Peculiar Treasures

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We are easily taken captive by what we see. I’m reminded of this as I read God’s first commandment to the children of Israel only a few short months after their exodus from Egypt: “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Ex. 20:3, NKJV). God reminds them that He is a jealous God who will not share His glory with any other (vs. 5). The fact that the Israelites were coming out of Egypt, where people worshiped some 175 gods with almost two hundred alternate names, made this commandment of paramount importance. The idea of bowing down to and worshiping carved images was not foreign to the Israelites, but it is foreign to most of us today. Unfortunately, like the Israelites, we too have blended with a culture that should be foreign to us to the point that we flagrantly worship idols alongside it instead of the one true God. How can this be if we’re His chosen ones? It often begins with seeing something and desiring it, and soon what we desire becomes idolatry—we place that thing (an activity, a job, a toy, etc.) above God. James 4:2 warns of this: “You want what you don't have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can't get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them” (NLT). We claim to worship God, who is One, yet we deceive ourselves, and it is a dangerous thing. One of my favorite verses is found in the chapter preceding the issuance of the Ten Commandments. In chapter 19, God is speaking with Moses and reminds him of His great works in bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt. God tells Moses that if the Israelites will simply obey God’s voice and keep His covenant, they will be a “peculiar treasure” (KJV) to Him above all the people on His earth. A peculiar treasure is one that is unique. If we as Christians do not stand out from the world in its worthless pursuits and worship of idols, we are certainly not peculiar and there is nothing to treasure about us at all. We need to be captives, but captives of the gospel of Christ with our focus on Him alone.

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