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July 14 - July 29, 2019
“a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” To “consist” of your possessions is to be defined by what you own and consume.
According to the Bible, idolaters do three things with their idols. They love them, trust them, and obey them.
“Lovers of money” are those who find themselves daydreaming and fantasizing about new ways to make money, new possessions to buy, and looking with jealousy on those who have more than they do. “Trusters of money” feel they have control of their lives and are safe and secure because of their wealth. Idolatry also makes us “servants of money.” Just as we serve earthly kings and magistrates, so we “sell our souls” to our idols. Because we look to them for our significance (love) and security (trust) we have to have them, and therefore we are driven to serve and, essentially, obey them.
If you live for money you are a slave. If, however, God becomes the center of your life, that dethrones and demotes money. If your identity and security is in God, it can’t control you through worry and desire.
Nowhere is this slavery more evident than in the blindness of greedy people to their own materialism.
even though it is clear that the world is filled with greed and materialism, almost no one thinks it is true of them. They are in denial.
Money is one of the most common counterfeit gods there is. When it takes hold of your heart it blinds you to what is happening, it controls you through your anxieties and lusts, and it brings you to put it ahead of all other things.
His willingness to climb a tree signifies something close to desperation.
he began to realize that God’s salvation was by grace, not through moral achievement or performance.
“Are we more ‘debtors to grace’ than they were, or less? Did Jesus ‘tithe’ his life and blood to save us or did he give it all?”
No, it has come. 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.
Why? Jesus had replaced money as Zacchaeus’s savior, and so money went back to being merely that, just money.
It was now a tool for doing good, for serving people.
There are “deep idols” within the heart beneath the more concrete and visible “surface idols” that we serve.
Sin in our hearts affects our basic motivational drives so they become idolatrous, “deep idols.” Some people are strongly motivated by a desire for influence and power, while others are more excited by approval and appreciation. Some want emotional and physical comfort more than anything else, while still others want security, the control of their environment. People with the deep idol of power do not mind being unpopular in order to gain influence. People who are most motivated by approval are the opposite—they will gladly lose power and control as long as everyone thinks well of them. Each
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In every case, money functions as an idol and yet, because of various deep idols, it results in very different patterns of behavior.
You are ‘spending’ absolutely everything on your need to feel secure, protected, and in control.”
This is why idols cannot be dealt with by simply eliminating surface idols like money or sex.
There is only one way to change at the heart level and that is through faith in the gospel.
When you see him dying to make you his treasure, that will make him yours. Money will cease to be the currency of your significance and security, and you will want to bless others with what you have.
Money cannot save you from tragedy, or give you control in a chaotic world. Only God can do that.
Rather, it is deepening your understanding of the salvation of Christ, what you have in him, and then living out the changes that that understanding makes in your heart—the seat of your mind, will, and emotions.
It must be supplanted by the one who, though rich, became poor, so that we might truly be rich.
An “achievement addict” is no different from any other kind of addict.54
More than other idols, personal success and achievement lead to a sense that we ourselves are god, that our security and value rest in our own wisdom, strength, and performance.
The false sense of security comes from deifying our achievement and expecting it to keep us safe from the troubles of life in a way that only God can.
Another sign that you have made achievement an idol is that it distorts your view of yourself. When your achievements serve as the basis for your very worth as a person, they can lead to an inflated view of your abilities.
If your success is more than just success to you—if it is the measure of your value and worth—then accomplishment in one limited area of life will make you believe you have expertise in all areas. This, of course, leads to all kinds of bad choices and decisions.
The main sign that we are into success idolatry, however, is that we find we cannot maintain our self-confidence in life unless we remain at the top of our chosen field.
He had become addicted in part because of the expectation that he should always be productive, dynamic, upbeat, and brilliant.
Modern society, then, puts great pressure on individuals to prove their worth through personal achievement. It is not enough to be a good citizen or family member. You must win, be on top, to show you are one of the best.
Instead, the family has become the nursery where the craving for success is first cultivated.
they choose professions not in answer to the question “What job helps people to flourish?” but “What job will help me to flourish?”
If our entire culture strongly encourages us to adopt this counterfeit god, how can we escape it?
Naaman’s leprosy represents the reality that success can’t deliver the satisfaction we are looking for.
However, the God of Israel cannot be approached like that. Whatever he gives us is a gift of grace.
a wild God.
God of grace,
God of everyone,
He had just learned that this God is not an extension of culture, but a transformer of culture, not a controllable but a sovereign Lord.
No one can control the true God because no one can earn, merit, or achieve their own blessing and salvation.
But Elisha’s message was an insult. “Any idiot, any child, anyone can go down and paddle around in the Jordan,” he thought to himself. “That takes no ability or attainment at all!” Exactly. That is a salvation for anyone, good or bad, weak or strong.
Yes, Naaman had expended much energy to procure them, but only with talents, abilities, and opportunities that God had given to him. He had been dependent on God’s grace all his life, but he didn’t see it.
“Just wash yourself,” then, was a command that was hard because it was so easy. To do it, Naaman had to admit he was helpless and weak and had to receive his salvation as a free gift.
If you want God’s grace, all you need is need, all you need is nothing. But that kind of spiritual humility is hard to muster. We come to God saying, “Look at all I’ve done,” or maybe “Look at all I’ve suffer...
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But when you forgive, that means you absorb the loss and the debt. You bear it yourself. All forgiveness, then, is costly.60 It
Yet how does she respond when she learns that her nemesis has been struck down with leprosy?
Look at her words—“If only my master would see the prophet!” There is sympathy and concern in those words. She must have really wanted to relieve his suffering and save him.
This unsung heroine of the Bible refused to relieve her own suffering by making him pay.
She did what the entire Bible tells us to do. She did not seek revenge, she trusted God to be the judge of all.
