Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles. Therefore God delivered them over to the cravings of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen.
God created us to be in fellowship with Him. It’s just that simple. We were created to imitate Christ and follow Him. We were created to surrender our lives to Him. God could have made us like robots that just automatically followed Christ and were perfectly obedient to Him, but He didn’t. He gave us free will. So, we can choose to accept Christ as our Savior or reject the wonderful gift of salvation altogether.
Yesterday, we talked about how it was senseless to reject Christ, and we looked at Romans 1:21, which said that if we fail to glorify God and show gratitude for all He has done for us, our thinking will become nonsense, and our minds will become darkened. Today, we look at the continuation of this in Romans 1:22-24. The first thing it says is, “Claiming to be wise, they became fools…” It’s important to note that many people who think they are exceptionally wise are, in fact, fools. A person can be extremely intelligent but lack wisdom. God-given wisdom is the wisdom that leads us to salvation. It’s the wisdom that helps us to understand God’s plan for our lives.
Having God-given wisdom is easy; you just ask. James 1:5 tells us that if any of us lacks wisdom, all we need to do is ask and God will give it to us generously without criticizing us. It can’t get any easier than that.
Many people have book sense, but no common sense. Many people who are considered extremely intelligent have a hard time believing in God because it doesn’t work with scientific explanations.
We started this week talking about whether or not you believe in God. If you claim to believe in God, you must trust in Jesus with all your heart. If you don’t do this, you are being foolish.
The danger of not having God-given wisdom is that we make foolish choices. The choice to accept Christ as our Savior and be given eternal life in heaven with God the Father seems like a no-brainer, but plenty of people reject this. Instead, they leave themselves open to the alternative, which is spending eternity in the torments of hell. Now, it’s easy to look at this and think it makes no sense, but millions are doing it today. They are rejecting Christ and accepting sin as a way of life, leaving themselves open to the devil. The devil is leading them to hell, and they are too foolish to see this.
Our Scripture passage goes on to talk about idolatry and how people worshiped things that were created instead of the Creator. If you spend your Sundays on things God has blessed you with, like your home, your boat, your cars, or even your children, and fail to praise and worship God, you are being foolish. You are worshiping things created instead of the Creator. This is just another way we reject Christ. We reject the gift of salvation.
Hebrews 10:26 tells us that our intentional sin removes the gift of salvation or the sacrifice that was given for our sin. Verse 27 tells us this sacrifice is replaced with a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries. When we refuse to give up our intentional sin, we are rejecting the gift of salvation and have become God’s enemy, and again, we are being foolish.
In Romans 1:18-24, it tells us there will come a time when God becomes tired of our rejection and will give up on us. When this happens, He simply gives us over to our desires. He will let us have it our way. Be wise in what you wish for and not foolish in your desires.
Have a great day!