What’s it going to be?

And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” -Joshua 24:15 (NKJV)

Most people in this modern age, if they are theists at all, will tell you that they believe in one God. As Christians, we mostly acknowledge the existence of one God in 3 persons, known as the Trinity. Three persons, yet one God. That makes us monotheists by our own admission. But, is that always the case?

We might tend to think of gods as things expressed by idols with special form and function, such as those expressed by Greek mythology. However, they may come in many forms we often don’t notice. The enemy is a master of subtle attacks on us, eroding the fabric of our relationship with Christ whenever he can. Perhaps your “other gods” might be money, sex, the idea of power or special privilege? The thing is, while we may serve other gods and not even realize it, we cannot serve both them and the one true God at the same time. Jesus made that perfectly clear:  “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. -Matthew 6:24 (NKJV) Some translations, such as the NIV, say “money” instead of “mammon.” I like to use the word mammon as the KJV or NKJV renders it, because it denotes much more than just that one thing. It means the god of materialism and wealth. It speaks to me of the fact that I can’t allow anything to come between my Creator and me.

I have come to realize in my Christian walk that God must be everything or He ends up being nothing at all to me. I cannot afford for the latter to be the case. I pray that you cannot, either.