idols of the heart

27
Sep
2023

Commit, Plan, Hold Loosely

“Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.

The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord established his steps.”

Proverbs 16:3, 9

Work is a good thing. God gave us the example of work and rest in Genesis 1, 2. Both are equally important in the lives of all. God worked when He created the world, and then on the 7th day He rested.

In our society today, we tend to think of work as a bad thing, maybe a necessary evil. We see no hint of complaint on the part of God when he created the world, and we see no grudging comments when He rested. (God didn’t need to rest, but He did so as an example to us.)

Genesis 3 is when we see work distorted by sin. Work is now harder because of the sin of mankind. “Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.” (Gen. 3:17-19).

Just because work is now more painful because of sin and it causes us to sweat, does not mean it should be a drudgery. Sin does not make our work easier, but God makes a way for our work to be enjoyable.

1.Commit

Proverbs 16:3 gives us a clue as to how we are to enjoy our work. No matter what we do, whether we collect garbage, are a welder, work as a secretary, have an office job, or care for those who are injured and ill, we can enjoy our work. Proverbs 16:3 says to “commit our work to the Lord.” God gave us our work to do and we must then turn around and commit it to Him.

Too often we struggle with the age old question, “what will I do when I grow up?” There is no place in Scripture that says we must do a certain occupation. God has given us all different talents and abilities and we should us those talents and abilities to honor Him. No matter what we do, if we seek to glorify God in that job and seek to serve those who we work with and for, then we are fulfilling our purpose in life.

Too often we get bogged down with the question of what we will do with our lives and what profession we will embark on or what job we will do. God does not dictate that we do a certain job. He does ask us to commit our work unto Him.

2. Plan

1st we must commit our work, whatever it is, to the Lord. 2nd we must plan. Have you ever tried to accomplish a task with and then without a plan? The more things I have to get done in a day, the more I plan. The less things I have to get done in a day, the less I plan. Usually, the days I have a plan, I accomplish much. The days that there is no plan, I accomplish little.

“For God is not a God of confusion/disorder, but a God of peace.” (I Cor. 14:33). God is a God of planning and order. We see this in Creation as God created the world in an orderly way. He did not make the animals before the plants. He did not make the plants before He created the sun. There was an order to Creation because of the dependency of one upon the other. Chaos did not ensue until the fall.

Just as God created the world according to a perfect plan, so we must plan our lives and our days so that we can accomplish much and live by order not chaos. If there is no plan, and we “fly by the seat of our pants” our days will be chaotic and not accomplish much.

3. hold Loosely

3rd we must hold our plans loosely. Whatever we do, we must know that God may interrupt the plans that we have. If we plan a picnic and it rains, we must trust that God had a plan. If we get hurt on the job through no fault of our own, we must trust that God had a plan.

We must plan, but hold loosely to the plans. If we hold to those plans so tightly and they do not go as we had planned, we may experience anger, depression, fear, anxiety, etc. If we begin to experience these emotions, we know that our thoughts have taken us captive and caused us to think that the world should revolve around us. Things should go according to our plans, not according to God’s plans.

The more we worship God and seek Him and desire to commit our work to the Lord, rather than have our work committed to us, the more we will evidence the Fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

Commit your work to the Lord. Make a plan, but hold to it loosely. God’s ways are always better than our ways, if we are fully committed to God’s ways.

Posted by ddykema5@gmail.com in The Seasons of Motherhood, 2 comments
24
Feb
2021
Idols of the Heart

Idols of the Heart

Throughout the Old Testament, we see God commanding the people of Israel to “have no other gods before Him.” (Exodus 20:3). Yet, throughout the Old Testament we see the Israelites time and time again worshipping idols. I am currently reading through the book of Exodus and just read the account of the Golden Calf in Exodus 34. I look at these people and I think, “How quickly you have forgotten what God has done for you.” How could they forget the 10 plagues, crossing the Red Sea on dry ground, watching the Egyptian army that was coming after them be swallowed up by that Red Sea, manna, quail, water from a rock, etc.? As we come to Exodus 34, we see that they did. They forgot. All the miracles that God had done for them, quickly left their memories and they made a golden calf to worship instead.

We often think that the Old Testament stories are from a different era, a different time period, a different culture and have no relevance to today, but that is so far from the truth. These stories are very relevant to today. We may not worship a Golden Calf or make idols of Baal or other gods, but we can still be guilty of idolatry.

Often times, we think of current idols as “things.”  Things like a car, a boat, a house, a cottage on the lake, our phones, or some other inanimate object. Yet, if we dig deeper into these things, we will find that there is something else at the base of our desire for these things.

Last week, I wrote about “Think about what you are thinking about” and asked you to trace back the emotions you are having to your thoughts and then to trace those emotions back to what you are wanting.

I have written about our emotions and thoughts in a blog last year as well. Please follow this link to read more.

When we follow the trail, we will see what our idols are. Start with your emotions. Then ask yourself, “What is it that you are thinking?” This leads to our wants. Once we dig into what we want, it will lead us to our present day idols.

Emotions – Thinking – Wanting – Idols

No one really wants to go through this process. Who wants to be told that they have idols of the heart that they are worshipping? No one does, but do you ever feel like you are empty? Maybe you feel like you are in search of things that always seem out of your grasp. Striving for that sense of satisfaction or happiness that you never can attain. That is because you are seeking after an idol.

Here is a list of present day idols of the heart that many of us seek and search after:

  • Security
  • Affection/love
  • Attention
  • Satisfaction
  • Comfort/refuge/ease of life
  • Joy/happiness
  • Approval

Thinking back to what I wrote about last week – you don’t receive the recognition for an accomplishment that is truly yours to receive. What idol could we be seeking? Approval or Satisfaction

What about when your friends treat you poorly? Approval or Attention

What about when you have a “discussion” with someone and they don’t seem to care about your point of view? Love, approval.

What about when things seem too hard? Comfort, ease of life.

What about when a relationship seems too hard and yet you know that you have a responsibility to help that person see Christ? Comfort/ ease of life

God wants us to have no other gods before Him, because He knows that we will never find joy and happiness when we are worshipping these other idols.

God does not need us to worship Him. We need to worship Him.

God knows that the more we seek after the idols of our hearts, the emptier we will be. The more we seek after God and seek to worship Him and Him alone, the more joyful and fulfilled we will be.

Evaluate your emotions. What are they telling you? What are you thinking? What are you wanting? What idols of the heart are you worshipping?

“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4:1-4)

(There is a great book and sermon series by Brad Bigney on this topic of Idols of the Heart called Gospel Treason. This link is to the first sermon in his series on this topic.)

Posted by ddykema5@gmail.com in The Seasons of Motherhood, 0 comments