Robbing God?

 

Anyone who has given a gift and watched the receiver become deeply excited about it, but didn’t even say thanks experiences a taste of how God’s goodness can become more important to us than He is.

God gives me good things to draw me to Himself but those good things can easily become the object of my affections and trust. Instead of giving Him glory, I get all wrapped up in unwrapping His gifts.

Ezekiel 16 tells how God’s people became noted among the nations because of the splendor God bestowed on them, but they trusted that splendor to the point of idolatry. The NT also describes this trait:

For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God… (2 Timothy 3:2–4)

One writer says that “Self love is the root, and the love of pleasures the top branch, that mounts its head highest against heaven.” He goes on to give examples of how we humans will “wade through many inconveniences, venture their souls, and contemn God” by glorying in and thinking ourselves safe and happy by such good lives that we enjoy, rather than being thankful to God. It comes out in prayers that might thank God for sunshine, warm clothes, food and so on, but deep worry and even annoyance if anything He blesses us with goes missing. This is a betrayal to God’s goodness by making His benefits contrary to the reason why He sent them. 

Israel did it: “And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. . . .  Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit. The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built; as his country improved, he improved his pillars. Their heart is false; now they must bear their guilt. The Lord will break down their altars and destroy their pillars.” (Hosea 2:8; 10:1–2)

God warns against this through the OT prophets and NT writers:

They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and wine they gash themselves; they rebel against me. Although I trained and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against me. (Hosea 7:14–15)
As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. (1 Timothy 6:17–19)

How easily this happens in our world, particularly when the people of God enjoy “the good life” and often go along with the world in considering this the result of hard work rather than gifts from the hand of God. We eclipse the glory of Divine goodness, by setting the crown that is due to it upon the head of our own efforts, as did the king of Assyria:

“By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding; I remove the boundaries of peoples, and plunder their treasures; like a bull I bring down those who sit on thrones. My hand has found like a nest the wealth of the peoples; and as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken, so I have gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved a wing or opened the mouth or chirped.” 
Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it? As if a rod should wield him who lifts it, or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood! Therefore the Lord God of hosts will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors, and under his glory a burning will be kindled, like the burning of fire. (Isaiah 10:13–16)

Pride in my heart robs God when I set up myself and make His goodness my footstool. How foolish. Pride also robs me of seeing the truth, that I am not the hand but only the glove because any good in who I am or what I do comes from Jesus. 

PRAY: “Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” (Psalm 19:12–14)