February 10, 2010 IS YOUR ABILITY TO SEE GOD BLINDED?

Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars?
He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name.
Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing.
(Isaiah 40:26)
Chambers opens today’s devotional by explaining that the Israelites of Isaiah’s day had hampered their ability to see the God of heaven with their constant exposure to – and often adoption of – the worship of idols as practiced by other religions of the time. They became accustomed to having an image at which to worship, and because of this Isaiah had to remind them where they could find their God, and he wasn’t in a figure carved of wood, stone or gold. Our God created the very stars in the sky – unlike other heathen religions, our God isn’t one of the stars, he CREATED them and placed each and every one of them where they shine. His power and strength is so great it is incomparable. Chambers captures this beautifully when he reminds us:

If we are children of God, we have a tremendous treasure in nature. In every wind that blows, in every night and day of the year, in every sign of the sky, in every blossoming and in every withering of the earth, there is a real coming of God to us if we will simply use our starved imagination to realize it.

When we see God through his creation, we can then touch the tip of who he is. His power, His majesty, He Himself is revealed through the phenomenal expanse of His creation.
For most of us in this day and age, idol worship as it existed in Isaiah’s day isn’t much of an issue. But it is still alive and well, albeit in a different form. Chambers asks:

Is your imagination looking on the face of an idol? Is the idol yourself? Your work? Your conception of what a worker should be? Your experience of salvation and sanctification?

To identify those idols in my own life, I’ve had to take an honest look at myself and ask a very difficult question: what is it that takes precedence over God in my life?

The answers can be surprising. We can easily identify the “idols” in the obvious ungodly pursuits, or in the preoccupation with ourselves that has become so prevalent in today’s society, but there are more subtle idols out there that many believers can find themselves at the feet of on occasion. Perhaps it is that we immerse ourselves in our work for the kingdom, but find ourselves worshipping the work itself rather than the One we are to be working for. We can find ourselves gripped by dramatic testimonies, and more enamored with the testifier than the God who created the transformation that created that testimony. Our admiration for church leadership can sometimes find us exalting those people to a status beyond that of God in our lives.

Our call as Christians is to seek God and worship him alone, keeping all other things in proper perspective.