God is my life
The blacksmith stands at his forge to make a sharp tool, pounding and shaping it with all his might. His work makes him hungry and weak. It makes him thirsty and faint. Then the wood-carver measures a block of wood and draws a pattern on it. He works with chisel and plane and carves it into a human figure. He gives it human beauty and puts it in a little shrine... He falls down in front of it, worshiping and praying to it. “Rescue me!” he says. “You are my god!” Such stupidity and ignorance! Their eyes are closed, and they cannot see. Their minds are shut, and they cannot think. The person who made the idol never stops to reflect, “Why, it’s just a block of wood! I burned half of it for heat and used it to bake my bread and roast my meat. How can the rest of it be a god? Should I bow down to worship a piece of wood?” The poor, deluded fool feeds on ashes. He trusts something that can’t help him at all. Yet he cannot bring himself to ask, “Is this idol that I’m holding in my hand a lie?” Isaiah 44:12-20 NLT
When the Israelites were in exiled in Babylon, they adopted their practice of idolatry. They get used to the culture that they started to replace their worship of God with the idols they crafted and formed from the material world. The name Babylon is “Bab-ilu” and it means “gate of gods;” the way to heaven on earth. That was the culture in Babylon and life evolved in the idol worship of the people. Such worship is an affront to Israel’s worship of God. Their worship of creation and creature says loudly that “God is not your life.” There is nothing that can be derived from worshiping creation. “And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Isaiah from the text described how idols are crafted. Then he concluded in v. 17, “Then he takes what’s left and makes his god: a carved idol! He falls down in front of it, worshiping and praying to it. “Rescue me!” he says. “You are my god!” God gave us trees so that humans will be benefited from its warmth through the fire from that wood. Then with the fire, he can cook his food. But the problem is when the leftover piece of wood is formed to an idol and asks it to save him. God is my life and my salvation. “The LORD is my light and my salvation-- whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life...” (Psalm 27:1, NIV). When we limit ourselves in our worship of God by worshiping things of this world, we narrow our worship to religious rituals and practices. Life in God is beyond religious experience for He wants us to make Him our life. He wants us to experience Him in our daily living more real than the creation.
Blessings,