God has plainly told us that as His people we are to have no other gods in our lives besides Him. He is the only God and He will not tolerate our worship of others gods. He said that if we did He would punish us, our children and our grandchildren. Read Exodus 20:3-5. The punishment is serious. God wants all of our worship for Himself and nothing else is acceptable.
Don’t fool yourself. God has always set the parameters for worship and He has always gotten it and He will continue to get it. If not from you and I, He will get it from someone who is willing to give it. God has never accepted partial worship. He has never allowed us to worship Him on our own terms. When we want to, how we want to or to what extent has never been accepted by God. Ask Cain. Please quit believing that your level of worship is OK. It isn’t. If it’s not our best and not first it’s just not acceptable.
What does God mean by not acceptable? It’s not true worship if it doesn’t meet God’s standard. If it meets your standard then it probably doesn’t meet God’s. If our worship doesn’t meet His standard then were really not worshiping Him. If we aren’t worshiping Him then who or what are we worshiping? The question is not, will we worship but who will we worship? We will worship somebody or something. They or it will get our attention, our affection, our devotion, our passion, our money and our time. Whatever gets that is the object of our worship.
God isn’t going to settle for leftovers, which is what most of us are giving Him. Please hear this loud and clear. God will not play second fiddle to our careers, education, standard of living, other relationships or even our ministry. He will be first or not at all. What are the repercussions of our idolatry? There are temporal and eternal judgments. Our children will be affected naturally and spiritually. We are teaching them how to worship. What kind of worshipers are we rising up? Do they see us put God first? Pray? Read His Word? Make a priority of relationship with Him? Do they see our commitment to the advancement of His kingdom through the church? Do they see our lives transformed by this dynamic relationship with God? Be careful, lest we pass down our idolatry to them. There will be Hell to pay. Literally. The eternal consequence is an eternity separated from God, His love and peace.
The Bible tells us “that idolaters can’t go to heaven.” Jesus himself said, “No man can serve two masters.” Many of us are living separated from God, His love and peace now and don’t even know it. We’ve justified the way we live. Many of us are going to die and go to Hell and don’t even know it. Let’s make repentance a priority. True repentance will lead us to true worship.
