Tag: idols

All Things New Part 4

PART 4

With us wrapping up this series of “All Things New” we had 3 different highlights of how:

Part 1 — “God Loves Doing New Things” 

Part 2 — “Grace Makes Room for the New”

Part 3 — “ Growing in Christ”

Part 4 — “No More Idols”

Today in our last part of the series I would like to ask ourselves how do we maintain this “newness” of life and to sustain it. What are some points that we can ask ourselves?

One thing that will keep our hearts soft and receptacle of the Spirit are to have no idols. 

Jesus spoke in Matthew 22” …“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

That’s why we cant serve God and another god.

Matthew 6

“No one can serve two masters, for 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 God and money.”

ANYTHING THAT TAKES PLACE THAT ONLY GOD SHOULD HAVE IN OUR HEARTS IS AN IDOL.

REMEMBER:

WHAT WE BUILD WE CANNOT SUSTAIN

WHAT GOD BUILDS HE WILL SUSTAIN

Israel tried to serve other idols and God but found out that it cannot work that way.

1 SAMUEL 7:2-3

2 So it was that the ark remained in Kirjath Jearim a long time; it was there twenty years. And all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord.

“THEY HAD THE ARK BUT NOT HIS PRESENCE” THEY CRIED OUT TO GOD FOR 20 YEARS UNTIL GOD SENT SAMUEL TO LEAD THEM. 

3 Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, “If you return to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths from among you, and prepare your hearts for the Lord, and serve Him only; and He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.” 4 So the children of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and served the Lord only.

REFLECT//

  1. RETURN TO GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART — HE WANTS OUR HEARTS FIRST.
  2. PUT AWAY ALL STRANGE GODS — IT TOOK ISRAEL MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS AFTER LOSING THE ARK TO REALIZE THIS.
  3. PREPARE YOUR HEART FOR THE LORD.
  4. SERVE HIM ONLY.
  5. HE WILL DELIVER. — WE ARE POWERLESS WITHOUT HIM, HE IS FOR US AND NOT AGAINST US.

RESPOND//

WHATS A FOREIGN IDOL WE’VE BEEN CARRYING AROUND THATS CAUSING US TROUBLE OR TO WORRY, IS IT A SUBCONSCIOUS OBSESSION TO PLEASE EVERYONE EXCEPT GOD?