“Can man make gods for himself?”

Jeremiah 16:10-21, “Now it will come about when you tell this people all these words that they will say to you, ‘For what reason has the Lord declared all this great calamity against us? And what is our iniquity, or what is our sin which we have committed against the Lord our God?’ Then you are to say to them, ‘It is because your forefathers have forsaken Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘and have followed other gods and served them and bowed down to them; but Me they have forsaken and have not kept My law. You too have done evil, even more than your forefathers; for behold, you are each one walking according to the stubbornness of his own evil heart, without listening to Me. So I will hurl you out of this land into the land which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers; and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I shall grant you no favor.’ Therefore behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ but, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north and from all the countries where He had banished them.’ For I will restore them to their own land which I gave to their fathers. Behold, I am going to send for many fishermen,” declares the Lord, “and they will fish for them; and afterwards I shall send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and from the clefts of the rocks. For My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, nor is their iniquity concealed from My eyes. And I will first doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted My land; they have filled My inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable idols and with their abominations.” O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of distress, to Thee the nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but falsehood, futility and things of no profit. Can man make gods for himself? Yet they are not gods! Therefore behold, I am going to make them know— this time I will make them know My power and My might; and they shall know that My name is the Lord.”

Clearly, the answer is “Yet they are not gods.” We are good at convincing ourselves that created things have power; ultimately all power is given by God and returns to Him. He gives us the power for today; it is up to us to choose to use it well. Are we using the power He gives us to bring glory to His name?

The scripture given to the prophet Jeremiah truly comes to life in our day; we see that You are in control of every situation. I want to use the power You give me to bring glory to Your name today, O Lord!