Devotion: Stretching Our Hands Out to Strange Gods

Psalm 44: 20 If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god;  21 Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart.

I've just begun reading a book titled "When A Nation Forgets God" by Erwin W. Lutzer.  He compares what happened in Nazi Germany to what is happening in our nation now.  He traces the downward spiral from a nation that acknowledged God and allowed prayer in schools and freedom to worship Him to a nation that took prayer out of the schools, removed freedoms little by little from Christians until it was a nation devoid of God and killing those who were "unfit" to live in society.


Our nation is moving in that very direction.  Prayer has been removed from our schools. They are removing Christian principles from our government. Some states have voted to allow euthanasia for those that are ill and desire it (just one small step away from killing those who are a "burden to society").  Unborn babies are already being killed if they are going to be an inconvenience. Little by little Christian churches and Christians are having their freedoms removed. 

We are a nation that is in the process of forgetting God.  We have stretched out our hands to strange gods.  They are the gods of convenience, selfishness, pride, greed, money, man's own wisdom and a whole host of others. 


We may try to fool others. We may try to fool ourselves.  But God knows our hearts.  He searches our hearts and knows what our gods are.  I am as guilty as the next person of allowing things to come before my relationship with God.  


What can become a god in our lives?  Anything that becomes more important to us than living a life with a conscience toward God and keeping our relationship to Him first is a god to us.  


What might that look like in our lives?  It might surprise you, but church can become a god.  I've been there before.  At one point in my life I became so involved in the church that I did not have time to maintain my relationship with God in daily prayer and Bible reading. The activities of the church took the place of all that.  I was "serving God by serving my church" while my spiritual life...the time I actually spent with God, studying and soaking in His Word, praying and communing with Him became almost non-existent.  My church became my god.


Things can become your god.  The internet, sports, recreation, your home, money, your job and the list goes on and on.  If any of these things take the place and time you should spend in prayer and studying the Bible to learn how God would want you to live and behave, then you have stretched your hands out to strange gods.


This is an area that I constantly have to keep vigilance over.  It is so easy for these things to creep in and push out the time I should be spending in the Word and prayer.  It's like exercise.  If I don't make it a priority in my life it doesn't happen. What I am writing here is very convicting to me.  I so often fail and so often have to repent. How about you?  Do you have some strange gods crowding out the true God?