above Him.
3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
5 Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
We have new life in Jesus Christ, and we are hidden with Him - He is our Lord and Savior, and He calls us to surrender our lives to Him. Because we are hidden in Christ, we have access to the power of God in order to put to death those things which vie for our attention, the activities that would distract us from living to the glory of God. Whatever we prioritize before Him becomes an idol; it essentially is a false God to whom we pay homage, and we do so to our detriment.
+++++
In Exodus 20, we find the Ten Commandments, and the very first one provides a foundation for
living in a manner that honors the Lord:
2 "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3 You shall have no other gods before Me.
And, the second deals with idolatry:
4 "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;
5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.
This case really made it into a Federal court?
And it garnered a 16-page ruling?
Really?
It seems that a prisoner had requested to have Pastafarianism recognized as his religion, which would entitle him to Pastafarian literature and trappings, according to a Religion News Service report. For example, Pastafarians sometimes wear colanders on their heads.
The "deity" in this so-called religion is the Flying Spaghetti Monster, referred to as “His Flying Noodliness." The U.S. District Court of Nebraska ruled on April 12 that Pastafarianism is satire, not sacred, and that anyone who thinks it is a religion has made an error “of basic reading comprehension.” The ruling said, in part, “The FSM Gospel is plainly a work of satire, meant to entertain while making a pointed political statement. To read it as religious doctrine would be little different from grounding a ‘religious exercise’ on any other work of fiction.”
And, they needed a real court to tell them that?
The report says that the website for the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster states, "Some claim that the church is purely a thought experiment or satire,” adding, "The Church of FSM is legit, and backed by hard science. Anything that comes across as humor or satire is purely coincidental.”
Now, this "religion" of Pastafarianism was actually created in 2005 as a means of protesting the Kansas State Board of Education’s decision to include “intelligent design” — the notion that the universe is so complex it must be the work of some unknown designer — in its science curriculum.
This little blurb has some lessons to teach us. For one thing, I think it shows how some people will resort to making fun of something with which they disagree or do not understand. In this case, they didn't agree with the Kansas school board decision about intelligent design, so they responded less-than-intelligently. Social media is teeming with less-than-diplomatic comments about the legitimate beliefs of others.
And, a late-night television program is facing criticism for a parody of the movie, God's Not Dead, that it performed the other night. Charisma News reported on a recent sketch in which Saturday Night Live did a parody of the popular Christian film franchise, demanding that a baker in the skit say, "God is gay." The sketch features a baker who is faced with a lawsuit after refusing to bake a cake for a gay couple, much like the real-life battles of Aaron and Melissa Klein. The baker must defend why God is straight, with several descriptions of God's sexual desires. According to a Fox News piece that quoted from a Hollywood Reporter story, actor Pat Boone, one of the stars of God's Not Dead 2, said that the skit was "anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and 'outright sacrilege.'"
Well, it's likely your god is not the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but there may be something that you treat as god over your life that inhibits your relationship with the one true God. When God said that we were to have no other gods before Him, that was not merely a suggestion - it was a command that results in a more fulfilling life. So, we have to ask ourselves if there is something, someone, or a group of things or persons that we put in the place of God and in fact create idols. Failure to exalt God into the most high position in our lives carries detrimental consequences.
So, Pastafarianism has lost in court, but what ideas are winning in our own consciousness?
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