Live.Awake

Laying Down Your gods

// August 31st, 2008 // Christian Living

I did a wonderful Bible Study this summer called “No Other Gods”.  It was recommended by Beth Moore and was written by Kelly Minter.  There is too much to put in one post all the things that God has shown me this summer, but I wanted to share one thing while I was thinking about it.

This study is about examining our lives for the things (idols) that we put before God.  Growing up in a Christian home, the word “idol” immediately brings up the image of a wooden or clay image that people would bow down to.  Obviously, when you stop to think (and remember all the sermons you have heard) you realize it isn’t just that.  An idol is anything you put before God, in your desires, your fears, your time, your thoughts.   This was a timely study for me.  What it really did for me was bring me back to a realization that when I really boil it down, God has not been the center of everything.  This is not something that any of us as Christians ever really arrive at.  As long as we are on this earth there will be a battle for our affection and worship.  What really got me is how easily I roll over and accept it.

Towards the end of the study I was beginning to feel overwhelmed with what this means, what it requires and how I am to begin to uproot some of these things.  My personality wants a simple three step plan to do everything.  But there is only one requirement, and that is repentance….TRUE Repentance.  She put a prayer in the book by A.W. Tozer that I thought was wonderful (It is a little long and does have “thees” and “thous” in it, but please look at what he is saying here):

Father, I want to know Thee, but my cowardly heart fears to give up its toys.  I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting.  I come trembling, but I do come.  Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival.  Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious.  Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen

What a wonderful place to start when repenting.  What a great way to be fully open while bringing praises to Him who can cleanse us.   For me this will be a prayer I know I will pray many times in my life.  There will be power in even naming what those “toys” of our heart are.  I am praying that He will reveal to me the places in my heart that are in not in full surrender to Him, and that I would come to a place a full repentance in those places.