June 5, 2023 8:00 pm
Here are some vacation tips: The next time you’re traveling through Middleton, Wisconsin, you might want to visit the National Mustard Museum. For those of us who feel that one mustard is plenty, this place amazes, featuring 6,090 different mustards from around the world. In Mclean, Texas, you might be surprised to run across the Barbed Wire Museum—or more surprised there is such a passion for, well . . . fencing.
It’s telling what kinds of things we choose to make important. One writer says you could do worse than spend an afternoon at the Banana Museum (though we beg to differ).
We laugh in fun, yet it’s sobering to admit we maintain our own museums—places of the heart where we celebrate certain idols of our own making. God instructs us, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3) and “you shall not bow down to them or worship them” (v. 5). But we do anyway, creating our own graven gods, perhaps of wealth or lust or success—or of some other fill-in-the-blank “treasure” we worship in secret.
It’s easy to read this passage and miss the point. Yes, God holds us accountable for the museums of sin we create. But he also speaks of “showing love to a thousand generations of those who love [Him]” (v. 6). He knows how trivial our “museums” really are. He knows our true satisfaction lies only in our love for Him.
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Hey, welcome to another encouragement from Our Daily Bread. The devotional for today was written by Kenneth Peterson, and he titled it Places of the Heart.
Here are some vacation tips. The next time you're traveling through Middleton, Wisconsin, you might want to visit the National Mustard Museum. For those of us who feel that one mustard is plenty, this place amazes, featuring 6,090 different mustards from around the world. In McLean, Texas, you might be surprised to run across the Barbed Wire Museum. Or more surprised there is such a passion for, well, fencing. It's telling what kinds of things we choose to make important. One writer says you could do worse than spend an afternoon at the Banana Museum, though we beg to differ. We laugh and fun, yet it's sobering to admit that we maintain our own museums, places of the heart where we celebrate certain idols of our own making. In the book of Exodus, God instructs us, you shall have no other gods before me, and you shall not bow down to them or worship them. But we do anyway, creating our own graven gods, perhaps of wealth or lust or success, or of some other fill-in-the-blank treasure we worship in secret.
It's easy to read this passage and miss the point. Yes, God holds us accountable for the museums of sin we create. But he also speaks of showing love to a thousand generations of those who love him.
He knows how trivial our museums really are. He knows our true satisfaction lies only in our love for him. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Exodus chapter 20, verses 1 through 6. And God spoke all these words. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them.
For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. Would you pray with me? Father God, we want you to be at the center of our lives. Open our eyes to the idols we keep and help us to release them to you that we may trust only in you. Thank you, Lord. It's in your name that we pray. Amen.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-06-05 20:51:05 / 2023-06-05 20:52:33 / 1
