The Living God

DEVOTION

PSALMS

THE LIVING GOD

Ps 115

115:1

Not to us, O LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.

2 Why do the nations say, "Where is their God?" 3 Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him. 4 But their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men. 5 They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but they cannot see; 6 they have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but they cannot smell; 7 they have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but they cannot walk; nor can they utter a sound with their throats. 8 Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.

9 O house of Israel, trust in the LORD — he is their help and shield. 10 O house of Aaron, trust in the LORD — he is their help and shield. 11 You who fear him, trust in the LORD — he is their help and shield.

12 The LORD remembers us and will bless us: He will bless the house of Israel, he will bless the house of Aaron, 13 he will bless those who fear the LORD — small and great alike.

14 May the LORD make you increase, both you and your children. 15 May you be blessed by the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.

16 The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to man. 17 It is not the dead who praise the LORD, those who go down to silence; 18 it is we who extol the LORD, both now and forevermore.

Praise the LORD.  

NIV

There is no use in making anything into an idol. There were in those days people who did make actual idols of stone, metal, even gold, silver or bronze. Cast in to shapes, some were in the form of a man, or woman, others of animals. Perhaps we still have some of those type of idols today in the various religions of the world, such as Buddha or Ganash, the lord of prosperity and fortune. The list could go on and on. But do believers engage in some form of idol worship? Does Christianity have its idols? There seems to be some denominations who do have many statues, graven images that they pay a certain amount of respect or homage to. Any image can be an idol. But as we see here not a single image made by the hands of man can neither hear, see, smell, touch nor speak. None of the five senses are present in any image. They are but useless objects. Although we believers know God and worship him because we understand he is the creator of all that is created. We know and understand there are no other gods, only the one Almighty God above the earth and the heavens. We know him in a personal way as we have been cared for by him, and we have the Spirit dwelling within us, our spirit bears witness to his presence. We feel him within, we are lead into the truth by him. We have been healed by God, we have been provided for by God. We have witnessed miracles he has done for us and in us. There is no question of our faith in him. We have no doubt he is God and that Jesus is real and actually came to earth to become our Savior and that through him we have eternal life. We will never die as those who worship dead idols. Our bodied may give up its life, but our spirit will live on and we will be given a new body. Maybe it is the same one we have now, but only it will be glorified as Jesus was after he was resurrected. That is still somewhat a mystery as to just what form our bodies will be, what we will look like. But we will live forever. Those who worship silent idols will die both in the physical realm and the spiritual realm. They will be as dead as their idols. The problem is, we believers can get trapped into having some form of idol in this life. Some make success an idol, others make education an idol, and then there is money, Oh the almighty dollar. We know this sounds like beating a dead horse, but the dollar has become an idol for some believers. They find all sorts of ways to store it up for later use. They invest it in worldly affairs in hopes of gaining more of it. It is a trap, a scheme of the evil one to divide our heart between God and this world. A house divided cannot stand. Whatever we make into an idol, whatever we spend or invest our time and effort in pursuing can become an idol. We have to be careful not to idolize anything or anyone here on earth, for they all are useless in the kingdom of God. Our place in the kingdom has no bearing on how successful, how intelligent, or how wealthy we are. Our place in the kingdom is based only on our faith in Jesus Christ. Nothing else matters. This life is not about us, it is about God. Yes, he is our help. He is our provider, he is our healer, and he is our salvation. He does so much for us, to bless us beyond measure. But that does not mean we focus on our life. We are to focus our life on him. All that we are, all that we do, should be about him. Sure, we work for our sustenance, because he told us to, for that is our lot as descendants of Adam. But our life is not about our work, it is about God. He also told us to work as onto the Lord. So as we work for our sustenance, we work as if we are working for God, as if he is our employer. Life is good and that is because we serve a living God, who hears us, sees us, speaks to us, touches our lives, and smells the sweet savor of our worship. We serve the Living God.