Our Purpose Must Not Come from the Created!

by winterb6 at www.sxc.hu

by winterb6 at www.sxc.hu

In the last post, I wrote that creation should cause us to glorify God.  Yet, sadly the temptation of mankind through history has been to marvel at creation and choose to worship it, instead of the Creator.  

In fact, we would not be overstating it to say that man’s basic mistake comes down to choosing to put our hope, purpose, and glory into something that is created rather than the Creator. 

Paul says this is the root sin of the Gentiles in Romans 1:20-25.  They did not “honor him as God or give thanks to him” (v. 21).  They “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” (v. 23).  Ultimately, they “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!” (v. 25).

Think about it!  Anytime we seek to find our hope, purpose, and meaning in something outside of God, we are placing it in the created.  Solomon tried this and recorded his journey in Ecclesiastes.  He tried wealth, knowledge, women, great buildings, power, sex, and children.  He found it all “vanity, like grasping for the wind.”

Things that are temporal and physical can never give you what God, who is eternal and spiritual can give you.  Yet, we struggle!  We look for peace in pills, hope in our IRAs, put faith in doctors, find purpose in work, and believe if we just had some more money we could be happy.

We are like the idolators Paul spoke of in Romans 1.  Remember if it is created, it is not intended to be our source of purpose, hope, and meaning.  Only God, the one “who was and is and is to come!” is worthy of our hope, purpose, and meaning (Rev. 4:8). 

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