Do you know your God? Is He the true and living God, or a god of your own making? The question is not, “Is there a God?”, but “Who is your God?” The first commandment is “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
Perhaps you seldom give God a thought. But you know that He exists. There are times when His presence presses upon you: when you consider the beauty of creation, when you wrestle with your conscience to determine right from wrong, and especially when you think of death. You wonder, “Is there really a coming Day of Judgment after all? Will I meet God?”
What do you do with this instinctive awareness of God? When man does not know the Creator God, he makes an idol of creation. “For they exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen” (Rom 1:25). God transcends creation, but an idolater would try to contain Him within creation. If you are not worshipping God as the Creator, the Bible says you are an idolater.
What explains idolatry? Notice in Rom 1:25, there is an “exchange” made. The “truth of God” is replaced with “the lie.” The “truth of God” concerns God as our Creator, Lawgiver and Judge. “The lie,” found in Gen 3:4, is Satan’s denial that sin will be punished by death. Idolatry is a rejection of the Creator God and the embrace of a god of our making, a god who will not punish sin, a false god manufactured from the Devil’s lie. Idolatry is the religious attempt to avoid the true God and avert His wrath. Speak of judgment, and many respond with the lie: “God is not like that. God will not punish sinners.” Whose God? Maybe an idol is like that, but the true God does judge men for their sin.
You cannot create God. He must reveal Himself. The true God is revealed in the person and work of Jesus, God the Son. Wrath is satisfied in the death of Jesus. Mercy is offered to idolaters on the basis of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Behold, here is God!
You no longer have to deceive yourself with vain imaginings about what God is like. You can know Him by faith in Jesus Christ. You can be saved from His wrath. You don’t have to try to silence your conscience by filling your life with superficial sensuality. You don’t have to bow to the pantheon of pleasure, possessions, and prestige. You can “turn from idols to serve the living and true God” (I Thess 1:9) by believing in Jesus Christ.