ONE HEARTBEAT AWAY - PART 54

                                            ONE HEARTBEAT  AWAY

    PART 54

(Mark Cahill's Book)


Second Commandment.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything  that is in heaven above, or
that is in the earth beneath, or that is 
in the water under the earth. 

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them : for I, the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting 
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me.  

And showing mercy to thousands 
of them that love me and keep  my Commandments.
 (Exodus 20: 4-6)

The Second Commandment has to 
do  with the worship of idols. We 
break this commandment when we create  a god to suit our own sins. 
That is when we say  "my god doesn't get mad at me lying. My god would never punish people by sending them 
to hell. My god will let good people go 
to heaven,"  we are creating an idol in our own image.

The problem is that we cannot create our own god. We can imagine doing it, but God Almighty remains Who He is.
We don't have the power to make God what we want Him to be.  We can only create and believe in idols, and 
pretend they are God.

Whether we made them up, or 
whether they've been presented to us 
by our culture, idols hold a certain power over us. Possessions, money, sports, following sports teams, food, drugs, boyfriends, girlfriends, TV, movies, jobs etc., all become idols in our lives. 

Think about the "American Idol " television show. All these people 
want to be the idol that everyone will look up to! We can even make 
ourselves out to be idols.

I was speaking one time at a 
Christian high school on the west 
coast. After speaking with some students in a first-period class, I 
walked outside after the bell rang.

I watched a student as he wiped 
down his beautiful Mustang - I 
believe it was a 1966 model - white 
with a blue racing stripe down the middle. It was a beautiful car.  I 
walked over and asked him what he was doing 
. "I want to make sure that no tree sap or anything got on my car."   I said, "we've only been inside the school for fifty minutes! What do you think is 
going to happen to your car in fifty minutes? "  It was obvious that he 
loved his car. 

I was wondering how much he loved 
it, so I asked him, "Can I drive your 
car? "
"Noway! Only my dad and  I drive this car."   I told him that when I go to visit Charles Barkley, a friend of mine from college he will throw me the keys to his $100,000 Mercedes and let me drive it. 
He still wouldn't let me drive his Mustang though. 

We stood there talking for another minute or two before he finally said, 
"I will think about it."

Later that day he came up to me and said "Okay, you can drive my car as 
long as I am in it with you."  I responded, "I don't really want to drive your car, I just wanted to see if you would let me drive it. I was trying to find out if your car was your idol, and it is." 

The look on his face 
showed  that he knew 

what I was saying was   true. Isn't it amazing that we can love a car more than the God of the universe?

We can probably look at the posters on our walls to see what we really worship. 
But God doesn't want you adoring and loving something else, when He knows it cannot satisfy you. Only His love can satisfy you. Is that what you are yearning for? Or something less?

I heard a guy say one time about the Ten Commandments, "What part of  'thou shall not,' don't you understand?"  It's
not that we don't understand what God is saying, it is that we don't want to do what God is saying.

it seems pretty straightforward that God says "No"  to some things, but somewhere deep inside us is a rebellious spirit that wants to do otherwise.

However, you cannot serve two gods at the same time. One will always have preeminence over the other one. For instance, in the book of Matthew, Jesus warns against the love of money.

 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Matthew 6:24).

Man's instinct is to worship something. And what you worship will control you.

Know ye not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.
 (Romans 6:16)
What do you worship in your life?  
Now ask yourself this question - have I broken the Second Commandment by having idols in my life?

Next post  13th November