IDLE ON IDOLS
How many hollow roads will our eyes search before we seek the face of God?
The biggest idol in your life says, “You can have them both.”
Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Matthew 6:24
Idle: apathetic, indifferent, numb, dormant, motionless
Idol: Anything or anyone placed above or in the place of God
A hand-clinching prelude into the gripping entrance of Journey’s current teaching, #idleonidols, exposes the truth of a calloused heart becoming a storehouse for the very things that Christ abhors. Chasing replacements for Christ in a world full of counterfeits is a dangerous trap from Satan to pull us in and away from God by keeping us spiritually idle.
IDLE ON IDOLS: Prelude
LORD, there was a time when
Your throne became a home for my idols
I took myself away from Your everlasting glory
built an altar for the world and whispered, “You’re my one and only”
Chasing superficial versions of You entertained me
left me star-gazing in the presence of worldly deities
Reverential stares got the best of me
A counterfeit comfort were all my eyes could see
Powerless gods dressed in their finest robes
Sat me down to feast and left me feeling hollow
Spoon-fed me empty words of shallow bribes
Devoured me with every swallowed lie
My infatuation was a cheap escape for Your replacement
Spiritual idleness kept me motionless at the invitation to repent
CONT’D
These counterfeit comforts that begin to feed us shallow bribes of superficial security are false fulfillments that never have the capacity to fill even the smallest part of our being.
Keeping us spiritually idle and numb to our own secret sin, they creep into the darkest crevices of our lives and leave us feeling hollow and motionless.
Unable to recognize that the very thing exposed before our eyes is what keeps us from fellowship with God.
How many mortal masters win first favor in our eyes to award Christ second place in our lives?
When our own infatuations become a cheap escape for His replacement.
If the world could satisfy, it would never be enough.
It would completely and utterly fall short of the love of God.
“ The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell”
(Ascend the Hill)
“You were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, ….” “but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:” (1 Peter 1:18-19)
And as Christ reveals the [things] of this physical world as corruptible,
Then why do we crave to validate our worth in them?
Things, physical things, temporal things, things,
That have no breath, no speech, no concern, and certainly, no life
Corruptible things have no substantial comparison or equivalency with the indispensable blood of Jesus Christ
Yet we continue to hold them up as tainted trophies and regard them as superficial saviors just to forfeit this eternal race
So then: Why do we seek to gratify the desires of our flesh?
We all fall short of the glory of God.
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:23-24
Our righteousness cannot come from our own doing
Our salvation cannot come from our own deeds
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:6,8
We are given a New Life in Christ : Life Through the Spirit
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.” Roman 8:1-3
As we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior,
We also accept His finished work on the cross as the final and full payment of our sins
The resurrection of Christ marked “It is finished” over sin and death
With this eternal evidence written in our hearts, it rightfully serves as a reminder that
As believers of Christ, we no longer live in a sin-seeking, hell-bound body that is destined to perish
but have been born again and live in the resurrected body with Christ
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17
As we welcome the funeral service ordained for such grave sin
We lay to death the old body to become resurrected and born again
“to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Ephesians 4:22-24
The question holds: Does the unending love of God dare come close to quench our shallow sip of surface waters here on this earth?
That is completely dependent upon us.
Do we dare to fully engulf ourselves in the boundless riches and glories of Christ?
What is holding us back? Is it superficiality? Is it sin? Is it disbelief or doubt?
Perhaps, our earthly relief may be to find satisfaction in the simple and pure love of God than the empty, yet fatal, bottle of sin
And in that same sense, we begin to learn that the same sin in front of us blindfolded us all along from the blinding and pure love of God standing before us.
“For I am convinced [and continue to be convinced—beyond any doubt] that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present and threatening, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the [unlimited] love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8:38-39 AMP
Removing idols from our lives and placing Jesus Christ as the One and Only:
First, we must acknowledge the idol — as we do sin (If we never admit our wrongful doing, then we believe their is no correction and that we are self-righteous)
Once we have acknowledged it, we need to address it — with God
Release and confess your sins directly to Jesus Christ any time and any place
As we release our sinful acts to Jesus, we must become brutally honest with what we are doing in the sight of God and take account for sins
Once we have repented, we continue to accept Jesus’ free gift of grace and salvation, walk away from that sin and remove it from our lives growing in love with Christ
As Christ welcomes our repentance as sinners, He invites us to live in communion with Him through the daily decisions we make
No two masters: Saying, “Jesus Christ is LORD” does not surpass our action in this profession of faith. We must become dead to sin and made alive in Christ by placing Him as LORD of our lives.
I give You my crimson stained robe, and yet Jesus, You take it upon Yourself and wear it
You, without sin, wore and bore my sins
…
Cont’d