Parkwood Baptist Church :: Weekly Devotional (June 5, 2006)

Weekly Devotional
Monday, June 5, 2006

1 Thessalonians 1:9
For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God…

As the Thessalonian church allowed their love of God to motivate and move them, news of their faith and good deeds left a favorable impression on their neighborhoods, city, and surrounding areas. People from other parts of the world were commenting on how the Thessalonian church had “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.”

In the same way, Christians of the present day are to prompt this kind of discussion among our families, friends, and co-workers. The three actions mentioned here -- turning to God, turning from idols, and serving God -- work together to demonstrate a life that follows Christ. But while the actions are distinct, they are not meant to be separate. In the same way that a person turning toward the north is also turning away from the south, a person that turns to God also turns away from idols.

Far from just referring to trinkets of wood or crystal, an idol is anything that takes the rightful place of God as Lord and sovereign authority in our lives. From the belly of a great fish, Jonah realized that “those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs” [Jonah 2:8].

Ultimately, of what benefit is money or possessions? What can any earthly passion give us that compares to the grace of God? They all fail miserably. As the hymn writers have put it: "Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face; and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glorious grace" and "Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, save in the death of Christ my God! All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to His blood."

The authors of these hymns understood that even the most pleasing of earthly pursuits will leave us empty and dry. It is only the "living water" that can quench our desires and cause us to thirst no more [John 4:7-30]. We must turn from such idols deliberately and without hesitation.

In moments of weakness, we may try to convince ourselves that we can play with idols and still serve God, but Christ makes it clear that we cannot: "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, of he will be devoted to the one and despise the other" [Matthew 6:24].

So, the question comes to us: which master will we serve? It is impossible to turn to God unless we also turn from idols. Can we join our hearts and voices with the powerful hymn of old and say:

I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold, I'd rather be His than have riches untold;
I'd rather have Jesus than houses or lands, I'd rather be led by His nail-pierced hand.
Than to be the king of a vast domain and be held in sin's dread sway.
I'd rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today.