Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters

by Timothy J. Keller

A final test works for everyone. Look at your most uncontrollable emotions.

look for your idols at the bottom of your most painful emotions, especially those that never seem to lift and that drive you to do things you know are wrong.

This cannot be remedied only by repenting that you have an idol, or using willpower to try to live differently.

means appreciation, rejoicing, and resting in what Jesus has done for you.

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.

But when we rejoice over God’s sacrificial, suffering love for us—seeing what it cost him to save us from sin—we learn to hate the sin for what it is. We see what the sin cost God.

“Rejoicing” in the Bible is much deeper than simply being happy about something.

There is always something underneath your inordinate and out-of-control problems, desires, patterns, attitudes, and emotions. Until you find out what it is you cannot have life and peace.

Spiritual disciplines are basically forms of worship, and it is worship that is the final way to replace the idols of your heart.

There’s a certain sense in which we spend our entire lives thinking we’ve reached the bottom of our hearts and finding it is a false bottom. Mature Christians are not people who have completely hit the bedrock. I do not believe that is possible in this life. Rather, they are people who know how to keep drilling and are getting closer and closer.