Let us not have idols

By: Rob Peralta

Perhaps the most broken of all the Commandments today is the worshipping of idols and images. The devil has made sure that many "things" take up our time and away from God. Sadly, what a GREAT SUCCESS this has been for him! My heart truly goes out to the Lord, as I know He sees the tremendous idol worshipping going on today. And His heart bleeds anew.

In our Christian life God measures our "time". What do we do with it? How many hours do we spend on this or that each week? We have SO MANY distractions today. Where do I start? Let's see, there is TV, DVDs, IPODS, COMPUTERS, PHONES, MUSIC, THEATRE, VIDEO GAMES,VEHICLES, SPORTS, ETC. You get the point. And each and every one of these can, and in many cases, DOES become an "idol" to us!

In my own personal life before I became a true Christian I also had some idols. I worshipped money, tobacco,music and chess. For these things encompassed "most" of my weekly waking hours. You see, God COUNTS our hours each week and if we spend most of our time on a specific idol or image (TV for example) we are indeed "worshipping" an idol. We BREAK His Commandment! If we continue to do this we place our salvation in serious jeopardy. That is why I was sent a direct sign from God ( Please visit our sister site http://www.godsloveandlaw.wordpress.com/ , the post called " The Lord turns on the light" under "prayers answered") I had been spending much of my evening hours watching TV or on the computer.

The Christian life MUST have it's primary focus on God! Our Lord should be our desire and concern. TIME must be spent reading His word, spreading His word and truth, fellowshipping, prayer, and learning from "in the spirit" teachers and preachers of God's truth. Our Lord spoke these words "I am the way, the truth and the life"(John 14:6) Our "new" life is a life in Jesus, the old is done away with! Meaning we must discard our old idols and have NO IDOLS except our Lord. If you say a prayer like this "Dear Lord,
help me to remember that YOU are first in my life and if I am doing something that comes in front of you, please let me know" He will be faithful and guide you, rest assured! You will start to feel "guilty" from the Holy Spirit when doing that something wrong. Also remember, the word says "His Commandments are NOT burdensome " (1 john 5:3) Our Lord knows you have a life to live and won't overly burden you.

Of course our weekly work is a necessity and those hours are not counted against us. And we can even "glorify" God by doing hard , honest, cheerful work! So please look at your life and the "time" spent each week. Is something "in front" of our Lord? If so, get rid of it or at least cut it back so that the time with our Lord exceeds the time for our worldly distractions.

Peace and understanding to you, my brothers and sisters in Christ.