The World's Empty PromisesSample

What do we worship? 

Worth, significance, acceptance, security, love, beauty; we all long for more of something in our everyday lives.  We all treasure something or someone above the rest. We’re wired to worship in our spiritual DNA, and we do. The question isn’t do we worship; it is what or who we worship. Success and achievement have become an empty promise that our culture dangles in front of us like a carrot. We can say “don’t be greedy, don’t be self-preoccupied, don’t be sexually promiscuous, don’t be power hungry.” But why not ask, what is it about our heart that makes us want to chase after those things? Idolatry is anything we seek to give us that which only God can give us. It is if we take something other than God and make it our focus, and then pursue it and chase it and own it. The question is not “do we have idols?” Our heart is an idol factory. The question is “which idol is God’s biggest rival in my life?”

We focus too often on sin management; how much we can ‘get away with’ and still hang on to some measure of faith, and an appearance of faith in the eyes of others. Outward behavior, in all honesty, often does not match our inward commitment to our Savior. If we try too hard to create our own ‘holiness’, we will fail miserably, but Jesus has come to take that burden for us. The Spirit wants to change our hearts, and if we give up the grip we have on trying to save ourselves, we will find that our hearts will become more and more satisfied and Christ-like, as we rest in His power to save us. 

We are designed by God to seek with all our hearts what is the highest value, and what will provide us with what we desire. In Philippians 3:7-14, Paul describes the moment when he realized that Jesus Christ was the highest value; and he threw everything else away: his wealth, his education, his status; and he followed Jesus Christ with all his heart.

Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and He will make straight your paths.”  Our heart is easily deceived, our emotions fluctuate. Our understanding does not see the overall picture, so why would we trust in something other than the real God?  He never lies, never changes, knows all, and loves us. Trust Him! There is only one Person who can fill that unquenchable longing or desire, we yearn to be connected to the Divine!

What is our purpose? “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)

Reflection: Which idol is your biggest temptation? What steals your heart away from the true and living God? Give Him that burden now in prayer, and let Him replace it with His inexplicable peace and contentment.