life and look at the things you love.  Is God in there at all?  To get the key phrases in 1 Kings 16:13, 26: “…they provoked the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger by their worthless idols.”
Worthless idols.  Do you have any?  Of course you do.  I definitely do.  I challenge myself and I challenge anyone who reads this to seriously take a look at your life and the things you spend most of your time with.  Do these things turn you toward God’s love?  Yes, we are human and therefore we are sinners.  But the first step to righteousness is turning your focus to the Lord.  Make God your obsession, not your worthless idols.

It seems fitting to put a song dealing with obsession in here, and who better to do it than Skillet?  Enjoy!  Leave a comment and continue the conversation!  Thank you for reading, and God bless! 🙂