Foolish Wise Men (and women)

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Scripture

Professing to be wise, they became fools,
(Romans 1:22 NASB)
and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
(Romans 1:23 NASB)

 

Observation


Faith in God is counter-cultural and Paul knew it. Even the wise men of his day, those who had studied in the great academies of the known world struggled with having faith in God. Why? Because they wanted to believe in something that they could see and touch. The result was that though they professed to be wise, they were really fools for they could not look beyond the surface level and find God in the mix. God, in his incredibly creative ability is revealed in all of creation. Instead of seeing the beauty and complexity of God in all things, they chose to worship the things they could see. This folly resulted in them worshiping the statue of a human. If that wasn't enough they also worshiped statues of birds and animals. How could wise people worship such "stuff?"

 

Application


While these days we may not have statues of creatures in our homes which we worship, are there other things that have the place of God in our lives? Have we become foolish as evidenced by the things we think are important. The glory of God is always in indicator of his holy presence here among his people. God, through the Holy Spirit is able to live here among us and in us, and yet, we do exchange this presence for the things of this world. We are living in a day and age where we are allowing the things of this world to encroach upon our spiritual lives. God is not our first priority. Church attendance is rapidly declining as Sundays become occupied with sports, weekends at the lake, and another trip to visit family! Are sports, holidays and family bad things? No, they are not, but they are a problem when they take over first place in our lives, crowding out God. Suddenly, without really knowing it we have become like those who profess to be wise -- because we know the Bible and we know the answers, and we've been to Sunday School all our lives -- and yet, in reality, we have exchanged what we have known for the things of this world. It's far too easy to slip and suddenly become foolish wise men and women. May this be a reminder to us today that God must always remain number one in our lives if we are to be wise people of faith.

 

Prayer


Lord, please help me to not allow the things of this world to encroach upon our relationship. Amen.

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