#DailyDevotion Jesus And The Father Are God & LORD

1 Cor. 8⁴Now about eating meat that was sacrificed to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world and there is only one God. ⁵Even if there are so-called gods in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), ⁶yet we have one God, the Father: from Him comes everything, and we live for Him. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ: He made everything, and we live by Him. ⁷But not everyone knows this. Some are still so used to an idol they think of the meat they eat as sacrificed to the idol, and their conscience, being weak, is stained with guilt. ⁸Food will not bring us closer to God.

Like in Judaism, other religions had sacrifices and those bringing the sacrifices ate part of the sacrifice they brought. In this act of eating they were communing, participating with the deity they were sacrificing to. Corinth, like many ancient cities, had many temples where many different gods were worshipped. Even today, there are many gods worshipped by many different people.

We know however, as Paul says, an idol is nothing and there is only one God. However, while we here in the west don’t see a lot of temples made to gods, we nevertheless have many gods worshipped, we just don’t realize it. What is a god? A god is something we turn to for every good. Since there is only One who can provide every good, people often turn to multiple things to provide them with every good. This can often be seen with many addictions. But it need not come to the psychological level of addiction. Our idols today consist of sports, sex, drugs, alcohol, jobs, happiness, success, family, church and the like. As a friend once said, if everything is taken away from you and still aren’t happy, what have you replaced with God?

As Christians we only “have one God, the Father: from Him comes everything, and we live for Him. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ: He made everything, and we live by Him.” We do not recognize all these things people turn to as actually being gods or the more crass things such as Zeus, Odin, Buddha, or Nature as being actually divine beings, though many do treat them as being gods. Unfortunately, many Christian still abuse creation and serve created things as if they were gods but looking to them to provide us with every good, as opposed to them being gifts from our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who gives us every good thing.

Now it was a nice piece of teaching Paul did there in verse six. Did you see the equating that Paul did with God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says of the Father, “from him comes everything, and we live for him” and he says of Jesus, “he made everything, and we live for him.” Paul also calls the Father “God” and Jesus he calls “Lord.” As Paul says creation has its source in the Father and is made by Jesus, Paul is saying Jesus and the Father are one, two distinct persons and one divine being. He calls the Father God and Jesus he calls Lord. In the Old Testament God is the LORD or more technically he is YHWH (Yahweh, Jehovah, written as Lord). Jesus is that LORD and the Father is that LORD and the Holy Spirit is that LORD. Each distinct person being God and LORD and yet there is only one God and LORD. It is only the divine person of the Son, Jesus Christ, who became man though and delivered us from serving dead idols to live for the one true God and have eternal life in his name.

Heavenly Father, grant us faith and your Holy Spirit, that we may used the things of this age as good gifts from you and live only for you and your Son Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.