Consequences
Day 549, Wednesday, Feb. 11
Romans 1:18-32
We quickly move from introductory material to heavy teaching. Paul says that even those who have not heard of God have had the opportunity to know of him through the creation itself, “so that people are without excuse.”
Rather than glorifying or giving thanks to God, though, people created idols for themselves. “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.”
It is because of their worship of the creation rather than the creator that “God gave them over to shameful lusts.” The sequence is important there—the sinful actions are a consequence of failing to recognize God as God. It is the idolatry of worshiping the creation rather than the creator that leads to sinful actions.
The first sinful actions listed are sexual. While this is one of the most explicit references in the Bible to homosexuality, it also mentions the broader “sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.”
There are also non-sexual consequences of idolatry: “They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, sladerers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.”

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Wednesday meditation

Psalms 78:1-8
My people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth with a parable; I will utter hidden things, things from of old—things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from their descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done. He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands. They would not be like their ancestors—a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose hearts were not loyal to God, whose spirits were not faithful to him.

Prayer focus
May we always give thanks for your creation, but worship only you, the creator.