Thursday, May 23, 2024
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen. Jude 1:24-25
The Only True God
Idolatry. Bowing down. Worship. Seeking peace and fulfillment. What is it that you go to? Where do you seek peace and fulfillment? Many of us say we go to God for these things, while we stuff our houses, closets, garages, and bellies with more than we could need in a lifetime. We don’t even notice it, yet we bow down, and we worship, and we seek from every shiny place in this life besides Him.
Idolatry is not just loving something more than we love God. Idolatry is replacing God in our life with something that He has actually made. Everything that exists comes from Him, therefore He made everything, and everything that we have comes from Him. When we seek fulfillment and happiness from something other than God, we are expecting it to do for us what only God can do.
Often, we go to idols to escape the reality of our lives. We are seeking distraction, oblivion, or just a mild sedative to the things in life we want to be delivered from. We want to forget what we cannot escape. The irony is that idols offer false deliverance that turns into another form of bondage. Make no mistake, our help comes from the Lord. When we try to solve problems on our own and when we seek deliverance from somewhere else but the Lord, we will not find true deliverance. We will find a false security from an idol that demands our soul in return. Our God is the true deliverer.
Idols also offer only lies under a façade of truth. They are deceiving and draw us in before we know it. God offers only truth. He never lies to us. He also has done so much more for us than any earthly idol could ever do. Jackie Hill Perry, in the Bible study on Jude that she wrote, points out all that the only God does for us:
- Forgiven us – Acts 10:43
- Made us conquerors: Romans 8:37
- Given us access to the Father: Ephesians 2:18
- Strengthened us: Philippians 4:13
- Taught us to praise: Hebrews 13:15
- Has given us life: 1 John 4:9
- Has given us victory: 1 Corinthians 15:57
- Provides true comfort: 2 Corinthians 1:5
- Made us able to draw near to God: Hebrews 7:25
- Has given us salvation: John 3:17
Let’s face it, we don’t stop to think about all He has done for us when we want a quick fix to a deep pain. We either go to our Heavenly Father and trust Him to fulfill our longings and our empty places, or we let these longings become desires that Satan can use to lead us away from God. He will gladly fill our empty places, although we will find ourselves emptier than ever before. God will fill these empty places and give us so much more than we ever desired. Only He can provide the true and lasting fulfillment we seek.
