Gods at War Quotes

“God has given us the use of his resources for a short time here on earth, and we have much to be grateful for. Go through your day sometime just recognizing that everything is God’s. Get out of God’s bed and walk into God’s bathroom, and turn on God’s shower, and then put on God’s clothes. Eat God’s cereal* and drink God’s coffee. Get in God’s car and head to work. When we start to see all of our resources as God’s it helps us develop an attitude of gratitude that leads to a heart of worship.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“Where Is Your Sanctuary? Where do you go when you’re hurting? Let’s say it’s been a terrible day at the office. You come home and go — where? To the refrigerator for comfort food like ice cream? To the phone to vent with your most trusted friend? Do you seek escape in novels or movies or video games or pornography? Where do you look for emotional rescue? The Bible tells us that God is our refuge and strength, our help in times of trouble — so much so that we will not fear though the mountains fall into the heart of the sea (Ps. 46:1 – 2). That strikes me as a good place to run. But it’s so easy to forget, so easy for us to run in other directions. Where we go says a lot about who we are. The “high ground” we seek reveals the geography of our values.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“Here’s the point: idolatry is the tree from which our sins and struggles grow.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“The battlefield of the gods is your heart. Your heart is shaped by your thoughts.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“We were made for God, and until he is our greatest pleasure, all the other pleasures of this life will lead to emptiness.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“The opposite of theism is not atheism, it’s idolatry.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“God is jealous for your heart, not because he is petty or insecure, but because he loves you. The reason why God has such a huge problem with idolatry is that his love for you is all-consuming. He loves you too much to share you.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“Our hearts are restless until they find rest in thee.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“Worship is powerful. It has huge consequences, whether you praise the God of heaven or the god of appetite.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“Obsession is an idolatry word.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“Idolatry isn’t just one of many sins; rather it’s the one great sin that all others come from. So if you start scratching at whatever struggle you’re dealing with, eventually you’ll find that underneath it is a false god. Until that god is dethroned, and the Lord God takes his rightful place, you will not have victory. Idolatry isn’t an issue; it is the issue. All roads lead to the dusty, overlooked concept of false gods. Deal with life on the glossy outer layers, and you might never see it; scratch a little beneath the surface, and you begin to see that it’s always there, under some other coat of paint. There are a hundred million different symptoms, but the issue is always idolatry.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“God withholds his blessing in the very areas in which we lift up false gods.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Prov. 4:23). Your heart defines and determines who you are, how you think, and what you do. Because everything flows from it, your heart is the frontline for the gods at war.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“The Lord God has often lost out when competing with the gods of entertainment for our time and attention.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“If you worship false gods, the ripples bring a little of hell to earth.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“The god of sex specializes in taking you further than you ever intended to go.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“Idols are defeated not by being removed but by being replaced.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“The object of your worship will determine your future and define your life. It’s the one choice that all other choices are motivated by.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“God declines to sit atop an organizational flowchart. He is the organization. He is not interested in being president of the board. He is the board. And life doesn’t work until everyone else sitting around the table in the boardroom of your heart is fired. He is God, and there are no other applicants for that position. There are no partial gods, no honorary gods, no interim gods, no assistants to the regional gods. God is saying this not because he is insecure but because it’s the way of truth in this universe, which is his creation. Only one God owns and operates it. Only one God designed it, and only one God knows how it works. He is the only God who can help us, direct us, satisfy us, save us.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“When we feel overwhelmed by disappointment, it’s a good sign that something has become far more important to us than it should be. Disproportionate disappointment reveals that we have placed intense hope and longing in something other than God.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“An idol could just as easily be a daily checklist that is completed”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“God cannot and will not give us a sense of lasting pleasure apart from him, because it violates his purpose and our design. Psalm 34:8 reads, “Taste and see that the LORD is good.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“No matter what god seems to be winning the war for your heart at this moment, you can be sure of one thing — the one true God will not give up without a fight. God is in pursuit of our wandering, adulterous hearts, and he will stalk us to our graves.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“Idolatry isn’t just one of many sins; rather it’s the one great sin that all others come from. So if you start scratching at whatever struggle you’re dealing with, eventually you’ll find that underneath it is a false god. Until that god is dethroned, and the Lord God takes his rightful place, you will not have victory.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“But still, you don’t enjoy the restless nights, the way the wheels just keep turning in your mind, the fact that you feel no real peace. The need for control is a relentless god that has taken ground in your heart. In fact the more control you crave, the more that craving will control you, thus making control your god.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“We were created to be worshipers, as birds were created to fly and rivers were created to flow. It’s what we do.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“If you constantly complain about what kind of year your team is having, maybe sports has become your god. What we complain about reveals what really matters to us. Whining shows what has power over us. Whining, in many ways, is the opposite of worshiping the Lord. Worship is when we glorify God for who he is and acknowledge what he has done for us, but whining is ignoring who God is and forgetting what he has done for us.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“The problem isn’t money. Money isn’t the root of all kinds of evil, but the love of money is.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

“Jesus seems to make it clear that the god of money is often God’s main competition for our hearts.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart