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March 18 - March 18, 2020
We think that idols are bad things, but that is almost never the case. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life.
An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts, “If I have that, then I’ll feel my life has meaning, then I’ll know I have value, then I’ll feel significant and secure.” There are many ways to describe that kind of relationship to something, but perhaps the best one is worship.
If anything becomes more fundamental than God to your happiness, meaning in life, and identity, then it is an idol.
Romance or success can become “false lovers” that promise to make us feel loved and valued.
Every human being must live for something. Something must capture our imaginations, our heart’s most fundamental allegiance and hope. But, the Bible tells us, without
the intervention of the Holy Spirit, that object will never be God himself.
And he did. He was called to “go” and he went, “though he did not know where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8).
As the New Testament book of Hebrews tells us, anyone God loves experiences hardship (Hebrews 12:1–8).
As many have learned and later taught, you don’t realize Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.
Sometimes God seems to be killing us when he’s actually saving us.
To follow God in such circumstances seems to some to be “blind faith,” but actually it is vigorous, grateful faith. The
We learn that through all of life there runs a ground note of cosmic disappointment. You are never going to lead a wise life until you understand that.
If you get married as Jacob did, putting the weight of all your deepest hopes and longings on the person you are marrying, you are going to crush him or her with your expectations.
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world [something supernatural and eternal].”35
What mattered was not what men thought of her, or career success, but what Christ had done for her and how he loved her.
he began to realize that God’s salvation was by grace, not through moral achievement or performance.
God’s salvation does not come in response to a changed life. A changed life comes in response to the salvation, offered as a free gift.
Money will cease to be the currency of your significance and security, and you will want to bless others with what you have. To
There is an initial rush of happiness that leads us to believe we have arrived, been included, been accepted, and proved ourselves. However, the satisfaction quickly fades.
When your achievements serve as the basis for your very worth as a person, they can lead to an inflated view of your abilities.
No one can control the true God because no one can earn, merit, or achieve their own blessing and salvation.
Only if he understood God’s grace would he see his successes were ultimately gifts from God.
Jesus’s salvation was achieved not through strength but through surrender, service, sacrifice, and death.
We are the product of three things—genetics, environment, and our personal choices—but two of these three factors we have no power over.
But if you let it humble you rather than embitter you, and turn to God instead of living for your own glory, then the death of your pride can lead to a resurrection.
By giving up his power and serving, he became the most influential man who ever lived.
And so it is under stress, in real life experience, that the true nature of our hearts is revealed.
Jonah shows us that it is one thing to believe the gospel with our minds, and another to work it deep into our hearts so it affects everything we think, feel, and do.
As Saint Paul has written, if God and his grace is the thing in the world you love most, you will give your money away to ministry, charity, and the poor in astonishing amounts (2 Corinthians 8:7–9).
“Setting
the mind and heart on things above” where “your life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:1–3) means appreciation, rejoicing, and resting in what Jesus has done for you. It entails joyful worship, a sense of God’s reality in prayer.
Rejoicing and repentance must go together. Repentance without rejoicing will lead to despair. Rejoicing without repentance is shallow and will only provide passing inspiration instead of deep change.
Fear-based repentance makes us hate ourselves. Joy-based repentance makes us hate the sin.
To rejoice is to treasure a thing, to assess its value to you, to reflect on its beauty and importance until your heart rests in it and tastes the sweetness of it.
“the spiritual disciplines,” such as private prayer, corporate worship, and meditation.
