The Biblical Heart Part 6

The Biblical Heart Part 6

By Wendy Wood

We all have things we want. We all have desires. These desires reflect what we love and treasure.  

We saw in the previous blogs how our desires lead us to act. What we want or treasure most, is what we pursue in our words and actions.  We want what we want. These desires become idols when we are willing to sin to get them, or if we sin when we do not get them. When we are willing to yell, or pout, or lie, or stew in sinful thoughts over not getting our desire met, we are wanting that idol more than we want to honor God at that moment. Any time we sin, we are wanting something more than to respond in a way that glorifies God. 

Matthew 6:21 puts it this way, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”.

We set our hearts on our treasures and then live life in pursuit of that treasure (or desire).

James 4:1-3 tells us that we are often willing to fight and quarrel for our desires. “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”

Our passions are the desires of our heart. When we don’t get what we want, we are willing to fight and sin to get it. 

A desire is not necessarily sinful.  It’s good to desire a spouse. It’s good to desire respectful children. It’s good to desire health. But these good desires turn idolatrous when we want them more than we want to honor God.  Whenever we are willing to sin to get our desire, or sin when we might lose our desire, we have made our desire an idol.

When I am willing to sin to get what I want, that thing, that desire, is what is controlling me. I MUST have my desire.  

Romans 6:16 says, “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either sin, which to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness.”

A ruling desire is your master. You are enslaved to your desires. If those desires are anything other than loving God, you are worshiping an idol.

Proverbs 29:25 refers to being in a trap when fear of man rules your heart.  The idea is the same. You are trapped into a habit of responding sinfully to get what your heart desires. You are enslaved to wanting people’s praise, attention, admiration, or respect in the case of fear of man.

Brad Bigney says “An idol is anything or anyone that begins to capture our hearts and minds and affections more than God.”

An idol typically follows a progression in your heart.

It may start as a desire or want.  Think of it as “It would be nice to have ______”.  It would be nice to have a quiet evening at home without interruption. It would be nice to have a traffic free commute to work. Those desires are fine. As long as they stay in the realm of not sinning to get them.

From a desire, a want can become a need or demand. Now you are no longer just wanting something, you must have it. You have moved into being convinced you need this desire and life will not be good without it. If you demand a quiet evening, you are willing to snap at your children if they are loud or interrupt you. If you demand an easy commute, you will honk your horn and use hand gestures to the drivers around you. You are willing to sin to get what you want.

A demand then becomes an expectation. I should have what I want all the time, you think! People should be catering to my wishes.  At this point, you experience more intense emotions.  You get angry and anxious frequently when you may not get what you want.

When your expectation is not met, you are disappointed and will punish those who are in your way. You are using people as a means to get what you want. Anyone who makes life difficult or stands in your way will suffer the consequences of your sin.

To find an idol ask yourself these questions:

What makes me angry or anxious?

Am I willing to sin to get it?

Am I willing to sin if I might lose it?

Do I run to it for refuge instead of going to God?

Ezekiel 14:1-8

“Then certain of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me. And the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Any one of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols, that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols.

“Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: Repent and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations. For any one of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel, who separates himself from me, taking his idols into his heart and putting the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to a prophet to consult me through him, I the Lord will answer him myself.  And I will set my face against that man; I will make him a sign and a byword and cut him off from the midst of my people, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

First, notice that God’s word says “idols are taken into the heart”.  God is talking about what we love and treasure. The Israelites were worshiping Baal and carved idols, yet God says the idols were in their heart. An idol is anything that replaces God in our hearts, minds, and affections. 

Second, God’s word says that these idols are stumbling blocks of iniquity before their faces. Iniquity is moral impurity. Paul Tripp says “Iniquity is not just sinful behavior.  Iniquity is a sin condition, an escapable state of being that causes us to rebel against God’s authority and break His law.” Our hearts will continually turn to idols because we are sinners. Sin is part of our very nature. A stumbling block means that the idol was affecting their vision or perception of life. It’s like wearing a pair of glasses that have words all over the lenses. The idol affected every interaction they had because they were so intent on getting the idol.

Third, God’s word says that our idols keep us separated from God. We cannot enjoy close fellowship with our heavenly Father when we are enslaved to our sinful desires.

Fourth, God promises to lay hold of His children’s hearts and have them turn away from their idols and repent.

John Calvin said, “the human heart is an idol factory”.  We must be diligent to examine our hearts and constantly kill and destroy the idols made in the heart.

Whenever we want something so much, we are willing to sin to get it or keep it, we have an idol in our heart.

At the beginning of this blog, there were four questions posed that help identify idols.

1. What makes me angry or anxious?

2. Am I willing to sin to get it?

3. Am I willing to sin if I might lose it?

4. Do I run to it for refuge instead of going to God?

1 John 5:21 says, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols”.

We must understand what our idols are to fight them and mortify the sinful desire.

Influences - spouse, children, traffic, finances, traffic, health, weather

Emotions - anger, anxiety, fear, happiness, sadness

Idols - Comfort, Approval, Control, Power

Behaviors - yelling, escaping (to food, social media, room), stewing in mind, “churching”

So let’s look at how this plays out in real life scenarios.

We tend to be aware of our emotions first. Anger, anxiety, fear, sadness, happiness, and excitement are experienced in our whole person. Our emotions are part of our soul or heart, the immaterial part of our being, but often they affect the physical body, too. For example, when you get angry, your heart rate increases, blood flow increases in your face and extremities, and you feel a surge of energy. God designed our bodies to have these responses because anger should drive us to act - to the glory of God. Unfortunately, we sinners tend to act for our own glory! Another example of emotions impacting our physical bodies is anxiety. Often intense anxiety can cause an increased heart rate, an upset stomach as acid increases, and even dizziness or sweating.

So looking at the diagram above, in life, there are influences that impact our daily lives. It could be your spouse, your children, your boss, your commute, your bills or finances, your dog, your health, your friends, the weather, a local news story, a world event, or anything else that you come into contact with during your day. As you take in the influence, what is already in your heart, is revealed. You will be aware of your emotions first. When your spouse says something to you, you react emotionally based on what you desire. If your spouse says something that you agree with or something that seems beneficial to you, your emotions will be positive. If your spouse says something that you don’t like, maybe a criticism of you or a change of your plans, you will experience a negative emotion because it is not what you wanted. 

Emotions are revealing what we want. If I think I must have respect, I will feel angry when I perceive someone has been disrespectful. But if I am shown honor, I will feel good. My feelings go along with whether I am getting what I want.

If I must have comfort, I will be upset when my quiet time is interrupted by someone needing me to do a chore or something I don’t want to do. If I get my comfort time, I will feel good about the day.

In the above examples, I am using idolatry language. When I believe “I must have” respect and am willing to sin to get respect, respect has become an idol in my heart. When I believe I deserve to have comfort time and am willing to sin (whether yelling, giving the silent treatment, stopping off in a huff, rolling my eyes, or grumbling), comfort is an idol in my heart. If I believe that my ideas are best and that my plan for my time is the best plan, I will get upset when my schedule is changed or people fail to follow through on our time together. My belief that I should be in control of my time is revealed as an idol when I sinfully respond to my plans not working out.

Emotions alert me to the fact that there is a desire in my heart. And I need to check with scripture and pray for God to help me understand and to act in a way that honors him.

Our most common idols are comfort, control, approval/respect/love (which scripture calls fear of man) and power. Sometimes it is easier to identify a secondary idol, such as marriage or a specific car. However, as we examine why we want to be married or why we want a specific car, we will find that those things give us control, comfort, reputation, or power. A person who idolizes being married may really idolize being loved and accepted, or it may be that having a spouse is a comfort in not having to go places alone. A fancy sports car may provide desired respect for one person but may be a way to control other people for another person.

Idols can be met in different ways for different people so we must be careful to get to the root of what people want. A person who is always on their cell phone may appear to have a cell phone as their idol. They fixate on their phone, they must have the newest model the week it comes out, and they spend hours every day on their phone. But, underneath that desire for the newest, best phone, is a desire for comfort for one person and control for another. The comfort may be that the phone provides an escape from a difficult situation when the phone user can scroll through social media and watch tik-tok videos. Another phone user may find comfort in pornography on their phone. But yet another phone user may use games as a way to feel control. Since they get immediate results from a game, a feeling of “I can control the outcome and restart if I want different results”, can bring a good feeling of being in control. Another phone user may experience positive feelings from being able to be in control of work by constantly checking emails and responding immediately to any problems that come up regarding their work.

Idolatry is blinding. It is hard to understand our hearts. The wise, patient counselor will ask many questions that probe and dig through the layers of desires to find the root idol. 

Emotions and behaviors are easy to identify as sinful at times. Most people would agree that their anger is sinful and that the resulting yelling or throwing objects needs to be repented of.  But those are just the fruit of not getting the idol that is desired.  It is not enough to repent of the outward action or the sinful thinking and feeling. The desire of the heart needs to be repented of. Any desire that is greater than loving God and honoring Him in the response to our situation, is an idol. How to lead counselees to repent at the idol level will be coming in another blog.

The questions below, often referred to as the Struggle Journal, is a good tool to help counselees begin to understand their heart. As situations happen throughout the week, have your counselee answer these 5 questions at least 14 times a week and have them keep the journal for several weeks. This will help you identify patterns in their emotions, thoughts, and desires. 

Struggle Journal Questions:

What happened?

What were you thinking and feeling?

What did you do?

What did you want?  What was your desired situation?

What was the result?

Here are some examples:

The next blog will continue to show you how to understand these journals further and how to lead a counselee to repent of their idols.

The Vicious Cycle of Idolatry in our Loneliness

Lydia Brownback

Our conscience is the first tip-off. Do we have freedom in our conscience to indulge in whatever we’re doing? Do we have regret after indulging in it? Most people can sense when they’ve crossed a line. Sometimes we blur those lines due to repetitive use of something as an escape—we can grow callous to what we’re doing. And what started as a coping mechanism becomes so much a part of life that it works itself into our identity. Then we don’t even see anymore that it is an escape, and we’re trapped.

God is so kind, however—He doesn’t leave us trapped. He’ll send the Holy Spirit to nudge our conscience. He’ll let consequences come as a result of illicit escapes. Everybody has those, whether other people know about them or not. Everybody’s got some way of coping with their bad feelings—television, internet, food, drugs, drinking, sex—and then we try to manage and minimize these coping mechanisms so they don’t take over our lives. We use them to ease us through a difficult hour or two, but it doesn’t work for very long, and it definitely doesn’t solve anything. It may make us feel better for a little while, but it’s no solution.

We will only find a solution if we (1) acknowledge that we’re escaping, and (2) are willing to look away from those means of escape to examine ourselves and ask, “What is it I’m running from and what am I afraid of?” Then you take it to the Lord (and perhaps to another person) and listen to His response.

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/the-vicious-cycle-of-idolatry-and-loneliness/

The Remedy for Our Idolatry

Nick Batzig

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1st John 5:21). If the heart of man is, as John Calvin described it, “an idol-making factory”, then the way in which those idols are destroyed should be of utmost importance to us. The Bible is replete with references to idolatry because it was written with the purpose of confronting it and providing the remedy for it. The idolatry of Israel is evident throughout the Old Testament—no less than the idolatry of the Gentile nations. No sooner did God deliver His people from the bondage of the idolatrous Egyptians, than they made an idol at the foot of the mountain to which He had brought them to worship. The New Testament writers also bear witness to the pervasive sin of idolatry. In his letter to the church in Rome, the Apostle Paul taught that men, by nature, “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” He reminded the church in Thessalonica that they had “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven”, and he exhorted the Colossians to put off “covetousness, which is idolatry”. In similar fashion, the Apostle John closed his first epistle with the admonition: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”

Throughout Israel’s history, a recurring act symbolized the means by which God would remove the idolatry of His people. When Moses found the people worshiping the golden calf at the foot of the mountain, he “took the calf which they had made, burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder.” He then “scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it” (Exodus 32:20). When Moses recounted the act, he explained that he threw the dust of the idol “into a nearby brook” (Deuteronomy 9:21). The burning, crushing, and grinding of the idol represented the judgment of God against sin. The act of throwing the dust of the idol into the brook almost certainly represented the removal of it from the people, as well as from the presence of God. Like the scapegoat being sent into the wilderness, this act prefigured God’s promise to put the sins of His people away from His presence.

Moses’ symbolic act became a paradigm for the subsequent acts of the righteous kings of Israel. Each of these kings removed idols from the land in a manner similar to that of Moses. King Asa cut down the idol that his grandmother set up and burned it by the Kidron (1st Kings 15:11-13). King Josiah “brought out the wooden image from the house of the Lord, to the brook Kidron outside Jerusalem, burned it at the brook Kidron and ground it to ashes.” He “broke them down and pulverized them, and threw their dust into the brook Kidron” (2nd Kings 23:6, 12).

Under the reign of King Hezekiah, “the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and brought out all the debris that they found in the temple of the Lord…and carried it to the brook Kidron…and they took away all the incense altars and cast them into the brook Kidron” (2nd Chronicles 29:16; 30:14). While these kings are remembered for destroying idols from the land of Israel, none of them could purge the hearts of the people. The righteous kings of Israel may have temporarily purged the land of idols, but King Jesus removes them from our hearts forever. As He made His way to Calvary, Jesus crossed over the brook Kidron (John 18:1) to symbolize everything He had come to do. He was burnt, crushed, and ground by the wrath of God on the cross.

Jesus is the cure for our idolatry. God the Son took to Himself flesh and blood, so that He might bear the penalty for our idolatry in His own body on the tree. Then He rose bodily from the dead. The Father now commands us to worship a Man— the God-Man, Jesus Christ.

France’s foremost preacher of the nineteenth century, Adolphe Monod, explained the mystery of this truth in a most profound way:

“I strive to live in the communion of Jesus Christ—praying to Him, waiting for Him, speaking to Him, hearing Him, and, in a word, constantly bearing witness to Him day and night; all which would be idolatry if He were not God, and God in the highest sense of the word, the highest that the human mind is capable of giving to that sublime name.”

What idols are you harboring in your heart? Are you giving affections and labors to created things? How are we to keep ourselves from idols? The remedy is only to be found in the person and finished work of Christ. He has destroyed the idols of His people, once and for all, by His death on the cross. Our sins have been washed away in His blood. He has “cast them into the depths of the sea”, even as the righteous kings cast the crushed idols into the brook Kidron. Praise God for His righteous King and His righteous rule in our hearts!

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/the-remedy-for-our-idolatry/

How To Embrace Your Emotions Without Being Ruled by Them.

Winston Smith

Growing up on a large lake, I developed a great appreciation for the power of the wind. I enjoyed many summer days sailing with friends on the family sailboat. When the weather was fair and there was a steady wind, it made for a delightful day. The wind carried you wherever you liked and you could just enjoy the ride. But on some hot summer afternoons a thunderstorm could blow up quickly. If you were too far out on the lake, it meant real trouble. Chaotic winds would stir up the waves, swing the boom wildly, and even threaten to capsize the boat.

Emotions can seem as unpredictable as the wind—sometimes gentle and comforting, sometimes stormy and threatening, and apparently beyond your control. But we don’t have to live at the mercy of our emotions. Understanding why God gave them to us, and how they work, can help us engage them without being ruled by them. Here are a few things to keep in mind.

1. ACCEPT YOUR EMOTIONS AS A GIFT FROM GOD.

First, accept your emotions as part of your makeup as an image bearer of God. One of the things that Scripture teaches us about our emotions is how deeply they are rooted in what we value. When we encounter things we consider “good”, we experience emotions that feel good. For example, the blessings of life engender in us feelings like happiness, joy, and contentment. When we encounter things that we consider “bad”, we experience emotions that feel bad—like sadness, grief, and anger. Jesus himself exemplified this. When He encountered the hard hearts and oppression, He became angry (Mark 3:5). When He encountered death and loss, He grieved (John 11:35). When He faced torture and death, He agonized (Luke 22:44).

In a sense then, the more our hearts and values are aligned with God’s, the more we will experience emotions that reflect God’s perspective on what’s happening in and around us. The more we mature into the image of Christ, the more our encounters with the truly good will engender positive emotions. Likewise, our encounters with the truly bad will engender even more negative emotions.

This is important to understand because Christians sometimes have the faulty view that the more we know, trust, and love God, the less we experience negative emotions. While it is true that our faith can keep us from being ruled by our emotions, it doesn’t mean that we don’t feel negative things or live in a fixed state of emotional bliss. Christians who don’t understand this sometimes suffer anxiety, frustration, and shame about their emotions. Denying or hiding from negative emotions only complicates matters. When you don’t have the words to describe how you feel, turn to the Bible to find them.

2. LEARN THE LANGUAGE OF EMOTIONS AND NAME THEM.

Second, it’s important to develop emotional language and name your emotions. Have you ever noticed how sometimes you feel a little better after sharing frustrations or fears with a trusted friend? The actual circumstances that are bothering you may not have changed a bit. Your friend may not have done anything other than listen carefully and share their care and concern, and yet, your struggle is not as much of a burden as it was just a few minutes earlier. There are probably lots of reasons for that, but at a fundamental level, being able to name your emotions and experiences enabled you to entrust them to another who bore the burden with you. In other words, being able to name your emotions helped you to connect with another and be loved.

This can be very hard to do. Our emotions, especially the more painful ones, are often messy and complicated. We aren’t necessarily sure exactly what we are feeling, just that it feels awful. The Bible provides some help. It is full of songs, poems, and narratives that describe the full range of human experience in all of its complicated messiness. Take the Psalms for example. There you will find thankfulness and joy, “The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation” (Psalm 118:14); frustration and anger, “Be not silent, O God of my praise! For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me, speaking against me with lying tongues” (Psalm 109:1-2); even utter despair, “You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness” (Psalm 88:18).

When you don’t have the words to describe how you feel, turn to the Bible to find them. Allow words inspired by the Holy Spirit to become your words. As you do, you are beginning the process of entrusting them to another. First and foremost, you are beginning to entrust them to God by mouthing His words after Him, but learning the vocabulary of emotions can begin to help you share them wisely with trusted others as well.

3. DISCERN HOW EMOTIONS INVITE YOU TO GROW IN LOVE.

As God’s image bearers we were created to mature into Christ’s likeness, which is love itself (1st John 3:1-16), and our emotions can actually help us to grow in love. This can happen in many ways. For example, as we are more honest and engaged with our emotions we may notice a “gap” between how the Bible suggests we should feel and how we actually feel. For example, Paul writes that, as an expression of genuine love, Christians should, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). In other words, love requires us to enter into the emotional experience of those we love. When you experience a “gap”, say you are untouched by the other’s suffering or you experience their happiness as jealousy, then you know that your emotions are not being shaped by love, but something else.

Or perhaps you wrestle with particularly strong negative emotions. For example, say you have an anxiety problem. At times you seem to worry about everything. Or perhaps your fear is paralyzing and prevents you from living a full life. There are all kinds of techniques that you can learn to help you engage your fear and perhaps become desensitized to it, and that’s fine. But realize that your fear may also suggest a need to receive more deeply God’s care and love for you. The Bible records many examples of His people’s fear, to which He often reminds them that though they may suffer, He is with them and cares for them. Consider Isaiah 43:2, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” Again, knowing God’s love doesn’t totally remove negative emotions, but it can keep them from controlling you and keep you grounded and able to learn and grow.

Navigating our emotions can be tricky, but it’s easier if you continually review a few basics: First, remember—your emotions are part of how God made you to reflect His image and His values. You and emotions go together just like sailboats and wind are meant to go together. You don’t want your boat to be sunk by the wind, but without the wind you aren’t going anywhere. Second, learn the language of emotions. You might say that learning the vocabulary of emotions is like learning how to sail with a crew. To sail safely you need to be able to say, “Watch out for the boom!” or “We’re taking on water! Grab a bucket!” And it makes sailing much nicer when you can say, “Isn’t this a lovely day. I’m glad we’re here together.” Finally, knowing that emotions are meant to help us to grow in loving and knowing God’s love is like having a compass heading. Even when the winds make sailing hard, if you know where you are trying to go, you’ll know how to navigate them to get there.

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/how-to-embrace-your-emotions-without-being-ruled-by-them/

Idolatry: The Desire to Be Lord of What One Worship

J.I. Packer

The consistent biblical testimony is that idolatry is inexcusable. Scripture never condones idolatry on the grounds that men knew no better, but condemns it on the assumption that they did, and that irrespective of whether they had encountered any part of God’s special revelation or not (Isaiah 44:10-20; Habakkuk 2:18-20).

Quite so, says Paul; for it is out of general, not special, revelation that idolatry has been manufactured. Idolatry is a lie grafted on to some of the intuitions of general revelation in order to smother the rest; it was invented to provide sinners with gods they can worship while remaining their own masters. One of the contradictions of fallen human nature is the desire to be lord of what one worships.

As a creature, man yearns for a god to serve; as a sinner, he is resolved to play God himself, and demands that everything else should serve him. This explains the absurd actions of the pagan who directs acts of worship to the image he made himself (Isaiah 44:10-20), while at the same time developing techniques of sacrifice, prayer, and sympathetic magic for getting his imaginary god to do what he wants (cf. 1st Kings 17:25-28; 36, 37; Matthew 6:7).

And Scripture recognizes more forms of idolatry than polytheism. It says that idolatry exists whenever man gives himself up, heart and soul, to mastering an adored object. Covetousness is thus idolatry (Colossians 3:5). So it by no means follows that sinners forsake idolatry when they abandon polytheism.

All that happens is that they change their gods. Some ‘idolize’ wealth; and Christ calls such the slaves of Mammon in just the same exclusive sense as the Christian is the servant of his God (Matthew 6:19, 24). Others ‘idolize’ and live for ideas, ideals, a cause, power, a wife, children, country, beauty, and many other things besides.

The self-contradictory lust of sinful man to have something he can worship and master at the same time takes countless forms, each exhibiting the same pathetic ambivalence.

Trying to rule what one serves—being enslaved by what one tries to rule—trying to play God to one’s gods, and ending up the captive of them all—that is idolatry, in all its forms. It is a satanic parody of man’s original relation to his Maker, and a source of endless misery to all its practioners.

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/idolatry-the-desire-to-be-lord-of-what-one-worship/

The Idolatry of Spiritual Laziness

Jared Wilson

Let’s talk about laziness. Laziness is idolatry. It is closely related to its opposite—workaholism. Both the sins of laziness and workaholism are sins of self-worship. The behavior looks different, but the root idolatry is the same. And the problem we face is that the law cannot do for either of these sins what grace does. There is no saving power in law. Further—and this is the crucial point in this particular discussion—there is no sustainable keeping of the law apart from the compulsion of grace. We can (and should) command repentance from sin, but it is grace that enables repentance and belief that accompanies it. Repentance problems are always belief problems. When we are set free from the law’s curse, we are set free to the law’s blessings. The difference-maker is the gospel and the joyful worship it creates. Any other attempt at law-abiding is just behavior management.

So we cannot cure spiritual laziness by pouring law on it. God turns dry bones into living, breathing, worshiping, working bodies by pouring gospel proclamation into them. When we truly behold the gospel, we can’t help but grow in Christ and with the fruit of the Spirit. Paul captures the essence of this truth in 2nd Corinthians 3:15-18:

Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

The law cannot lift the veil. It cannot supply what it demands. But when, by the power of the Spirit, we turn to behold the Lord—not just see Him, but behold Him—the veil is lifted and we are transformed bit by bit, so long as we are beholding. This is not self-generated. It comes, Paul says, “from the Lord who is the Spirit.” Vicky Beeching’s song “Captivated” captures this truth well with these lyrics:

Beholding is becoming, so as You fill my view
Transform me into the likeness of You.

According to 2nd Corinthians 3:15-18, beholding is becoming. See how Psalm 119:18 relates “beholding as becoming” to obedience: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.”

What must happen for a lazy person to be able to become diligent? He must behold the wondrous things in God’s law. Does he just decide to do that? No. Okay, well, yes…sort of. But he must be moved to decide to be diligent from a force outside of himself. His eyes must be opened by the Spirit. And in this opening, the law and his keeping of it become wondrous, not tedious. This is really what we’re aiming for with gospel centrality, and it’s what gospel wakefulness [super]naturally produces: obedience to God as worshipful response, not meritorious leverage. We are fixing our eyes on the finished work of Christ, so that we may be free, and therefore free to delight in the law, not buckle under it.

Religious people can’t delight in the law like the psalmists do. They have to be set free—and feel free—from its curse first. This is where accusing gospel centrality of facilitating antinomianism becomes nonsensical. Generally speaking, people aren’t lazy because they think they’re forgiven for trespassing the law; they’re lazy because they think the law doesn’t apply to them. The truth is that we worship our way into sin, and we have to worship our way out. When people are lazy (or restless), they do have a sin problem, but the sin problem is just a symptom of the deeper worship problem. Their affections are set somewhere else. And wherever our affections are set is where our behavior will go.

So gospel wakefulness does not mean or produce laziness. But what gospel wakefulness does to the work of obedience is something we cannot muster up of our own power. It is the difference between driving our car and pushing it. Or, better, it is the difference between seeing the Christian life as a rowboat and seeing it as a sailboat.

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/the-idolatry-of-spiritual-laziness/

Prosperity or Idolatry

Voddie Baucham

Is God opposed to prosperity? Where is the line between being grateful for the gifts He’s given us and idolatry? Sometimes God offers prosperity as a blessing for faithfulness (remember Solomon?), and often it comes as a result of hard, honest work. It is certainly not wrong to provide nice things for your family, and laziness is far from condoned in Scripture.

Our pursuit of prosperity can turn into idolatry if we are not careful. It’s easy to keep our eyes a little too focused on the prize; putting the gift above the Giver. On the other hand, if we shun prosperity for fear of idolatry, we run the risk of being ungrateful. How do we find the balance between prosperity and idolatry?

First of all, it is important to be a good steward of your gifts. Every believer is gifted in special ways, and we need to discover our gifts and use them for God’s glory. This may seem simple, but there is a deeper truth here. If we do our job because God gifted us in that area, we’re being stewards. If we do our job because there is money to be had, we’re on our way to idolatry. If one goes into medicine because he has been blessed with a scientific mind and a desire to heal the sick, wonderful. If he goes into medicine because it is the most lucrative profession he can think of, that is a different issue.

We must also prosper as God allows. Be the best you can be at whatever profession God has called you to, be it law or farming. We must also prosper in ways that are pleasing to God. Work hard, don’t cheat your boss. On a different note, we might get a job offer that sparkles with a dazzling salary and benefits package, but is in a field that may tempt us to compromise or does not honor God. It would be better to take a more modest job in a God-pleasing environment.

In the busyness of making a living and working hard, many people sacrifice their families. Some fathers are on the road 180 days a year, “bringing home the bacon”. Neglecting your spouse and missing your kids’ childhood is simply not worth the extra salary. Your bank account is not an adequate substitute for your presence. Ultimately, when you look back, you will not regret spending more time with family instead of chasing the last dollar.

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/prosperity-or-idolatry/

Resisting the Power of Idolatry

Philip Ryken

One of the things that has really helped me understand the power of idolatry in our own time and place is, strange to say, the plagues in the book of Exodus. One of the things that was amazing for me to discover is that all of the plagues in Exodus relate to gods that the Egyptians worshiped.

Just to give one example: the first plague was blood in the Nile River. The Nile was everything to the Egyptians. It was the source of their economy—it was like what Wall Street is for America’s economy. One of the things that God was showing—and Exodus is explicit about this in a few places—was His glory over the Egyptians and their gods.

In the story of Exodus you see God not just gaining a victory over people like Pharaoh, who had set himself over and against God and God’s authority, but actually over all the things the Egyptians worshiped.

It’s a little scary to think about, but I think that’s a lesson for our own time and place. All of the things that we worship—power, money, sex, whatever idolatries we have in our own time and place—all of those idols are going to be defeated.

Ultimately, all of those idols are going to let us down, they are going to disappoint us, and they are only going to be a source of frustration. This is actually good news, because God doesn’t want us to worship those things; He wants us to worship Him alone.

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/resisting-the-power-of-idolatry/

Idolatry: A Right View of God's Love

Dave Jenkins

In Exodus 3:14, God says, “I am who I am.” Such a declaration is powerful because the Lord God was declaring not only who He is at His absolute essence, but also declaring to the world, “I am the only God!” As we fast forward to the New Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ declares seven times, “I Am!” in the Gospel of John. In Leviticus 11:44-46, we are taught that God is holy, meaning He is set apart. In 1st Peter 1:13-15, we are taught that as a result of God’s holiness, He requires Christians to live holy lives. Gaining a right understanding of the love of God requires a biblical understanding of His holiness. The matter of understanding the holiness and love of God is so serious because, if we get His holiness wrong, we diminish and undermine His character. If we get the love of God wrong, then we have a God who will crush humanity in judgment, not love us through Christ alone.

The Love of God and the Christian Faith

In the book of 1st John, the Apostle John roots the assurance of the Christian using the interplay between external evidence and the internal testimony of grace. To abide in Christ is the result of the work of the Holy Spirit at work in the Christian. The Holy Spirit provides assurance that the people of God belong to Jesus, but never operates apart from outward evidence of faith. The presence of the Holy Spirit is discerned both by His internal testimony and by obedience to the commands of Jesus given through His apostles (1st John 4:6).

Some of the other commands of John include belief in the Son Jesus (1st John 3:23; 4:1-5) and love for one another as Christians (1st John 3:23). Love, to John, is a critical mark of the Christian who has genuine faith. Those who have not been born of God do not know God, nor can they know that “God is love” (1st John 4:8). Love is essential to the nature of God. Those who have become partakers of the new nature (2nd Peter 1:4) are the people of God. They alone increasingly reflect the holy and loving character of God and love others. The transformed hearts of Christians respond to the call of God to love one another.

John is addressing those in 1st John who thought love made God too personal. Many today follow along with John’s original audience believing “God is love”, but do not believe what the Bible teaches about the rest of God’s character. Such people often recoil at the idea that the way to heaven is narrow (Matthew 7:13-14) and restricted by Christ only through Him (John 14:6; Acts 4:14).

When Christians speak of the love of God, we are not minimizing the other characteristics of God. For example, the simplicity of God tells us the love of God never operates apart from the holiness, mercy, omnipotence, justice, or other divine attributes. It is loving, therefore, to seek justice and demand holiness, but never to do so at the expense of mercy. Christians need the help of God and the wisdom He provides to apply His love into every phase of our lives.

THE LOVE OF GOD AND HIS DISCIPLINE

Within God’s perfect love is the reality that God chastens those whom He loves. Hebrews 12:5-7 reminds us, “You have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the Lord loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?”

Christians should both expect and embrace the discipline God gives them. The divine discipline of God is intended to help the people of God grow in a relationship with our heavenly Father. Revelation 3:19 states, “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.”

Throughout the book of Proverbs, Solomon speaks about a father disciplining and correcting their children out of love. To the biblical writers, rejecting correction from the Lord God is to walk in the way of foolishness and wickedness. To walk in the light according to the biblical writers, is to accept correction, repent, and become wise. Such Christians understand that the loving embrace of God involves the guiding rod and staff wielded by the Chief Shepherd, Jesus.

THE LOVE OF GOD AND THE JEALOUS GOD

In Exodus 34:14, we find the command, “Worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” John Frame in Systematic Theology explains, “God’s jealousy is not inconsistent with his love or goodness. On the contrary, his jealousy is part of his love.”

THE LOVE OF GOD AND THE CHRISTIAN’S SECURITY

In Romans 8:31-39, Paul writes about the love of God and how down to the nanosecond the Christian is held secure in His sovereign hands. Only those who are truly Christ’s will be held until the end, for they have true faith in Him. Times of doubt may come, and the storms of life may assail them, but if we belong to Christ, we are held by Him and will belong to Him always. Such biblical truth should cause Christians to draw near humbly to the throne of God to know and grow in the love of God.

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/idolatry-and-getting-a-right-understanding-of-gods-love/

Idolatry: The Secret Sin of the Heart

Dave Jenkins

Idolatry is serious business in the eyes of the Lord, who demands absolute allegiance from the people of God. After all, there is no other true God, so it is foolish to trust in deities (gods) who cannot save (Isaiah 43:11; 44:6). To refuse to worship the Lord God is idolatry—a grave sin, condemned throughout the Bible (Leviticus 19:1-4; Psalm 31:6; 96:5; Ezekiel 6; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; Revelation 21:8).

Throughout biblical history, the idolatry that most of the Prophets spoke against was the serving of pagan deities—beings that people worshipped specifically as gods. Those who worshiped pagan gods built graven images of these false gods and constructed altars at high places—sites where they were worshipped within the land of Israel (2 Kings 17:1-23; Isaiah 44:9-20). In this sense, idolatry today exists within Hinduism, tribal religions, and where professing Christian churches gloss over people’s animalistic and polytheistic traditions.

The Heidelberg Catechism Question and Answer 95 defines idolatry as “having or inventing something in which one trusts in place of or alongside of the only true God, who has revealed Himself in the Word.” Idolatry can also be seen in the major monotheistic religions such as Islam, whose practitioners worship the Allah of the Qur’an; and modern Jews, who worship a unitary deity, defined more by rabbinic tradition than by the Old Testament. Both of these religions are guilty of idolatry because they do not worship the triune God of Scripture.

Idolatrous attitudes and practices do not need to be religious, in the sense of being directed toward a defined ‘god’, or need to occur within an organized religious setting. Anything that we love more than the Lord Himself is an idol. Jesus makes this particular point in Matthew 10:37-39, when He rejects any who love their family members more than Him. In Philippians 3:19, Paul identifies some individuals in that congregation whose god was “their belly”; meaning that their physical appetites were so consuming that Paul viewed them as worshipping their stomachs.

Every fallen culture has idols, so Christians must be sensitive to what the world is calling us to worship in place of the one true God. Neither sex, nor power, nor fame, nor anything else deserves the place of supremacy in our lives. Only the transcendent, which is identified as the Lord and Creator of all, is deserving of our ultimate worship.

In John 5:20, the apostle John says, “the Son of God has come,” which refers to the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus. In the Incarnation, the divine Son has come into the world in human flesh. Only those with faith and assurance in the Lord Jesus can embrace the Incarnation without reservation.

John also explains (in 1st John 5:20) that the Lord has “given us understanding.” John’s phrasing is interesting, since the idea of salvation by right knowledge was essential to those countering the apostle’s teaching. Knowledge of biblical Christianity is critical, for we cannot know God without a revelation from the Son (Matthew 11:27); therefore, knowledge is vital for salvation. Unlike the false teaching of John’s opponents, knowledge leading to salvation is knowledge of the Incarnate Christ—a Person. Such knowledge involves not only belief in facts, but also personal trust in Him as Savior and Lord.

John’s point now becomes clear—knowing “him who is true”, God the Father is inseparable from being in union with God the Son, Jesus Christ (1st John 5:20). To know the biblical God and have eternal life is to be in the Son—Jesus. Only those who belong to Jesus, who are His disciples, have everlasting salvation.

The Lord demands our allegiance, but He also expects His people to keep themselves from idols (1st John 5:21). Since there is only one God, Christians must never set up anything else in His place (Exodus 20:3). Though it may not be the gods of wood or stone common in the Old Testament, Christians must be careful not to make their jobs, money, families, reputations, or anything else the center of their affections. John Calvin is right when he says, “the vivifying light of the Gospel ought to scatter and dissipate, not only darkness but also all mists, from the minds of the godly.”

Idolatry is not a subject that is often covered, but it is one that gets to the root of the fallenness of man and our need for Christ alone. Our idols reveal our need for Jesus. Our lives are always before the face of the only true God, who sees and knows our thoughts and deeds. Idolatry helps reveal the heart of man and what we value of supreme worth. The Gospel provides the cure to the idolatry of man—showing where we find our true identity and value apart from Christ alone—and how we can, as the people of God, rest in who we are now in Him. The gospel highlights our need to expose our idols, and the Holy Spirit does this, through the teaching of the Word of God to convict, comfort, and equip the His people.

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/theology-for-life/idolatry-the-secret-sin-of-the-heart/