Idols - Balance - Satisfaction

For some reason there seems to be no balance in most people’s lives.  This covers most everyone that has enough money to buy things or has a credit card.  We have lost are sense of balance and satisfaction.

I was at a sale Saturday and there was a lady selling purses, when she was asked how many purses she owned, her answer was 219.  She claimed the guy she was with had about 80 pairs of shoes.  The sad thing is, in America this is the norm and not the exception.  This might help the economy but where does it end?  It seems like we are never satisfied with what we have.  The poor want to be rich and the rich want to be richer.

I have an M & M collection I started a few years ago because I thought they were cute, as of today I have somewhere around five hundred of these M & M Characters, cars, trucks, phones, tins and the list goes on and on.  They are in my office in the basement and I hardly ever look at them. It seems like I have lost interest in them.  

I remember buying motorcycles years ago, I was never satisfied and I ended up buying around 11 of them.  I could have taken one of them and fixed it up the way I wanted it and kept just that one and saved all kinds of money.  But instead of being satisfied with one, I just kept pouring money into them and buying more.  Then they became an idol in my life.

Then there were the cars and trucks, and I bought plenty of them and put plenty of money in them also.  I think of all the hours I spent polishing, cleaning and talking about them.  And they became idols in my life also. The list goes on and on.  

Some of us would never admit to having idols in our lives, but think about what you own and how much time you spend with these things.  The Lord is a jealous God and He will not tolerate any idols in our lives.  We read about the Israelites and it is easy to think, ‘how could they bow down to an idol and worship it,’ but we are just as guilty as they were in the Old Testament.  Just because we don’t bow down and pray to the ‘thing’ in question, we spend hours with it.

Think about what your time is consumed with, what you think about most of the time and what you talk about mostly.  The Lord has to be number one in our lives, period, nothing else can come before Him.  When the Israelites sinned there were grievous consequences and the Jews were God’s chosen people.  How will we not be punished if we do these things? God is not a respecter of men.  He loves us all the same and He will treat us all equal.  The correction we receive may be different but we are not getting away without some kind of punishment.  

I know we live in the day of grace, praise God, but sin is sin and God will correct it in our lives.  We know that God is a loving God, and all that goes with love He demonstrates and we want to hear about all the good stuff God has for us, and we hear about them quite often.  But how much do we hear about sin and God’s correction?  These things are a part of God’s love also and we need to take them very seriously.  Let’s face it most of us are guilty of this sin in one way or another, so we need to deal with it and not put it off any longer.  Confess it and repent, tell the Lord you are sorry if you mean it, and you will be forgiven, praise the Lord!

In 1^st John 1:9 it says:  “If we confess our sins He is faithful to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.”  This is great news, so just do it and you will feel so much better, plus you will be honoring the Lord.

God bless and have a great day. And don’t forget to thank and praise the Lord!