The main religion of India is Hinduism, followed by Islam, Sikhism, and Jainism. All of these religions are different in how they were founded and what they believe, but one thing they all have in common is idol worship. In preparation for our trip, our team was told to not be surprised at the vast number of temples to various gods that we will encounter in New Delhi. Idolatry is rampant in this country as these people's hearts are being held captive by false gods. The temptation for us as we go into this context is to look at these people in judgement, wondering how they could put their hopes and dreams and life's goals into a pile of gold. However, if we were to truly examine our own lives, we would find that we do the same thing as these Indians, only our idols are not golden or tangible. About a month and a half ago, the Lord gave me this strong desire to start reading Ezekiel. Now, I know it had to be the Lord giving me that desire because I've tried reading Ezekiel before and let's just say I was not very successful. But this time, the Lord has opened my eyes to the true meaning of this book. See, Israel, God's chosen people, they struggled in staying committed to God. They worshiped all kinds of things and engaged in all kinds of sinful practices. So, God sent Ezekiel to prophesy to them so that their eyes would be opened to their sinfulness, AND to the unconditional faithfulness of God. (That part's extremely important)
In his book Counterfeit Gods (I highly recommend this), Timothy Keller defines an idol as "anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give." In essence, an idol is anything that we stake our hopes, dreams, ambitions on or spend our lives working towards. I know for me these include marriage, a family, and success in my career to name a few. And none of these are bad things in and of themselves. But, when I start spending my life working towards a successful career, or spend every day dreaming of my wedding, that's when these good things turn bad. They are now capturing my full focus, they are drawing me towards a sense of self-sufficiency and control, and are slowly edging God out of the picture.
I've struggled with how to rid myself of these idols. I know that there are a few of them with which I have struggled for years, and it's frustrating that they still persist. But, the Lord in His grace has shown me recently that there's nothing WE can do in our own strength to tear down these idols. Only He, in His perfect unconditional love, can do that. He draws us near to Him, fills us with His love, reveals His beauty and power in such a way that He is the only thing we are able to focus on. And when we finally allow Him to love us this way, idolatry is no longer even close to being a temptation because we are filled with the only love that can satisfy. And He doesn't just put a little bit of His love in us, He fills us up so full that we don't have room in our hearts for worshiping anything else. HE becomes our life's goal, our ambitions and dreams are staked in seeing His face one day, and our hearts are enraptured by the one true God of the universe. Pray for love like this. Pray for God to capture our hearts again so that the idols we have built for ourselves are no longer able to stand.
Please be praying for me, that the Lord will continue to open my eyes to His truths about this and that He will fill me and tear down my idols before we leave June 3 (which is now on the weather.com 10-day forecast. Oh boy.) Pray for our team, that we will leave fully loving God so that He can work in us over there. Pray that God will speak to these people clearly so that they understand that He is the one true God, and that they will encounter God's love in such a way that all their idols will be cast down in the presence of the Almighty.
No comments:
Post a Comment