“You shall not worship them nor serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, inflicting the punishment of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing favor to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”

When someone designs an invention, they do so with a purpose in mind. For the invention to function properly, it should fulfill the purpose the inventor intended. The same is true for a building; it has its purpose and design that is determined by one who has commissioned the project. It is laughable to imagine these created things dictating what they should do or what purpose they should fulfill. That is not theirs to decide, but their creator’s. When God created humans, He made us in His image. In other words, we were made to reflect Him. But when Adam and Eve chose sin, they rejected God’s design in favor of their own desires.

This has not changed. We are made to serve God and worship Him. When we don’t do this and create idols instead, we not only disobey God, but we also move away from our created purpose. Our passage today makes clear that God takes idol worship seriously. He punishes it severely, but He also shows blessing to those who honor Him. This passage should bring conviction as we recognize our tendency to give other people and things our attention and efforts. As good as earthly things can be, we were not made to worship people or other created things. We were made to serve and worship God alone. When we live by His design, we bear the fruit of being reconciled to Him, but when we seek our own way, it will only hurt us in the end.

• What is something taking a lot of your time or resources right now? How can our use of time and resources help determine where we might be giving undue devotion to something?
• Why is it important that we submit all our lives before God, even the good things that we enjoy in the appropriate and intended way?
• Pray and thank God for His design and that He made us in His image to worship and serve Him alone.