Gods R Us?

Their land is also full of silver and gold, And there is no end to their treasures; Their land is also full of horses, And there is no end to their chariots. Their land is also full of idols; They worship the work of their own hands, That which their own fingers have made.  – Isaiah 2v7-8

Mary and I made an early trip to take a friend to hospital yesterday. I took Mary out for a lovely breakfast on the way home. Later, we had to run a couple of errands and stopped in to Harvey Norman’s. The shop is an electronic/appliance/furniture store that sells relatively good products at reasonable prices.

The electronics area was packed. People were shopping for iPads and laptops and anything else you can imagine. We are in the middle of this dreaded recession, yet we were all in there shopping or looking for stuff which we could really do without.

When I read back over this passage this morning this image came to mind. ‘Their land is full of gadgets and appliances. There is no end to their resources. Their land is full of fancy cars.’

Yup, that sounds like where I live, and in the midst of one of the worst economic downturns in recent history.

‘But their land is also full of idols and they worship what they have made.’

Most people in the West in the 21^st century are not going to stop by ‘Gods R Us’ and pick up a new idol to take home for our god shelf. Most of us are not going to carve or mould or fashion our own little statue to worship.

But we do idolise the things that mankind makes. We love our homes and cars and technology. We love our iPhones and our laptops and our big screen TVs. We love our sports teams. We love our gardens and yards. We love our fancy clothes and our finery.

There is nothing really wrong with all that stuff. But we need to beware that those things don’t replace our God and Saviour.

Too many believers are ‘comfort zone Christians’ who are happy to serve God as long as He does not interfere with all their other gods.

This was Israel. Sure, they knew about Jehovah. He was their God, but they also had all this other stuff which busied up their lives. Christians can be the same today. ‘Of course I am a Christian and want to serve Him. Just don’t ask me to give up my comfortable life and all my wonderful things that I love so much.’

Maybe we just call ‘Gods R Us’ by other names?