Idols Hidden in Our Faces

In a world and culture that is fallen and is pushing us to be lovers of the world and everything in it. The temptation we all face today of allowing stuff to define us instead of Christ Jesus. We only find out later that it was all nothing. It was nothing we thought it was. It was nothing it promised us to be it robbed us, lied to us, and at times painfully hurt us.

False gods that have occupied space in our hearts these painful sores that are crying out for our creator to heal us.

I remember years ago I boldly prayed a prayer about a situation in my life. I was shocked by the answer, and it forever changed the course of my life. I was asked to put things on the altar that I didn’t want to. Things about myself that I was not ready to face, I didn’t even think I could. It ripped right into the core of my entire being. Such a truth that it was impossible to ignore.

We hear the word family thrown around loosely these days and I am not sure what some people even by it. The origins of a person. I just wanted to lay this out there somewhere in the world as a piece of Jesus Christ that I am sharing with you. Just to boldly challenge your faith in a way that I believe the Lord wants to bless us illuminate with truth.

Beyond the comfort zone a question. Is your family your idol? I mean is the things you love most in the world your idol. Is your beautiful spouse, children, parents your idol? Have you said yes to the Lord Jesus Christ with your mouth but really not with your heart and life? Have you said yes build and shape my life but not past my granite countertop and white picket fence? Have I built these constraints and confines in which I have said Yes Lord move in here and here only.

Take up the Cross and Follow Him

23 Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let Him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. 24 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. 25 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost? 26 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels. 27 But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the kingdom of God.

Have we really answered the call and said YES in Spirit and Truth? I am not mocking but, in all sincerity, can we say that is true? That when Jesus walks by and says come follow me do we have a list of things we need to do first? We would recognize the urgency of the call? When He said pick your cross and come follow me, let the dead bury the dead. Would we? Have we edged Jesus in or out? Which is it? Do we have a God that is not speaking to us or a people that is not answering.

Or better yet are we fat full on false gods?

Family the comfort zone of oneself. The place where we began is it the place where we end? Who is on the throne of our heart? And then furthering that what are we going to do about it? When we realize that He is calling us, and we are not answering? Maybe…

This may be coming from the most single woman the world has ever seen who loves Jesus, but seriously ask yourself is my family or has my family become an idol that is in the way or in between my relationship with Jesus Christ? What is my life a reflection of my plans or Christ’s? Do I recognize that at times these things are further apart than I imaged?

I leave you will a little bit of the word below the holy scriptures to pray carefully and ask yourself.

The Cost of Discipleship

57 Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.”

58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”

59 Then He said to another, “Follow Me.”

But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”

60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.”

61 And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.”

62 But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

Jesus Christ Forevermore