Let’s Serve God, Not Just Acknowledge Him   

As our attention is especially focused on our nation during this Fourth of July weekend, it’s a good time not only to celebrate the past but to evaluate our current condition. There’s a description given in the Bible of another nation which I believe is fitting for us today as well. Although the circumstances were very different, the moral and spiritual climates displayed some similarities. It was said of these people that “they feared the Lord, yet served their own gods” (II Kings 17:33). If you look at the context, it was a society in which the people acknowledged God and followed some of the rituals in connection with His worship, but they didn’t live in obedience to His word. Isn’t that what is happening in our country today? God is still acknowledged oftentimes, although even that practice is becoming less common. There are still people who observe some degree of religious rituals in relation to God. However, we are straying further and further away from living in accordance to the teachings of His word. We acknowledge God, but we aren’t obeying Him. We either ignore what He says, attempt to reinterpret it to our own liking, or just rebelliously refuse to adhere to it. This isn’t only a characteristic of our secular society today, but unfortunately it also describes a large portion of the church. Many pay lip-service to God, but they aren’t obeying His teachings.

The people referred to in II Kings showed where their love and loyalty lay. Yes, they gave some recognition to the one true God, but they served their own gods. Their own deities had their hearts and in turn their obedience and service. We may acknowledge God, use the phrase “In God We Trust” as our motto, claim that we are “one nation under God”, proclaim “God bless America”, say our prayers, and attend our worship services. But who or what are we serving? Who really has our heart? Is it the one true God who has revealed Himself through the Bible and His Son Jesus Christ, or is it the gods of our own making?

I would suggest that we, including many who profess to be Christians, are guilty of serving our own gods today. The things of this world actually have our hearts more than God does. We love them more than we love Him. It may be the god of self – wanting what we want and dismissing what anyone, including God, says to the contrary. Or it may be one or more of the many other gods in our world – popularity, power, sex, money, pleasure, and the list goes on. We aren’t willing to give up those other gods even when following them runs contrary to the way God says we should live. Therefore we still acknowledge God and try to do enough to appease any displeasure He might have toward us, but meanwhile we’re serving our own gods.

Do we fear God enough to obey Him? However, serving Him shouldn’t just be based on being afraid of what He might do to us if we disobey Him. It really comes down to love. We should serve Him out of love for Him. We should want to obey Him based on how much He loves us and how He gave His Son to die on the cross for our sins. We should love Him more than we love the gods of this world, including the god of self.

We, individually and as a nation, need to quit serving our other gods. We need to give our hearts back to God and commit ourselves to obeying His word.