Priorities.

Romans 1:22-25 – Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Why is it that we forget God so often? Is it because we can’t see Him or touch Him or hear Him?

I used to look back at the Old Testament and laugh at those who were worshiping the golden calf. I asked myself, “How can they be so stupid?!” They replaced the Eternal God who was before and is after them with a golden calf that they made with their own hands. This idea just completely blew my mind.

Sadly enough, we are no different.

Maybe we don’t worship the image of an animal, but we worship things that we ourselves create. Verse 25 states that “they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.” This verse may describe our culture more than any other I have seen in Scripture.

We replace God with money, sex, TV, internet – you name it. Our world is completely obsessed with “stuff.” Sure, you say that God is your king, but is He? I can almost definitely tell you, He is not. We put God on the back burner until Sundays and Wednesdays and ignore Him in between. Our sins have become our gods.

Colossians 3:2-5 – Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.

As Christians, the life of sin and of being nonchalant with God should be dead. We are now representatives of Christ and He should be the most important thing to us. Paul says not to just put aside your desires for things you can’t have, but he says to put them to death. When something is dead it is gone forever. Furthermore, Paul says in Romans that when our sins take too strong of a hold on our hearts, that He “gives us over” to the sin; He punishes us by letting us wallow in the sinful pile of trash that we have created.

When we die, that’s it. Our money and socioeconomic status and other “stuff” won’t matter anymore, what will matter is what we did for God while we were here.

Make sure that your priorities are in the right place.