They Exchanged The Truth Of God

I have been meditating on Romans 1:25 for a week now, working it over my mind, tongue, and heart. It says:

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is blessed forever.

When we worship something other than the Lord God Almighty, we are worshiping a false god, a lie. This can be our jobs, our money, our sports, or even less tangible things like our pride our self. This isn't the part that was hard for me to get. I really didn't know why God was asking me to look into this verse. I was kind of thinking, "Hey. I've got this. I understand. I don't get it right all the time, but I know what You're saying here"

And that's when I figured it out. The fact that I get this wrong is what I needed to think about. God is good and true and faithful and wants what's best for us. So the question is, WHY would we ever exchange that for something artificial? Later in the chapter, it says that those same people who decided to worship creation and not Creator are filled with envy. murder, deceit and disputes; it says they invent evil and are untrustworthy and unloving (Romans 1:29-31). That sounds exactly like what I try to avoid. So how it it that we begin to love these lies enough to sacrifice God?

Eric Ludy gave a sermon on January 16th called the Auschwitz Within, and he outlined just how we do that. First, we trifle with sin, we meditate on the forbidden. We're not touching the fruit, we're just looking at it. But to do that we have to step further and further away from God, so at some point we're not close enough to love Him anymore. Then, we start loving what we should hate. We justify our sin, saying that the outcome will be fun and exciting, or that we're not as bad as that other guy over there. We are no longer simply in love with that lie, we actually believe it. We say that even though we're doing wrong, we're accomplishing good, and suddenly wrong becomes right. And then we wonder why we find ourselves struggling in our walks with God. There's a reason Paul refers to this world as perverted(Philippians 2:15).

How easy it is to let ourselves get distracted. We are essentially ignoring God when we choose something other than Him. We cannot have both. We cannot have Truth and a lie live in our hearts at the same time, because Jesus Christ is the Truth (John 14:6). Once we decide to worship that lie, we move Jesus out of the number one place. We don't mean to do it, but it's a series of steps that we take until we find ourself swallowed in sin and lies. And there's a lot to get lost in.



Lord, help us to remember to have no other gods before You. I thank You for helping me understand why I sin, and the ways I justify it until I'm so far from You that the lie starts to look good. I thank You for the truth that is the Gospel, and the Christ came down to save me from the sinful choices I make. I praise You for being so good and honest and true, and I pray that You would hold me near to the light. Amen.

Do not have other gods besides Me. Exodus 20:3

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6

Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable - if there is any moral excellence and if there is any praise - dwell on these things. Philippians 4:8