WORTHLESS
VERSUS PRICELESS
BREAD
8 “Those
who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.” Jonah 2:8 (NIV)
21 They
made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless
idols. Deuteronomy 32:21 (NIV)
20 “Do
not be afraid,” Samuel replied. “You have done all this evil; yet do not turn
away from the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. 21 Do not turn away after useless
idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are
useless. 22 For
the sake of his great name the Lord
will not reject his people, because the Lord
was pleased to make you his own.” 1
Samuel 12:20-22 (NIV)
9 “And
you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with
wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive
behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you
forsake him, he will reject you forever. 10 Consider now, for the Lord
has chosen you to build a temple as a sanctuary. Be strong and do the work.” 1 Chronicles 28:9-10 (NIV)
19 O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my
refuge in time of distress, to you the nations will come from the ends of the
earth and say, “Our fathers possessed nothing but false gods, worthless idols
that did them no good. 20 Do men
make their own gods? Yes, but they are not gods!” Jeremiah 16:19-20 (NIV)
6 “I am
the Lord your God, who brought you
out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 7 You shall have no other gods before me. 8 You shall not make for
yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth
beneath or in the waters below. 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I,
the Lord your God, am a jealous
God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth
generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing love to a thousand [generations] of those
who love me and keep my commandments.” Deuteronomy 5:6-10 (NIV)
36 “Teacher,
which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all
your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest
commandment.” Matthew 22:35-38
(NIV)
24 “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one
and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You
cannot serve both God and Money.” Matthew
6:24 (NIV)
BUTTER
“Every one of us is, from his mother’s
womb, a master craftsman of idols.”
John Calvin
“God promises us
redemption, but His sacred path leads us away from safety, predictability, and
comfort. Any attempt to fly over the
dangerous terrain or make a detour to safer ground is doomed because it will
not take us to God. Instead, it leads to
a host of other idols that can’t provide us with the confidence of faith, the
dynamic of hope or the passion of love we so deeply crave. Each day we either live for God or for other
gods. In each moment of hardship we fear
either God or man. When we choose to
worship gods and fear men our lives will suffer an emptiness and turmoil that
is not much different than trying to fill our bellies with dirt. At first we may feel full, but in short order
our violation of God’s plan will lead to torment.” Dan
Allender
“Scripture permits
us to broaden the definition of idolatry so that includes anything on which we
set our affections and indulge as an excessive and sinful attachment. Therefore, the idols that we can see are
certainly not the whole problem.
Idolatry includes anything we worship:
the lust for pleasure, respect, love, power, control, or freedom from
pain. Futhermore, the problem is not
outside of us….the problem is in us….the heart’s instinctive plotting in this
idol construction is amazing. We know we
are called to imitate God. This means we
are to live for His glory, not our own.
We are to make Him famous, not ourselves….the purpose of all idolatry is
to manipulate the idol for our own benefit…..but (we) need the power of God,
the message of Christ crucified and risen.
Other therapies can offer sobriety, but only this good news is powerful
enough to liberate the soul.” Ed Welch
“Since we are made
to worship, we are always centering our lives on something whether we realize
it or not. It is like a fire hose that
is stuck in the ‘on’ position and shooting water out endlessly with great
force. We must decide where we aim the hose as the focus of our worship. The
idols of our modern world are not necessarily the hand-carved statues of the
ancient world. In our autonomous
self-seeking ways, people have instead come to serve or worship the
self-erected idols of approval, comfort, and security. We must ruthlessly inspect the sin in our
heart for these idols… so it is vital that [we] get to the heart. As Tim Keller
puts it, ‘The solution to our sin problem is not simply to change our behavior,
but to reorient and center our entire heart and life on God.’ Therefore, we must go after the nature of the
sin by going after its root and not just the fruit of the sin. Oftentimes
people repent of sin that is simply the fruit of the idols in their hearts. We
must find out the why of the behavior and not just the what”. Tom Wood & Scott Thomas
“Number One: Fall
in love with the One who is The Way — and the way you’re supposed to go will
follow…. as you follow Him. You’ve
got to want to be one with Him — more than you want to be a
Someone. You’ve
got to want to serve more than
you want to be seen, you’ve
got to care more than
you want to be comfortable, you’ve
got to want to give more than
you want to get. You’ve got to want His approval more than all the
other things that will prove to be worthless.” Ann Voskamp
“The
way to disengage the heart from the love of one object is to fasten it in
positive love to another. It is not by
exposing the worthlessness of the former, but by addressing the worth and
excellence of the latter that all old things are to be done away and all things
are to become new. The only way to
dispossess the heart of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new
one. Thomas
Chalmers
“Ecstasy and
delight are essential to the believer’s soul and they promote
sanctification. We were not meant to
live without spiritual exhilaration, and the Christian who goes for a long time
without the experience of heart-warming will soon find himself tempted to have
his emotions satisfied from earthly things and not, as he ought, from the
Spirit of God. The soul is so
constituted that it craves fulfillment from things outside itself and will
embrace earthly joys for satisfaction when it cannot reach spiritual ones…The
believer is in spiritual danger if he allows himself to go for any length of
time without tasting the love of Christ and savoring the felt comforts of a
Savior’s presence. When Christ ceases to
fill the heart with satisfaction, our souls will go in silent search of other
lovers….By the enjoyment of the love of Christ in the heart of a believer, we
mean an experience of the “love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost which is given to us”(Rom 5:5)….because the Lord has made himself accessible
to us in the means of grace; it is our duty and privilege to seek this
experience from Him in these means till we are made the joyful partakers of
it.” John Flavel (1630-1691)
HEART SAVOR
· In clinging to worthless idols, I forfeit the grace
that could be mine.
· God desires for
me to find fulfillment in Him – all other is just a cherry on top – pleasant but
not a necessity.
· Idols of my
heart will never enduringly satisfy.
