The author begins the story by letting us see the simplistic understanding that we all break the ten commandments in having no other god before him. While we may see another god as like the gods of the bible, or serving the Hindu or Buddhist gods, however what he wants us to see is far more revealing and simple in the soul of every man. We were created to worship, deny the deity of Christ or the belief in a creator and you still cannot overlook the need we all have to worship. The difference for all of us is what we worship, who we worship and how we worship. For the believer it seems so simple that we worship the God of our choosing, however even those believers who believe that there is only one God and He is our creator and savior can often be mislead in their own thinking. We (myself included) can often get distracted and not see that we actually have built alters and worship at the feet of other gods. In this first chapter he shows examples of people that he has counseled that could not see that at the crux of some of their issues was that they had made their addictions a god. They had chosen to spend their time worshiping at the feet of these other gods.
They made alters to food, sex, gambling and the like without recognizing what those idols had done to them. Referring back to the scriptures in Romans the writer Paul is conveying a message that the Romans can understand about slavery and being slaves to something rather than someone. He says in Romans 6:20-22 "When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at the time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness and the result is eternal life". Sin is all those things that make up the flesh desires the immorality of living and when we are slaves to those things it becomes a god that takes over our whole being and costs us our very souls. Whereas slavery to righteousness, or being mastered by righteousness leads to a good life, why because we have that which is light versus that which comes from darkness leading us.
I digress the most important thing to take from chapter 1 is recognizing that we are all idolaters or worshipers the choice is what we choose to worship where we choose to worship and truthfully who or what masters us. I recognize that all that read this blog may not be followers of God but I am and I can honestly tell you being mastered by the flesh left me empty, joyless and constantly trying to find new gifts to bring to my master to make my life better. None of it worked.. As we dive into this book I hope to discover how to become more about living a life that is consecrated and devoted to the God of righteousness and holiness.
Thanks for reading
Stephanie
