Designer Idols – Day 14

The unknown god

“So Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way, for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it” ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about.” Acts 17:22-23 NLT

I often wondered what Paul prayed in his heart whilst walking through the Citadel in Athens? Seeing all the statues erected for their pantheon of gods. Even amongst the stone-cold, lifeless eyes of these idols, God gave him hope – an opportunity to share the Gospel through an empty altar with a description ‘To the Unknown God’.

I can imagine how his heart started to sing! How do you debate with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers of Greece who were always looking to discover something “new” to discuss? Standing in front of the Areopagus (council of philosophers meeting upon Mars Hill to investigate spiritual and philosophical ideas) he masterfully uses this altar as an opportunity to share the one true God.

Walking through the citadel of your heart, do you have any idols on altars moving God to the position of ‘the Unknown God’? Things we hardly would ever classify as an idol. Things we value more than God…

“His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him – though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your poets have said, ‘We are his offspring. And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.” Acts 17:27-29 NLT

Because we are His children (and He loved us first) we abide in Him. Paul explains because of this, it is a sin to see God as an idol or to worship idols. We should honestly and humbly turn to Him and repent our sins to Him.

Prayer: Father, I come before You with an honest and humble heart and ask Your forgiveness for the time I have placed anything else on an altar in my heart. My heart belongs to You, my King, and more than anything I want to abide in You for in You I live and move and exist. Amen.