Worshipping Man at the Mall

On some nights and weekends, I work at a local mall. This weekend, my mall is having a "model & talent search," so yesterday they decided to set the stage up five feet from my kiosk. Needless to say, I've gotten a good look at this modeling extravaganza.

What's sad is that everyone claps and claps and laughs and laughs whenever some little cutie struts the stage. It is ridicule-worthy. What is to applaud when a child simply wants attention? Why are we clapping for children who simply say a few lines and walk across a stage? What is the big deal?

Then I realized that this is the worship of man, plain and simple. The Bible says in Romans 1:21-23,

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

We fail to honor God, even though we know Him, and fail to give Him thanks, so we become worthless in our thinking and our hearts become blind and wicked. We think we are wise and knowledgeable, but we actually have become fools. Then we trade in the infinite glory of God for worthless worship of mere man. We trade out gold for shrapnel, filet minion for rat poison, living water for sewage.

And we do it every day. We care more about what people think of us than what God thinks of us. We want to think about novels and poetry and romance books more than we want to think about God's own Word. We look for ways to make ourselves look better to others instead of trusting God to make us happy in Him. Our foolish hearts are very dark indeed. Come Lord Jesus, come change us by Your Spirit, that we would worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.