Daily Devotions – Worship of Ourselves

Daily Devotions – Worship of Ourselves

 

Click this link to hear an audio version of the below text narrated by SOTH member Jerry Rhinehart:

Genesis 3:1-5 (ESV)

The Fall

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

The first sin in the Bible was about whether or not Adam and Eve would actually believe in God’s words (true faith) or whether they would believe the lies of the serpent. But what the serpent did, was attack their pride. He convinced them that they could be like God “knowing good and evil.” The thought of being at the center of their own universe was appealing to them and still appeals to us today. We worship ourselves every time we are worried or anxious because we think the world and everyone around us is relying on us. We worship ourselves when we think we need to control our schedules and our children and our jobs. We worship ourselves when we think that everything would fall apart without us. Or maybe like Adam and Eve we worship ourselves when we believe we deserve something that we never had a right to in the first place. But when God is at the center of our lives everything else falls into place. What ways do you think you are in control of the world and need to let go? What desires do you need to give over to God?