Droughts Expose Our Idols

By: Jim Newheiser

When we lived in Southern California, we observed that the weather there tends to fluctuate between extremes. Some years the rain would be plentiful, then there would be years of drought. There’s a lake near where we lived, which during years of abundant rain would swell to the top of its banks and flow under the freeway. During years of drought, the water level would recede so much that the lake no longer made it to the freeway. When the lake was high, it would look beautiful. When the water receded, the lakebed would be exposed along with trash and debris that had accumulated there—not a pretty sight.

In a similar way, a circumstantial drought can cause the lake of our contentment to recede so that our idols, which had been hidden under the waters of our prosperity, are exposed for all to see—like a junky car that had been previously hidden in the lakebed.

During times of drought, we can learn to be content by following the Apostle Paul’s example: “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:11b-13).

Our nation has just come through a decade of economic prosperity. When the year began, we had nearly full employment. The stock market was at an all-time high. Wages were rising. The economy was growing. You could say that the lake of our financial circumstances was overflowing. Paul says that there is a “secret” to living in the midst of “plenty” and “abundance.” Perhaps he is thinking of the warning in Proverbs that riches can be spiritually dangerous because we can be tempted to be proudly self-sufficient and forget our dependence upon God (Prov. 30:8-9; also see Matt. 19:24). How did you fare in recent years when you were tested by prosperity? Were you, like the Philippians, generous towards the Lord’s work (Phil. 4:10-11a) and those in need? (2 Cor. 8:1ff)? Was heavenly treasure more important to you than earthly wealth (Matt. 6:19-21)?

With the sudden onset of the pandemic, many of us have found ourselves in a time of drought. Tens of millions of people have lost their jobs. Thousands of businesses are on the verge of bankruptcy. People approaching retirement have seen their life savings decimated by sharp drops in the stock market. Some are concerned about foreclosure or eviction from their homes. Our freedoms of movement are being restricted. Perhaps for the first time in world history, churches all over the world have been unable to gather on the Lord’s Day. Many are living in fear of death from the virus. And perhaps the greatest challenge is that the future seems uncertain and possibly very bleak. We don’t know when the pandemic will end or if life will ever return to “normal.”

For many of us, this sudden change in circumstances can be like the drought in which the calm waters of our prosperity recede and our previously hidden idols are exposed. Perhaps we thought we were trusting God, but now that our idol of financial security is threatened, we have become worried and fearful. Perhaps we thought we were content, but when forced to reduce our lifestyle, we become dissatisfied. Our idols of materialism, comfort, and control may also be exposed. This should especially be humbling for those of us in the West, where it is highly unlikely that we will be without food, clothing, and shelter.[1] Yet, we may be tempted to be miserable if our vacation plans are canceled, we can’t eat out as often as we previously did, we can’t afford new clothes, we have to rent an apartment rather than owning a large house, our favorite cut of meat (or brand of toilet paper) isn’t available at the grocery store, or if our Amazon orders don’t arrive the next day. Many of us have an idol of comfort and can be quite upset when it is threatened.

When our idols are exposed by a drought, we are given the opportunity to smash and remove them. We need to learn, with Paul, the lesson of contentment. Paul learned the secret of facing hunger and need. Such contentment does not come easily or naturally. Both James and Peter (James 1:2ff; 1 Pet. 1:6ff) remind us that God uses trials to expose and refine our weaknesses. The author of Hebrews teaches that even Jesus, who was completely sinless, still had to be matured in His humanity through the trials He suffered. “Although He was a son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered” (Heb. 5:8). If Jesus had to learn obedience through His suffering, how much more necessary our trials must be for our sanctification.

While I don’t know all of the reasons God has allowed a pandemic, I am convinced that for many of us, one purpose is to teach us the secret of contentment in all circumstances. Paul, who was a model of joy and contentment even as he was in prison facing possible execution, teaches us how we can grow to be more content.

1. Rejoice in the Lord (Phil. 4:4). Rather than trying to find happiness in our idols, which are crumbling in the present drought, learn to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8). The joy of the Lord is our strength (Neh. 8:10), which cannot be shaken by circumstances.

2. Don’t worry (Phil. 4:6a). Trust God that He who feeds the birds and clothes the grass will also provide for you, His child (Matt. 6:25-34).

3. Pray (Phil. 4:6b). Cry out to God to meet your material needs and strengthen you spiritually during these troubled times.

4. Give thanks (Phil. 4:6c). Take your eyes off your troubles as you remember and specifically declare all of God’s past and present goodness and faithfulness to you.

5. Focus your thoughts on the best things (Phil. 4:8-9). During times of great trial, it’s easy for our thoughts to be consumed by our troubles. We can consciously choose what to think about. I have been combatting my own fears by reading extra Psalms each day.

6. Trust God to give you strength (Phil. 4:13). “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” is one of the most famous, but misused verses written by Paul. He is not talking about winning a sporting contest or running a marathon. Rather, he is talking about how Christ strengthens him to be joyful and content while in a prison cell, facing possible execution. If Christ can do that for Paul, then He can help us to live with the much less severe deprivations of being quarantined and the much lower likelihood of death.

7. Do today what needs to be done today (Matt. 6:34). For my last point, I will go from Paul to Jesus, who, when teaching us to trust God instead of worrying, said, “Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” We are living with great uncertainty concerning the future. We shouldn’t waste immense amounts of time and energy uselessly feeding our anxiety about what we cannot control. On the other hand, each day we wake up with responsibilities we can and should fulfill—to care for our families, love our brothers and sisters in the church, and perhaps to look for work. It is wise to focus upon what we can do now while trusting God for what we cannot do about tomorrow.

Don’t be shocked if the present pandemic drought has caused the waters of your comfort to recede, thus exposing your idols. Rather, see this as an opportunity from God to learn the secret of being content in all circumstances.

Questions for Reflection

1. What idols in your life have been exposed by the drought of the current pandemic?

2. Will you seek to learn contentment in these areas?

[1] It is very likely that the pandemic’s impact in developing countries will be a much greater impact in terms of deprivation, suffering, and death.

Posted at: https://www.biblicalcounselingcoalition.org/2020/05/06/droughts-expose-our-idols/

What Would You Do For an Idol?

Macy Wilson

I idolized a career in the arts for a very long time. My whole life, music has run in my veins, so I spent a few years jumping from singing to songwriting to acting, trying to land on one to start my life on. In my early years of high school, I wanted to sing or act for the rest of my life so badly, it hurt. I did unhealthy things to become a “better” actress and dancer, and I got to the point where I truly hated myself, because I thought I looked and sounded nothing like a traditional musical theatre actress. Give 14-year-old me a mirror for a couple minutes and she could come up with more flaws than there are minutes in a day.

Nothing was going to stop me from achieving this dream, though. If excessive working out, an overly restricted diet, an intense daily stretching routine, braces, an expensive skin-care regimen, and no social life was the way to a successful career, then so be it. 

A couple years later, I realized this wasn’t going to be my career. I felt a calling to counseling and ministry, but agonized over the idea of not spending the rest of my life in the performance world. It legitimately hurt. That is one of the most vivid memories I have of the excruciating pain it is to uncover an idol in all its hideousness and to start to dismember it. It felt like dismembering myself--and it was. This idolatry had taken over like a cancer, but I had been physically hurting myself to protect it.

It may not always show up as obviously as an eating disorder or constant obsession over self-image, but all idolatry is destructive. We are told often, but how many excuses do we make for our graven images? 

“I think this is an idol.”
“No, it’s a good thing. It’s good to love and enjoy it.”
“You sure do love it a whole lot.”
“It’s just who you are. This is a part of you.”
“Should it be, though? If it was taken away, I’d be devastated.”
“It’s just the way God made you.”

There is a whole lot of danger in that internal conversation, and I am certain that I’m not the only one who’s been over this script.

Isaiah 44:12-20 describes the work put into fashioning an idol, and the folly that idolatry is. The men in this passage make good things; tools, carpentry, food, and wood for fuel are all good. The folly is when the things they make become their all. The ironsmith works away at his tool, but forgets to drink water and becomes faint. The carpenter creates and cries out to an unresponsive idol. Men cut down great cedars, work for hours on end, and achieve things, but they end with ashes to eat, no water to drink, and a deluded heart.

When I reached the breaking point I realized that I had spent so many wasted hours cultivating my idol; all the days I missed a Bible reading or didn’t pray often, I guarantee you I spent counting calories, running, and obsessively reading over musical scores. All that work, and I never felt satisfied. In Christ, I am content. When Christ is my all, I lack no good thing (Psalm 34:10). He is worth daily sacrificing all the things I hold tightly and clinging to the cross instead. 

Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in his wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace

Posted at: https://macyleew.squarespace.com/articles/what-would-you-do-for-an-idol

Your Thoughts Reveal Your Functional Identity

Mark Grant

It benefits you to explore your functional identity during a season of difficulty. Wayward hearts and vulnerable souls can easily skew their identities, resulting in the construction of false worship structures, which when present, can lead to increased hopelessness and difficulty during trials.

Caring for a friend in the midst of a trial is difficult. Feelings of inadequacy can surface as one searches for the perfect words in an attempt to ease the weariness of their soul. Empathic listening is always the perfect starting point, but if “soul care” is to take place, the conversation must go deeper than superficial discussions.

With gentleness and patience, the conversation must lead and encourage them to engage with God to embrace His Sovereign and purposeful work in their lives. God uses all things for their good (Romans 8:28-29), and often these seasons provide fertile ground to expose idols of the heart and gaps in an individual’s Gospel understanding.

Due to our fallen natures, we tend to be blind to the things that move us, which are the catalysts that fuel our engines. Often those who are biblically literate have no sound grasp on the ruling motives of their hearts.

One may question the wisdom of this line of reasoning during a season of difficulty. For example, how does directing a wife to understand the idols of her heart help when she is reeling from her husband’s recently confessed adultery?

From a Christian, gospel-driven perspective, this type of conversation is profitable both practically and spiritually.

Suffering brings weariness to the soul, which can be made worse with sin and idolatry (1 Peter 2:11). The purity of your worship directly impacts the health of your soul, and the identification and dismantling of false worship structures (idols/misplaced desires) will help your soul find rest.

Heart idols are the fruit of improper thinking, and if this thinking is left unchecked, the conclusions reached in the midst of a season of suffering can lead to further harm by seeking counterfeit solutions.

Even in the midst of a life turned upside down, you must remember Christ didn’t come to save you from a bad marriage, or a lousy job. Your greatest need remains Christ; for your salvation and your ongoing sanctification. As Paul Tripp said,

The good news of the kingdom is not freedom from hardship, suffering, and loss. It is the news of a Redeemer who has come to rescue me from myself. His rescue produces change that fundamentally alters my response to these inescapable realities.

Humility positions you to receive Christ’s grace (James 4:6). As David Powlison states,

Christ powerfully meets people who are aware of their real need for help. Christ’s forte is our acknowledged need in the face of compulsions from within and pressures from without” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

1. How can you help a friend biblically understand themselves and to better respond to their season of suffering?

2. How can an individual navigate through all the storylines, the emotions, and the hurt to help their friend see the tendencies of their heart?

One way is to recognize how their worship reflects their identity. It is often effective to use a person’s self-defined identity as an entryway, helping them ascertain their purpose in life, and gain a more accurate assessment of themselves and their environment (Psalm 139:23).

This avenue of inquiry can often bring a freshness and clarity in their thinking as they focus on the workings of their heart; ideally leading them to a renewed dependence on Christ for all things (John 15:5). Asking these kinds of questions can help them find rest for their soul, and empower forward moving, hopeful-filled progress.

Christian counseling is counseling which exposes our motives—our hearts and our world—in such a way that the authentic Gospel is the only possible answer. – David Powlison

A Christian’s True Identity

The Westminster Catechism states man’s chief purpose is to, “Glorify God and enjoy Him forever” though sin has taken humanity away from this original position and purpose.

Individually, we were created to serve God, but sin confused everything, tangling our hearts with pride, false idols, false securities, and false saviors all knotted together into one disordered mess from which we cannot free ourselves. Only by grace are we given eyes to see the depth of our complex hearts and two-faced motives, and only by grace do we find a Great Physician committed to untangling our disordered hearts.” – Tony Reinke

Hearts are continuously enticed, tempted and deceived from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16).

Hidden and insidious desires are always looking to shape lust-filled hearts. You choose things that you perceive as good and desirable; things you think will result in success, comfort, and significance. Over time these selections metamorphose into your identity.

How do we make an identity out of temptation? By collapsing what you desire with who you are. – Rosario Butterfield

A man may desire to become successful in his career. There is nothing wrong with this desire, but if he is not careful, he can start to place his value in his career. As a result, his career becomes his identity, and his focus turns away from Christ and onto the many opportunities or threats to his career. As a result, his joy, or soul-health, links to his performance at work, which can manifest a multitude of false worship structures.

A woman desires to be the perfect mother and starts to define her worth as such. When this happens, her children’s behavior in public will take on a self-focused commentary, and she becomes fearful about how their actions reflect her parenting ability. Her joy, or soul-health, links to something apart from Christ.

False identities can even attach themselves to ministry. If a pastor’s identity shifts away from Christ to being a pastor, his allegiance will become askew. He will analyze trends in church attendance, the reception of his messages, or the divorce rate of couples he counsels and reaches unfortunate conclusions about himself.

In all cases, their thinking turns temporal and their focus inward. God’s role of provider becomes the primary attribute of worship, and unanswered prayers lead to unbelief.

Given the wayward tendencies of fallen hearts, the first step you must take each and every day is to remind yourself of your true identity. During the business of family and work, with all of the entanglements of church and community, you must continue the daily work to orient your life to Christ (Colossians 3:11).

“If I may speak my own experience, I find that to keep my eye simply upon Christ, as my peace, and my life, is by far the hardest part of my calling. A thousand such surrenders I have made, and a thousand times I have interpretatively retracted them.” – John Newton

You can see the well-known pastor and hymnist engaged in the conflict we all face as Christians. You want to do right but find yourself doing the opposite (Romans 7:15). It is the daily call to die to yourself (Matthew 16:24).

Understanding the Battle

The fight for your identity is the same flesh-Spirit battle you face as a Christian (Galatians 5:17). The enemy, while using the world’s temptations, aligns with your flesh to shift your identity, and ultimately your focus away from Christ.

We should be careful at the temptation to minimize our involvement in taking the bait, for, the sinner’s rebellious nature finds the forbidden thing more attractive, not because it is inherently attractive, but because it furnishes an opportunity to assert one’s self-will. – John MacArthur

Seeing yourself in the light of truth requires Spiritual discernment (Obadiah 1:3), and a firm grasp of the Gospel to overcome the indwelling shame, fear, and guilt that is resident in your flesh, and which makes it so difficult to accept the truth about yourself (John 2:25).

The freedom of the Gospel only comes when your focus is building up your new identity in Christ and leaving fleshly-inspired identities behind (Philippians 3:13-14).

Many Christians never fully get to this point. Their souls are too tender, too sensitive from past evil or years of poor soul care. It is similar to providing care to a burn victim; any attention initially brings the pain. It is too excruciating to peel back the many layers of life’s self-centered solutions to allow a new identity (2 Corinthians 5:17) to take root. As a result, they stand firm in who they think they are, daily defending their self-reliant tendencies and self-righteous ways.

Enticement is the hidden danger of a false identity; it has no power or legitimacy and requires “self” to defend, justify, promote, refine, reinvent, and maintain. You could say it creates a heavy yoke (Matthew 11:30) and a propensity towards unbelief. Thus, when helping a hurting friend think correctly and biblically about their identity, the process must be executed with patience, gentleness, and love.

A Final Word

I believe it is important to state that a properly aligned, in Christ identity does not eliminate suffering from your life, but it does create a new type of freedom, as evidenced in the life of Apostle Paul. It is evident that his life was full of hardships (2 Corinthians 11:23-29), but he was able to respond positively. For instance, despite being in jail, Paul was able to see a gain (Philippians 1:12), but only because his identity was in the Gospel; his joy was Christ’s joy.

When evil enters your world, it only impacts your temporal life. Your identity in Christ is eternal and remains unchanged leading you to experience a peace that surpasses your understanding (Philippians 4:7).

To illustrate, I will borrow from Chicken Little’s demise. Some of life’s difficulties and challenges, represented by rocks of varying shapes and sizes, will fall from the sky and disrupt your existence. If your identity is in something other than Christ, that rock will deliver a crushing blow to yourself, leaving you dazed and confused.

If your identity is in Christ, these rocks will no longer have a crippling effect. Although they still have to be dealt with, you can navigate around the obstacle and address the disruption in a much calmer, Gospel-centered, liberating way–in a way that reminds you (and others) that you are living characters in God’s wonderful story of redemption.

Three Future Articles

This article is an introduction, discussing how your identity reveals your worship structures. Three additional articles will follow to help further your understanding and provide practical examples.

1. The first exposes and uncovers the role your inner voice plays in the spiritual battle. If left unchecked, it leads you away from your in Christ identity, leading you down the path to sin.

2. The second article addresses how your identity determines how you respond to the heat of martial conflict, and how an in Christ identity allows for a redemptive response.

3. The third article discusses the importance of having the right identity for a wife caught in a loveless marriage.

I hope this series will help equip you to minister to the souls God has placed in your path.

Mark Grant

Mark Grant was raised in Columbus, Ohio and attended Ohio State. He married Lesa as he finished his MA in Mechanical Engineering. He moved to Los Angeles to work in the Aerospace Industry. After 5 years of a difficult marriage, he and Lesa were saved. Shortly thereafter, they moved to Portland, Oregon and were blessed with a daughter. He currently works for the Navy as a civilian engineer. He lives outside Philadelphia.

Posted at: https://rickthomas.net/thoughts-reveal-functional-identity/

Are We Really in Danger of Making an Idol of the Family?

Article by Kevin DeYoung

“One of the acceptable idolatries among evangelical Christians is the idolatry of the family.”

That’s what I tweeted last week. To be honest, I didn’t think much about it. I’ve said similar things in sermons for the past decade, and I’ve tweeted similar things before. But this time—I was later told by friends who track with Twitter more closely than I do—the statement took on a life of its own as this one sentence was liked 1,600 times and bandied about on social media for the next few days. Unknown to me, I was (depending on who you ask) suddenly saying something wonderfully courageous or terribly misguided.

So let me clarify.

As far as I can tell, I first uttered this statement (or something close to it) in a 2010 sermon on Mark 3:31-35 entitled Jesus’s Real Family. The tweet itself comes from a more recent sermon on the miracle at Cana in Galilee. My point in both cases was that a commitment to family must not come before a commitment to God.

I began the Mark 3 sermon by noting two competing notions of the family in our culture: family as straight jacket (as in the 1998 film Pleasantville) or family as center (as in the 2000 film The Family Man). In one view, the family keeps you from everything you really want. In the other view, the family promises to give you everything you really want. Jesus promoted neither of these views. There’s no doubt the second view is much more common among Christians, and it does overlap with some Christian virtues. But it too gets some crucial things wrong when it comes to the family. I argued back in 2010 (and would argue the same today) that, according to the Bible, the family is good, necessary, and foundational, but not ultimate.

The Mark 3 sermon focused on those two words—“not ultimate”—because that was Jesus’s emphasis in verses 31-35. In Jesus’s view of the family: family ties don’t get you in, family doesn’t come first, and God’s family is open to all (that is, open to everyone who does the will of God and takes Jesus on his own terms).

There are certainly ways in which speaking of “the idolatry of the family” would be a step in the wrong direction. I’m happily married with (soon) eight children. I am most definitely a family man (and have a 15-passenger van to prove it). I would never suggest that the real problem in the world today is that parents love their kids too much or that churches are doing too much to support the family or that what really ails our culture are too many high-functioning families. In a world hellbent on redefining marriage and undermining the fundamental importance of the family, Christians would do well to honor and support all those trying to nurture healthy families.

And yet, virtually every pastor in America can tell you stories of churchgoers who have functionally displaced God in favor of the family.

• Parents who go missing from church for entire seasons because of Billy’s youth soccer league or Sally’s burgeoning volleyball career.

• Committed Christians who would never dare invite a college student or international over for Thanksgiving or Christmas because “the holidays are for family.”

• Longtime members who can’t be bothered to serve on Sundays or reach out to visitors because the whole family always gathers at grandma’s for lunch.

• Kids and grandkids who think they should be accepted into membership or be in line for baptism because their parents and grandparents have been pillars of the church.

• Churches that implicitly (or explicitly) communicate that marriage is a necessary step of spiritual maturity.

• Christians of all kinds who will jettison their theology of marriage or their convictions about church discipline once their children come out of the closet or embrace other kinds of (unrepentant) sin.

The idolatry of the family can be a real problem, either from the church that ignores singles and gears everything toward married couples with children, or from the individual whose practical commitments underscore the unfortunate reality that blood is usually thicker than theology.

God has given us many gifts in this life. Money is a gift. Sex is a gift. Work is a gift. Athletic ability and musical skill are gifts; so are intelligence and beauty. No one doubts that all of these good things can be idols. Just like the family. The conjugal family—one man and one woman whose covenant union produces offspring—is profoundly good, a necessary and foundational element of God’s creational design. But it is not ultimate. At least not if we are defining family as the natural relationships we have by marriage and blood, rather than the supernatural relationships we have by the blood of Christ.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/really-danger-making-idol-family/

8 Ways to Battle "Comfort Idolatry"

Article by Brett McCracken

One of Christianity’s greatest idolatries today is also one of the most subtle and insidious: the idolatry of comfort.

Widespread especially in affluent Western contexts, comfort idolatry is the product of a consumerist context that frames everything—including spiritual things—in terms of expressive individualism, self-fulfillment, and “bettering yourself.” In this context, going to church is just one among many other curated things (which may also include podcasts, self-help books, juice cleanses, yoga, backpacking, the Enneagram, Jordan Peterson, and so forth) that can add something to one’s unique spiritual path toward wisdom and wellness and becoming a “better person.”

Because it is so widespread and subtle, this framing doesn’t often seem so deadly. But it turns Christianity into a product akin to a smartphone app: something the “user” can opt in or out of as is convenient, or appropriate as needed but only insofar as it suits them. If it is in any way uncomfortable or costly, the “app” is easily deleted.

But a Christianity that’s accessed only as it suits us, only when it’s comfortable and on our terms, is not really Christianity. To truly follow Jesus is to flip the cultural script on comfort. It is to shift one’s gaze away from a consumer self and toward our worthy God; from an inward, self-help orientation to an outward, others-helping orientation. Healthy Christians are always wary of easing into comfortable Christianity.

A Christianity that’s accessed only as it suits us, only when it is comfortable and on our terms, is not really Christianity. To truly follow Jesus is to flip the cultural script on comfort.

Last year I wrote about eight signs your Christianity might be too comfortable. If that’s us, how can we address it? A good place to start is by recognizing, repenting, and praying for deliverance from this idolatrous temptation. Another foundational step is simply committing to a local church, recognizing that a healthy church should make us feel uncomfortable. But what else can we do? 

Here are eight additional ways a churchgoing Christian can proactively attack, or preventatively avoid, comfort idolatry in the Christian life.

1. Don’t elevate your church preferences as the gold standard.

It’s good to love your church. It’s not good to idolize your church. Sometimes a healthy appreciation for one’s church can turn into an unhealthy, insular orientation that excludes from fellowship (or even orthodoxy) other Christians and church traditions, just because they differ from how your congregation does things.

If you find it unbearable to sit through another church’s service because “it’s not how mychurch does it,” that’s a problem. The comfort of the familiar becomes idolatrous when anything unfamiliar is delegitimized. Christians and churches should challenge themselves to never assume they’ve arrived at the one, true, gold standard for how to do church.

The comfort of the familiar becomes idolatrous when anything unfamiliar is delegitimized.

2. Learn from and partner beyond your ‘tribe.’

Part of how Christians and churches can avoid the “we are the gold standard” temptation is by seeking to learn from believers outside their particular tribe. Maybe a white pastor could attend a Hispanic pastors’ conference, or a Pentecostal church member could visit an Anglican church, or a 22-year-old could visit a church full of people in their 70s (or vice versa).

Maybe we could reach out to immigrant churches in our communities, serving them but also learning from them. Perhaps we could diversify the blogs and podcasts we take in, and push ourselves to listen more to voices that challenge us. Such things will help pop our insular bubbles and identify ways we have conflated cultural identity with Christian identity.

3. Don’t evaluate church in terms of ‘what I got out of it.’

A simple tactic for challenging consumer Christianity and comfort idolatry is to stop evaluating Sunday morning worship in terms of “what I got out of it.” This tends to reduce the point of church to life-enhancement “takeaways” that only perpetuate the consumer approach.

Instead, as you leave church on a Sunday, ask yourself, “How did I contribute? How did I edify the body of Christ?” Or ask questions that don’t involve personal pronouns at all: “How was God glorified? What attributes of God were evident in the service?” Your assessment of a church should be God-centered, not me-centered.

4. Learn to worship God regardless of the music style.

Our strong opinions about worship-music styles present the greatest opportunities for us to challenge our comfort idolatry. Instead of folding your arms in protest and half-heartedly singing when you don’t like the song or style of music, give yourself to worship even if you hate the music. Try it. It’s liberating.

Pastors and worship leaders: help your congregations by constantly pushing them outside comfort zones. Avoid just one music style. For example, the “Hillsong sound” is great, but it is not the gold standard. Rotate worship bands and leaders who bring different styles. Sing old hymns, new praise choruses, gospel songs, spirituals. Spice it up for the sake of loosening the stiff grips people have on their beloved music preferences.  

5. Arrive to church early and leave later, even if it means more awkward small talk.

As an introvert, I know how stressful and exhausting the pre- and post-church social mingling can be. I also know that when I arrive to church conveniently late and leave the service during the closing prayer, I’m placing my comfort above my spiritual vitality. The fact is, awkward social interactions in church can be a powerful antidote to comfort addiction. Nothing epitomizes the gloriously uncomfortable beauty of God’s family like the weird church people you rub shoulders with on any given Sunday—people with all sorts of backgrounds and personality quirks.

Nothing epitomizes the gloriously uncomfortable beauty of God’s family like the weird church people you rub shoulders with on any given Sunday—people with all sorts of backgrounds and personality quirks.

When we arrive and leave church stealthily, we perpetuate a consumer spirituality that avoids the entanglements of community. When we never bother to make small talk, saints will remain acquaintances and strangers to you—not the brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, they could be to you.

6. Give to the point that you feel it in your budget.

Sacrificial giving is a great way to keep your comfort addiction in check. But the sacrificialpart is important. It’s easy to give a portion of your paycheck in such a way that you never feel the pinch. It’s harder to be generous when your budget is tight and there seems to be no margin to give.

Cultivating the habit of financial generosity, especially when it it is costly to you, is one of the clearest ways you can place the kingdom of God above your personal comfort. Generosity for gospel advance is always worth it, even if it means we have to scale back our vacation plans, postpone our renovation project, or cut back our monthly latte quota.  

7. Be flexible for the sake of mission.

Comfort idolatry often breeds rigidity in the Christian life—an unwillingness to adapt to change, a nostalgia for “how things were,” a hesitance to uproot when mission calls. A good way to respond to this tendency is to deliberately cultivate flexibility and nimbleness in the way you approach church.

Don’t be so over-scheduled that you can’t have dinner with church newcomers on a whim. Don’t be so tied to your ministry niche that you aren’t willing to jump in and serve wherever there’s a need. Don’t be such a fan of talented church leaders that you don’t celebrate, albeit with sadness, when God calls them to lead a new campus or church plant. Be flexible and ready to move when mission and evangelistic opportunities arise. Be willing to sacrifice comfort and the familiar when the Spirit is at work and the gospel is advancing.

8. Don’t quit the minute it gets hard.

When comfort is a chief value in our spiritual life, it’s easy to justify leaving a church the minute it becomes uncomfortable. Perhaps something about the pastor annoys you. Perhaps you haven’t heard satisfactory answers about a particular theological stance. Maybe the community just doesn’t “get you.” Maybe you feel like your doubts, or passions, are too much for the church to handle.

Some of these may eventually become valid reasons to leave, but none of them should cause you to bail right away. Challenge yourself to stick around even when the honeymoon period wears off. Show up at church even when you don’t feel like it. Do not neglect meeting together (Heb. 10:25). It’s not about whether a church can handle your doubts and your angst. The fact is, God can handle it. And he wants you in a church family, working through the challenges and growing together with other members of the body.

Brett McCracken is a senior editor at The Gospel Coalition and author of Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community, Gray Matters: Navigating the Space Between Legalism and Liberty, and Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide. Brett and his wife, Kira, live in Santa Ana, California. They belong to Southlands Church, where Brett serves as an elder. You can follow him on Twitter. 

Article posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/8-ways-battle-comfort-idolatry/

Four Warnings for Your Twenties

Article by Marshall Segal : Staff writer, desiringGod.org

How far do you get into the Old Testament when you start to feel the friction of daily Bible reading? We know the resistance is good for us, like we feel when we exercise, but we often don’t enjoy it — like when we exercise. For many, it’s simply harder to wake up for Numbers in March than for Genesis in January. The days can begin to feel like a season in the wilderness.

Even though 2 Timothy 3:16 echoes in the back of our heads, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable,” the experience of reading our Bibles can be a little like watching grandma use a smartphone. She knows it can do a lot more than she does with it, but she’s at a loss without someone showing her (seven or eight times) how to take a picture, turn on Bluetooth, or listen to a podcast.

These Things Happened for You

In 1 Corinthians 10, the apostle Paul sits down with us, like a room full of grandmas, to explain how to read Moses in our daily fight against sin and for joy. He begins by reminding his readers of the Exodus and Israel’s wandering in the wilderness (1 Corinthians 10:1–5). He explains that their hope was ultimately in Christ, even though Jesus would not be born for more than a thousand years (1 Corinthians 10:4). Then he writes, as if speaking to a crowd of twentysomethings today, “Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did” (1 Corinthians 10:6).

Entertainment, sexual immorality, impatience, and discontentment: temptations that date all the way back to Moses.

I say twentysomethings, because the next four things he says are remarkably relevant for the rising generation of Christians. The same temptations that were murdering the believers under Moses are waging a spiritual war against believers today: entertainment, sexual immorality, impatience, and contentment. Paul finishes the paragraph by saying, “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10:11).

These four warnings were lived out by Israel, but meant by God for you, and for me.

1. Do You Distract Yourself with Entertainment?

Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” (1 Corinthians 10:7, quoting Exodus 32:6)

Paul quotes (or alludes to) Moses for each of these. He clearly has particular passages or events in mind as he pastors the churches of his day. In this case, he quotes from Exodus 32. Moses is meeting with God on the mountain — he was meeting with God. The meeting ran longer than the people expected, and they got bored and disinterested (Exodus 32:1).

They asked Aaron for another god, he made them a golden baby cow, and they “sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play” (Exodus 32:1–6). They ordered delivery, turned on Netflix, and scrolled through social media at the same time.

Unwilling to wait for Moses (and God), they decided to entertain themselves instead. We’ll deal with impatience later, but the point here is that entertainment is an easy and empty god. Have you given up waiting for God to move — to reveal himself in his word, to help you make an important decision, to bring the healing or reconciliation you’ve been asking for — and decided to distract yourself with something fun instead?

2. Are You Experimenting with Sexual Sin?

We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. (1 Corinthians 10:8, referring to Numbers 25:1–9)

We tend to think of today’s America as the most sexually promiscuous and degenerate group in history. And we’re probably wrong. Sexual immorality was enticing and enslaving long before pornography was online or so-called same-sex marriage became legal.

“To grumble against God is to despise him. That’s a sobering message for us today.”

In Numbers 25, the men of Israel began sleeping around with forbidden foreign women (Numbers 25:1), to the point that one man boldly brings his sexual immorality before the whole congregation (Numbers 25:6). He knew God had forbidden this relationship, and yet, not only did he indulge in it, but then flaunted his immorality before the people. He experimented sexually, against God’s clear commands, and then bragged about it.

He and the woman were speared to death (Numbers 25:8). Seem too severe? Moses wants us to see that we deserve that, and far worse, from God if we indulge in sexual sin.

God brought a plague against the people because of their sexual immorality, and 24,000 died (Numbers 25:9). As a point of reference, there are 24,000 students currently enrolled at Auburn University. That many, all dead because of sexual immorality.

Moses said that all that death happened for your sake — a spear through a stomach, a plague wiping out thousands — so that you and I would feel the awful offense of sexual sin, and flee from it.

3. Do You Refuse to Wait?

We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents. (1 Corinthians 10:9)

In Numbers 21, the people have escaped Egypt and been to Mount Sinai. Now, they are on the way to the Promised Land. Moses tells the story, “From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses . . . ” (Numbers 21:4–5).

How would you do on that long, hard road from Egypt to Canaan? Does your life feel like that some days (or months, or years)? God had saved Israel from cruel and violent slavery. And he promised to bring them into their own land of safety and prosperity. But they could not wait.

How did God respond to their impatience? He sent poisonous snakes into the camp, and many died (Numbers 21:6). They repented (Numbers 21:7). Will we? Having been rescued by God from never-ending judgment and destruction, are we willing to wait another week, another year, or another ten years for him to answer our prayers?

God heard their pleas for mercy and made a way of salvation (Numbers 21:8–9). Jesus tells us that scene was meant to help us wait for him. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14–15). God is waiting to save and satisfy you, if you are willing to trust him and wait.

4. Are You Always Unhappy?

[Do not] grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. (1 Corinthians 10:10)

“When we are tempted, God creates the way of escape and waits to reward us with more of himself.”

Israel complained about everything. They complained about not having anything to drink (Exodus 15:24). They complained about their food (Numbers 11:4–6). They complained about being in the wilderness (Exodus 16:2). Then they complained about leaving the wilderness (Numbers 14:2). They complained about their enemies (Numbers 14:3). They even complained about not being in slavery anymore (Exodus 16:3).

How does God respond to their grumbling?

“Truly, as I live, . . . none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it.” (Numbers 14:21–23)

To grumble against God is to despise him. That’s a sobering message for me today. God wiped out the wilderness generation to describe to every generation after them the seriousness of faithlessness, to show us the consequences of complaining about how and when God works in our life.

The redeemed endure difficulty and inconvenience differently. Paul writes, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:14–15).

In a world filled with complainers, people that are “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10) will shine brightly and garner attention for the glory of their Provider and Keeper in heaven.

Flee from Idolatry

Can you sum up the four warnings in one? “Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.” (1 Corinthians 10:14). He says it at the beginning of the paragraph (1 Corinthians 10:7) and at the end (1 Corinthians 10:14). We learned from Israel in Exodus and Numbers that idolatry can be entertaining. That it can allure and entice you. That it can make you impatient and unhappy. And that it can kill you. Flee from it, and run to God.

With the severe warnings, Paul gives us an invitation and a promise.

Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:12–13)

God is faithful. He stands ready to walk with you and keep you through every circumstance and inconvenience. He doesn’t just stand nearby watching to see what you will do, but promises to provide a way out of temptation and into the joy of being made like him. He creates the way of escape and waits to reward us with more of himself.

Marshall Segal (@marshallsegal) is a writer and managing editor at desiringGod.org. He’s the author of Not Yet Married: The Pursuit of Joy in Singleness & Dating (2017). He graduated from Bethlehem College & Seminary. He and his wife, Faye, have a son and live in Minneapolis.

Article posted at:  https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/four-warnings-for-your-twenties

What Our Anger Is Telling Us

Article by Jonathan Parnell Pastor, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Anger is not good for you, at least not in its typical form.

New studies argue that regular feelings of anger increase the likelihood for heart disease, and that within two hours of an outburst, the chances of a heart attack or stroke skyrocket. Which means all you angry folks better watch out; it’s a dangerous foible.

But wait. Anger is more than a problem for “you angry people.” It is actually a problem for all of us — that includes you and me.

Traditionally, the anger issue has been divided up between those who get angry and those who don’t. Some personalities tend toward red-faced eruptions; others are unflappably relaxed and easygoing. But the truth is, everyone gets angry — it’s just expressed in different ways. In her article “Why Anger Is Bad For You,” neurophysiologist Nerina Ramlakham says, “Now we separate people differently into those who hold rage in and those who express it out.” The question, then, isn’t who gets angry, but why we all get angry.

And why we get angry has to do with love.

The Love Behind Anger

Anger doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s not an original emotion. In one degree or another, anger is our response to whatever endangers something we love. “In its uncorrupted origin,” says Tim Keller, “anger is actually a form of love” (“The Healing of Anger”). Anger is love in motion to deal with a threat to someone or something we truly care about. And in many ways, it can be right.

“The question isn’t who gets angry, but why we all get angry.”

It is right that we get angry with the delivery guy who speeds down our street when our kids are playing in the front yard. That makes sense. The delivery guy puts our children in danger. It also would be right that we get angry about Boko Haram’s hideous evil in Nigeria. It is unbelievably horrible.

But if we’re honest, as much as there are right instances for our anger, most of our anger isn’t connected to the incidental dangers surrounding our children or the wicked injustices happening across the world. As much as we love our children and care about innocent victims, our anger typically points to other loves — disordered loves, as Keller calls them.

Those Inordinate Affections

Disordered loves, or “inordinate affections,” as Augustine called them, are part of the age-old problem of taking good things and making them ultimate. It’s the slippery terrain that goes from really loving our children to finding our identity in them, to thinking that our lives are pointless without the prosperity of our posterity. It’s that insidious shift that turns blessings into idols. And when our loves get disordered, our anger goes haywire.

We’ll find ourselves getting annoyed at the simplest, most harmless things — the things that really shouldn’t make us mad. Keller explains,

There’s nothing wrong with being ticked — getting angry to a degree — if somebody slights your reputation, but why are you ten times — a hundred times — more angry about it than some horrible violent injustice being done to people in another part of the world?

“If we find ourselves angry about getting snubbed, the problem might be that we love ourselves too much.”

Do you know why? . . . Because . . . if what you’re really looking to for your significance and security is people’s approval or a good reputation or status or something like that, then when anything gets between you and the thing you have to have, you become implacably angry. You have to have it. You’re over the top. You can’t shrug it off.

If we find ourselves angry about getting snubbed in social media, or being cut off in traffic, or going unrecognized for work, or having an idea shut down, or feeling underappreciated by our spouse — the problem might be that we love ourselves too much.

Three Steps Out

So, what do we do? If anger is everyone’s problem, and if it often exposes our disordered loves, how do we break free from its claws? Here are three steps out.

1. Analyze the anger.

We must get into the details of anger and understand its source. It means that when we find ourselves getting angry — when those emotions start to rise up — we stop and ask: “What is this big thing that’s so important to me that I get this defensive?” What am I loving so much right now that my heart is moved to feel angry?

“If you ask that question,” says Keller, “if you do this analysis, more often than not you’ll immediately be embarrassed, because many, many times the thing you’re defending is your ego, your pride, your self-esteem.”

2. Feel sorrow for our sin.

We may feel embarrassed after asking these questions, or worse. Nothing is more ugly than opening the lid of our hearts to find this kind of corruption. But as rancid as it might be, we can face the fright with a bold sorrow. We are bold because the corruption, present though it is, cannot condemn us, or defeat us. Jesus has paid the price for that disordered love. He bore the wrath we deserved, freeing us from sin’s guilt. He rose from the dead, empowering us over sin’s dominion.

“We can face our corruption with a bold sorrow. Jesus has paid the price for that disordered love.”

And then there is sorrow. We are rightfully sad for how slow our souls are in receiving God’s grace. We are sad that we find ourselves more perturbed by our wounded ego than we are by the abortions that take place downtown, that we shake our fists at rude media more than we lift our hands to heal the broken, that we inwardly mock those who disagree with us more than we publicly defend the rights of the voiceless. We are sad about that in our depths with a kind of serious sadness that isn’t content to leave it there. We are grieved into repentance (2 Corinthians 7:9–10). We turn and we say, No more, Lord. Please, no more.

3. Remember the love of Jesus.

The obvious solution to disordered love is ordered love. But we can’t flip a switch for that. We can’t just stop loving one object wrongly to start loving the most lovable object rightly — that is, unless we’re strengthened by the Spirit to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:14–19).

When our eyes are opened to see and savor Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:6), when we’re overcome by his grace (2 Corinthians 8:8–9), then we’re led to love him more than anything — and so increasingly care about the things that matter, and grow in not becoming angry when we shouldn’t be.

Jonathan Parnell (@jonathanparnell) is the lead pastor of Cities Church in Minneapolis–St. Paul, where he lives with his wife, Melissa, and their seven children. He is the author of Never Settle for Normal: The Proven Path to Significance and Happiness.