No Exchanges

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

NO EXCHANGES

Rom 1:21-25

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen.

NIV

Paul is still talking about those who suppress the truth by their wickedness and are the object of wrath. It is interesting that Paul says they knew God although they did suppress that truth, refusing to accept what they knew to be true. Of course, we both glorify and give thanks to God. That was a time when our hearts were darkened, but the light always will overpower the dark. Yet Paul says there are people who have darkened hearts because they refuse to allow the light, the truth to bear any authority in their lives. It is interesting this futile thinking in the Greek has meaning of being vain in their imaginations. When we start to think of making up some truth to living by using our imagination and being prideful in the way we imagine how things are, is foolishness that darkens our hearts. It is even foolish to approach the study of the word of God with our preconceived ideas, or our own filters, for it can expose our hearts to the darkness. It is difficult to truly think as God thinks, for we are human, and he is divine. However, we can never all our thinking to be futile, to think that we have it all figured out, that we know it all, which would be a figment of our imagination. However, we know that God is full of glory, and we look to God in all his glory as the one true God. It would be an awful thing to turn to look at something else that we made with our own hands. How can anyone worship anything other than the God who created all that is created? How can anyone look to the created rather than the creator is beyond our comprehension. It is interesting how we hear some believers talk about so many of the created things instead of talking about the creator. Yes, it is the way of life, in the sense that we all have some interest in life, whether that be in sports, work, hobbies, or  whatever, we find time to relax somehow to relieve some of the pressures of life. That is humanity in an essence, but the difference between us believers and those who became futile in their thinking or vain in their imaginations is that we know we are in the hands of God, and under his authority. We know that is but one truth and only one truth, although some Christians would argue that point which is evident in the various doctrinal positions taken by different denominations. The one we have personal knowledge of is of one fellowship of believers holding to the truth that one must accept Jesus as Lord and Savior plus be baptized in order to be saved. They believe salvation is not complete until a person is baptized. That is their truth, it is from their imagination and not from the scripture, for we are saved by grace and not by any works at all. They exchanged the truth for their vain imaginations. So then how do we deal with that fact there is disparity in what is the truth? Do we all have some amount of futile thinking? Do we all have some vanity in the way we think what the truth is? Have we imagined any truth, rather than allowing the Spirit to lead us into all truth, which means we cannot make up truth, we cannot make up rules to live by based on our imagination, but only look to the word of God, with the Spirit guiding hand. If we see our wrong thinking, then we repent, change the way we think, and align our hearts and minds in accordance with the light that is revealed to us. Let us not exchange worship of God for anything in this world. Let us not have any exchanges.