Rom
1:21-25 (NIV) For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor
gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts
were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and
exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man
and birds and animals and reptiles.
24
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual
impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged
the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than
the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen.
NOTE: Paul writes
that men knew God. I wonder if that was
during the time after Adam and before Noah.
I'm not sure how they knew or when they knew, but they did know God. And even though they knew him, the first two
mistakes was not to glorify him or give him thanks. For the believer, this is the heart of
worship, and based on this verse alone would seem to be our primary purpose in
life. Because when we fail to worship
God, it starts a chain of effects that are disastrous for us. Worship is for our good, and when we do not
worship, the first area affected is our thinking, the second area is our
emotions. Their thinking became
futile. A definition for futile, is that
it serves no purpose, and it is occupied with trifles. Secondly, our foolish hearts were
darkened. That which should have
captured our attention and emotions was obscured and unclear. And so, we no longer knew God, because we
couldn't see him anymore. And it all
started because we refused to worship.
We didn't exalt God for who he is and we did not thank him for what he
has done. And as the passage will
continue, we are the recipients of our own choice.
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