1 Kings 18:36-39(MSG)
36-37 When it was time for the sacrifice to be offered, Elijah the prophet came up and prayed, “O God, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, make it known right now that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I’m doing what I’m doing under your orders. Answer me, God; O answer me and reveal to this people that you are God, the true God, and that you are giving these people another chance at repentance.”
38 Immediately the fire of God fell and burned up the offering, the wood, the stones, the dirt, and even the water in the trench.
39 All the people saw it happen and fell on their faces in awed worship, exclaiming, “God is the true God! God is the true God!”
Elijah was a prophet, a messenger for God. Once again, the people of Israel had wandering hearts. They saw the prophets of Baal with their fancy robes and jewels and the cow made of pure Gold that they worshipped and served and the Hebrew people thought surely there must be something amazing about this God. So they worshipped Baal along with their king and their lives and hearts became all knotted up and twisty. In fact their hearts were so tightly knotted, that no message from the God of Israel could even touch their hearts. They had fallen in love with a God that was nothing more than a hunk of metal and they couldn’t be changed, in fact anytime God sent a messenger to warn the people to repent, they just killed the messenger. It was a childish act that came from hearts that had too long served what was not real.
In this story Elijah commanded King Ahab to gather all the prophets of Baal and then he, Elijah, would present a challenge: The first prophet to call down fire from heaven to burn up the offering to God that was on the alter would win the people’s hearts.
And so the prophets of Baal danced and chanted and even cried to their god for days, but nothing happened. Next Elijah got his chance, and just to prove God’s point he told them to pour water all over the offering. Then Elijah called on our God and fire came from heaven and burnt up the offering, the stones the water and even the dirt around the altar.
Sometimes our hearts are distracted. We see the world with it’s beautiful shiny new things and we get a bad case of the gimmee’s. In fact, sometimes we think somehow we DESERVE these things. If other people don’t have these shiny new things and we do, sometimes somewhere deep, deep down in our hearts that dark little glimmer of sin that wants to come out, convinces us that we are better than the people that don’t have them. We begin to pat ourselves on the back for our shiny new things even when we didn’t do anything to deserve them.
But shiny new things can’t love us. Shiny new things can’t make us happy. Shiny new things could care less about our day and our problems. Shiny new things just don’t care…because the things we think we have and are when we have shiny new things just aren’t real. Yes, you can hold them, but their newness and use don't last for long.
Shiny new things will break, fall apart and go out of style but our God won’t. Our God will always hear our prayers. Our God will always hurt when we are hurting and bring us comfort when we struggle. Our God will always love us and our God’s love never goes out of style. “Things” aren’t necessarily bad, but they are definitely not worthy of all of our time and devotion.
This Christmas will you worship shiny new things or will you allow God’s love to bring you back to a stable and a baby who would grow into the Savior who would rescue us all? This Christmas, chose wisely whom you will give your heart to.
Discussion Questions:
1. Why do you think the people of God chose to worship Baal?
2. Why do you think that sometimes we think about our things more than we think about God?
3. What can you do to make sure that Jesus gets first place in your life?
Family Activity:
Each family member make a list of three things that you want for Christmas. Share that list with your family and then make a list of three reason you have to praise God today. Which list seems more important?
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