06/12/2026
📖 Weekly Note,
Worshiping the Creature, Not the Creator
From the very beginning of mankind, we’ve struggled with being self-centered. The fall of mankind came not from random temptation, but the temptation to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in order to be “like God” – to move ourselves up the chain from the created - subject to God - to the master of our own goodness.
God made Himself known in creation, yet we – as humans – are so easily distracted, we miss the point entirely!
19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
– Romans 1:19-23
Although Paul was writing in a world that literally worshipped idols made in the image of people, birds, animals, and “creeping things” – and it might be tempting for us in the modern world to roll our eyes at the “primitive minds” that worshipped idols, we’re really no different now. When we begin to put “that’s just who I am” or “that’s how I was raised” as the rationale explaining away our chosen behaviors, we put ourselves – the created – in front of God as the determination of right and wrong. When we choose to worship ourselves, or upbringing, our genetics, or our thinking as higher than God, we reject His sovereignty…and He allows us to do so.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!
Amen.
Romans 1:24-25
The rest of Romans 1 describes what happens when left to our own counsel about what is right and wrong!
Thank God – thank GOD – that, in His mercy, He did not leave us on our own to descend into the chaos of humanistic righteousness! Instead, He gives us the Holy Spirit to lead us towards godliness, gifting the body with spiritual gifts to build up one another, and blessing us with the fruit of the Spirit and the desire to bear that fruit in our lives!
Ken
