Daily Devotion

Selection Taken From:
A Year with God by R.P. Nettelhorst

Make this the year you let God's Word "dwell in you richly"---and marvel at the results! Each entry in this 365-day devotional features Scripture verses in which God speaks, accompanied by insights and applications to enhance your understanding. Learn what God says about hope and fear; perseverance and quitting; companionship and isolation; and more! 384 pages, softcover from Nelson, Copyright 2010.


What Good Is an Idol?
Hear the word that the LORD speaks to you, 0 house of Israel. Thus says the LORD:
Do not learn the way of the nations, or be dismayed at the signs of the heavens; for the nations are dismayed at them.
For the customs of the peoples are false: a tree from the forest is cut down, and worked with an ax by the hands of an artisan;
people deck it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.
Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk.
Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor is it in them to do good. - Jeremiah 10:1-5 NRSV

For most people in the modern world, idols are merely works of art. We are never tempted to worship them. Some art historians are dismayed that as Christians became dominant in the old Roman Empire, they destroyed the pagan temples and wrecked the images of the gods. Two thousand years later, it is easy to think only in terms of the destruction of art. Keep in mind, however, that for those who had turned from paganism to Christianity, idols held power. They symbolized something evil and wrong. They oppressed the hearts and minds of countless human beings, blinding them to the truth. People had devoted themselves, their money, and even their lives to things that were useless. Idols were a lie and a delusion.

Following the destruction of any totalitarian regime, whether that of Nazi Germany, Communism, or Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, the people freed from tyranny quickly destroyed statues and images of the hated regime. Statues of Stalin and Lenin were knocked down and dragged away; swastikas atop buildings in Berlin were dynamited; Saddam's statue in the center of Baghdad was toppled by tanks. Two thousand years from now, some might be appalled at the destruction of art and culture in these places, but those destroying the images were striking blows for freedom. For those who worshipped idols, the idols were not art. They were tyrants who had blinded their worshippers. Whatever idols oppress you today—fearful circumstances or material belongings—God has set you free from them. Your idols are nothing but objects made by men.