Week 8 of 2025
We live in a time when the lines between the ways of the world and the ways of God are blurred or extremely different from what they used to be. Even during the apostle Paul’s time, nearly two thousand years ago, Paul had to deal with sin that remained in the Church of Corinth among its members (1 Corinthians 5). The church was in its infancy, and there were still many worldly behaviors within the church, which the leaders addressed. Paul and the other writers of the letters distributed to the churches confronted those issues with an attitude of restoration and with God’s grace. The writers lived and professed a new way to live in this world. Paul wrote, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient” (Ephesians 2:1–2 NIV). Just as the Hebrews needed to spend forty years in the desert to purge the customs of Egypt out of their nation, Paul and the early church leaders needed to purge the ways of the world out of the new believers.
Centuries after God purged Egypt out of the Hebrew nation, they became an immensely powerful kingdom. Shortly thereafter, they became lazy and complacent as the worldly ideas, beliefs, and rituals commenced to infiltrate their lives and became acceptable to God’s chosen people. Their history of allowing idols and sexual rituals into their community proved to be the downfall of a once powerful nation that had been under the protection of the Living God. They exchanged their love and protection of God for the things made by human hands, their possessions and images, which they mistakenly trusted to care for them.
As a collective people, we are once again forsaking the love and care of the Living God for our created idols. Today’s idols, for the most part, are different from those that the Hebrews looked to for help. Today’s idols are less tangible but just as dangerous: retirement, status, jobs, college degrees, locations, and so on. We have become so self-reliant that we think we do not need God for everything. By taking on life through our own abilities, insecurities have replaced our confidence in God. In many cases, our insecurities and fears gave birth to our idols of pride, arrogance, spitefulness and selfishness, which we used to compensate rather than depending on and trusting God.
Our human side (the flesh) continues to seek after the things of the world. How do we overcome these desires?
