American Idols

One of my wife's and I favorite TV show is American Idol. We try to watch it whenever it's on and whenever we have the time. Of course, Simon Cowell is my favorite judge. Although most don't agree with him, I think he's right 90% of the time. Randy is a crowd pleaser, and Paula most of the time, likes everybody. Last night performances were mediocre. I wasn't really impressed with any of them, although some of the 70's songs took Ruth and I back a few years. Anyway, my prediction is that Vonzell will win it all, and tonight Anwar will be voted off.

Did you know that there are thousands of American idols? No, I'm not talking about Kelly, Fantasia, or Ruben. I am talking about things that we worship in place of God. You see, the truth is that everybody worships something. We were created to worship God. He put it in our DNA. It's part of being a human being. God created us to worship Him and if we don't, we quickly find a subsitute, even if its just ourselves. There are thousands, if not millions of American idols that people worship all the time. Many worship their careers, retirement, money, sex, people, material possessions, pleasure, and some, themselves. Whenever you love something more than God, that's called an idol. Whenever you have idols in your life, you will have chaos, conflict, stress, and problems. When we love money, pleasure, fame, our reputation, or anything else in life, more than we love God, we will have havoc. We were created to worship God, not things.

Romans 6:13, describes to us the heart of worship. "Give yourselves to God... surrender your whole being to Him to be used for righteous purposes." The heart of worship is surrender. It is when we surrender our hearts, our lives, our dreams, our passions, and everything to Him. It is when we offer to Him our love, our attention, our affection and our abilities completely to him. Romans 12, tells us "So then, my friends, because of God's great mercy to us... offer yourselves a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him. This is the true worship you should offer." Worship is more than music, a service, or a religious tradition. Worship is offering yourself to God..

God doesn't want anything else from us but our love, our affection, our attention, and our abilities. He is after our hearts. He is after our lives. We were created to worship. No, not people or things, but God. This is our first and highest purpose in life. The greatest mistake you can make is miss your primary purpose in life. So let me ask you a question, what do you love most in life? The Bible says you were planned for God's pleasure. You were made to know and love God. There is not a better goal in life than to know and love Him. You have a choice. Are you going to worship an American idol, or are you going to worship God?