His Heart

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

HIS HEART

Acts 7:42-43

42 But God turned away and gave them over to the worship of the heavenly bodies. This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets:

"'Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the desert, O house of Israel? 43 You have lifted up the shrine of Molech and the star of your god Rephan, the idols you made to worship. Therefore I will send you into exile' beyond Babylon.

NIV

Stephen is getting closer to the point of accusing the Sanhedrin of being just like their forefathers. We should learn a lesson from this quote of the prophet. Stephen, of course, called his quote as from the book of the prophets which the Jews divided all the Minor Prophets and put them into on book. But we know it as a quote from Amos. The whole idea here is they worshipped the sun, moon, and some major stars, idols of Egyptian origin. Because they turned from the worship of God and worshipped gods of their own design, made by their  own hands, as well as the heavenly bodies designed and made by God,  yet did not worship him alone so he turned away from them as well as he allowed them to be exiled beyond Babylon. We know, of course, that he always has a purpose which is to attempt to draw people back to him. It would seem the Sanhedrin worshipped the law designed and made by God, more than they worshipped God himself. Here is our lesson. We could be in danger of worshipping the things God made more than worshipping God. We could worship the environment as an example, but miss out on the creator of it. We could worship nature, the forest, or portions of the animal kingdom but miss out on the maker of all of them. We could worship denominationalism, or the rules and regulations of a particular denomination or the traditions associated with a denomination or Christianity as whole for that matter and miss out on the actual worship of our Lord God. The fact is whatever we place value on, that is where our heart is. If we put value on nature, if we place value on possessions, if we value wealth, if we value tradition, if we value rules and regulations, if we place value on a denomination that is where our heart is and therefore we are missing out on placing value on and having our heart on God. God has told us that where our treasure is there also is our heart. The Israelites treasured what God had made, but not God. We cannot afford to be distracted by either what he has made or what we have made with our own hands. We must remain focused on the creator of all things, not the things. He has also told us that the purpose of all the things he has made is so that by them we might know him. Everything is about God, there is nothing else which is remotely important. Our life has but one purpose, to bring glory to God. For us to be distracted by the things he has made detracts from the maker. Let us remain true in our hearts to God, let him testify about us as he did about David, that we are a person after his own heart.