Our God Does Not Grow on Trees

He burns part of the tree to roast his meat … Then he takes what’s left and makes his god.

Isaiah 44:16-17 (NLT)

Today’s guest devotional is provided by Jon Walker –

In 1980, Howard Cosell interrupted a “Monday Night Football” game with the announcement that John Lennon, of the Beatles, had been murdered outside his New York City apartment.

In an eerie moment, ABC Sports respectfully cut sound from the game just as a play broke on the field, leaving television viewers – numbed by the news – sitting in silence while fans at the game, unaware of Lennon’s death, cheered wildly.

As I grieved, a Bible verse floated into my mind: “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36 NKJV).

I’d like to tell you that I fell to my knees and forever turned from my prodigal path, but, in my arrogance, I continued to wander a long and winding road to the Truth.

The prophet Isaiah spoke about men who used wood to fashion a god – one unable to deliver them – and so, by their own hands, they doomed themselves.

Our objective-in-Jesus is to rid ourselves of any gods we’ve fashioned from our own hands and to serve the one true God.

Rick Warren