Daily Bread: Wrong Worship

December 26, 2011 — by Dave Branon on odb.org

If you really want to get folks upset, threaten their economy.

A bad economic picture gets politicians voted out of office, and the threat of a downturn nearly got the apostle Paul kicked out of Ephesus.

Here’s what happened. Paul came to town and started “reasoning and persuading concerning . . . the kingdom of God” (Acts 19:8). For more than 2 years he shared the gospel, and many began following Jesus.

Because Paul was so successful in getting people to see that there is only one true God, many Ephesians stopped worshiping the goddess Diana. This was bad news for the local silversmiths, who made their living creating and selling Diana statuettes. If enough people stopped believing in her, business would dry up. A commotion and an uproar broke out when the craftsmen figured this out.

This Ephesus incident can remind us to evaluate our reasons for worshiping God. The silversmiths wanted to protect their worship as a way of protecting their prosperity, but may that never be said of us. Don’t ever let your worship of God become an avenue to good fortune.

We worship God because of His love for us and because of who He is, not because loving Him can help our bottom line. Let’s worship God the right way.

We worship God for who He is,
And not because of what we’ll get;
When we acknowledge what we owe,
We’ll thank Him that He paid our debt. —Sper

Don’t worship God to gain His benefits— you already have them.