2 Kings 16

Hey New Life,

Happy first day of October! Our Daily Bible passage comes from 1 Kings 16:1-20, where we see the evil reign of King Ahaz. We see him worshiping idols in a despicable way, sacrificing his own son. He took the treasures from the house of the Lord to make an alliance with Assyria, and he built an altar for their god in the temple.

This is a picture of our sin. When we worship idols, it doesn't just affect our relationship with God. It affects our loved ones, our treasure, and our places of worship. Even if we are not sinning against our loved ones directly, our idols will harm them. It becomes natural for us to sacrifice them on the altars of money, work, pleasure, approval, etc.

Also, they will strip us of our treasure (that is the Lord's). We will pour our treasure, time, and strength to pursue our idols. One way to identify our idols is to see where our money and time are going.

Lastly, our idols will affect our place of worship. Instead of worshiping God in the secret place (Matthew 6:6), we will pursue sin in the secret place. Instead of worshiping with the body of Christ, we will find other communities and places to spend our time. We will always worship something. The question is if we are worshiping the right thing (or in our case, the right God).

Every idol will kill us and our loved ones. They will sap our treasure and shift our lives to be centered on them. They will force us to serve until we can't serve anymore. Our God is the only God who became a man to first serve us. Our Christ is the only savior who didn't demand us to die for salvation, but He died in our stead. Our Lord is the only place where we can receive the Living Water and never thirst again.

May we die to our idols and live unto Christ this week!

In Christ,
Pastor Tim