One God

We already spend much time focusing on our salvation-step with God.  We come home to the Father through the Son and receive the Holy Spirit.  When we do, we receive the gifts of forgiveness and the Holy Spirit.  We do this when be believe that Jesus is the Christ, confess him as Lord, repent of our sins and are baptized as his follower.  But what happens then?

Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: "Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved." This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. (Acts 15:1-2 NIV)

Some of us receive the gifts of salvation and the Holy Spirit after being raised in the church.  We know about God.  We've learned our Bible.  We already have a picture of what it looks like to walk together with God.  This is similar to the Jews in the New Testament who accepted Jesus as the Christ.

Some of us, though, come to God without any background with God or the church.  We don't know the Bible.  We don't know what it looks like to walk together with God.  It's all new to us.  This is similar to the Gentiles who were accepting Jesus as their lord and savior.  The church leaders were trying to figure out where to start with these new believers.  They met together and prayed for wisdom.  God responded.

It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. (Acts 15:19-20 NIV)

They decided that these new Gentile believers did not need to be circumcised like their Jewish brothers in Christ.  They were united by Jesus, not Abraham.  They would however, be asked to abstain from some other things.  The list may look strange to us today, but these are things that were tied to worship of other false gods.  Meat was sacrificed to these gods.  Blood was poured out for these gods.  Sex with temple prostitutes was done in worship of these gods (fertility gods who would give them children or good crops).  The bottom line was simple: Stop worshiping other gods.  There is only one God.  Worship God alone.

We may not sacrifice animals before idols today, but we certainly give "worship" to the gods of reason and science or, as an alternative, astrology, palm reading, or taro cards.  We have plenty of "idols" like fame and fortune, power and security who vie for our "worship."

So how about you?  Have you made the transition from worshiping other gods to worshiping only one God?