Years ago, when the wicked King Ahab ruled over Israel, many people did not believe that God was real and they didn’t want to obey his laws; so instead, they made themselves fake gods of stone and wood. They acted like these gods were real and did all kinds of crazy things to try to prove they were alive. Because of this disobedience, God sent a drought on the land. There was no rain for three years.

At the end of three years, God sent his servant Elijah to the king. King Ahab hated Elijah and wanted to get rid of him, and it was even worse after Elijah told the king that it was Ahab and the disobedient people who had brought trouble on themselves. They had disobeyed the one true God. Elijah had an idea. He told King Ahab to bring all the people to a mountain called Mount Carmel where they would do a test to see who was more powerful – the true God or the fake god.

1 Kings 18:22-24 says:
22 Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only one of the Lord’s prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. 23 Get two bulls for us. Let Baal’s prophets choose one for themselves and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. 24 Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by fire—he is God.”

The people of Israel had a choice: they could either choose to follow the one true god or follow the fake god Baal; but they could not stand in the middle anymore. It’s like playing sports – you can’t be on both teams at the same time – you have to be on one or the other.

Let’s see what happens in 1 Kings 18: 36-39
36 At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. 37 Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. 39When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!”

Do you think it was hard to see who was the one true God now? No way! The people fell on their faces and said, “the Lord…He is God! The Lord…He is God!” We can see in this story that Elijah had a choice: he could either do what was right and worship the one true God or do what everyone else was doing and serve a false god. Because he was willing to take a stand, an entire nation was brought back to the Lord!

We have that same choice and if you’re a child of God, I challenge you to do what’s right no matter what everyone else is doing or who everyone else is following! Remember this – the one true God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He does not ever lose his power or forget about his children!

Dear God, today we have been given a challenge – to choose ourselves and the false gods around us, or to choose you. WE CHOOSE YOU! We choose you when we are scared to be different…we choose you when we feel alone in our faith…we choose you when people around us are doing wrong…we choose you because you are worthy to be chosen! Thank you for choosing us first. We love you. Amen.

Kim Jewell