A Thought

“[The Lord] shall say to them, ‘The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens.’” Jeremiah 10:11

Earlier in the chapter is stated “a wooden idol is a worthless doctrine” (vs 8).  We can understand statues and other icons that seem to demand our primary focus and attention, but the inference that the “wooden idol” had already become a “doctrine” – that is, a practice of devotion – hits a little closer to home because even though we don’t have statues that demand our devotion, we can easily evaluate our workaday lives and see what does demand (and get!) our devotion; that which becomes our regular practice of devotion. 

In our society we have justified our materialism and lust for “stuff” as “blessings” or as “signs” from Above.  We have justified our consumerism without understanding that our devotion to the acquisition of such “stuff” has become our primary “doctrine”; that is, our practice that gets our full devotion and attention.  It is this improper focus and devotion that eventually brought Israel down because they ultimately became a nation with no God except those “gods” that could be acquired and owned to serve one’s own purposes.

Let us put away the idols that only serve to separate us from the Lord; the idols that “shall perish”.  Let us renew our commitment to the Lord and His Church, the Covenant that will not perish.  Let us renew our commitment to the knowledge of Christ our Lord who calls us “out” to share, not “in” to keep, acquire, and accumulate.

Blessings,

Michael