These are the things we’re truly pursuing in our lives instead of God. So as long as we have a heart idol, we’re not fully devoted to God. And as long as we continue in that condition, we won’t progress on our Spiritual path and won’t enjoy Spiritual growth.
Hello Readers, hope all’s well. Today I present another post.
What you think about all day?? What occupies the most of your thoughts?? Is it some worry of yours, or is it about something or someone you would like to have??
A Christian knows that the answer to this question should be: God. The Christian’s answer should be God, and nothing or no one else. Of course our day-to-day life in this world does present us with so many distractions and things to think and care about. And we all have our favorite pleasures in this world, which can become temptations for us. This means it’s all too easy to wind up with something other than God occupying all our thoughts.
But we need to be careful about that, because it represents a Spiritual danger. Only God should be on our minds all the time, only He deserves to be in that number one pedestal position. If anything else takes that place we’re in danger of developing a heart idol. And these idols of the heart serve only to take our focus off God and dilute our devotion to Him.
We need to recognize a heart idol when we have one. And when we find one we need to cast it down same as we would with any other idol. So that’s the topic for today. Let’s get right into it.
Where Our True Devotion Lies
Have you ever heard the phrase, “we worship whatever is at the forefront of our mind??” I first heard that phrase from YouTube preacher pastor Mark Ballenger. I’m not sure if it’s his phrase or if it comes from somewhere else; if it has some other origin I don’t know it.
But it makes perfect sense, no matter who said it first. We do worship whatever is at the forefront of our mind, because that’s what we focus on all the time. Whatever that is, it’s the thing that occupies all our thoughts. It’s what we worry about the most, what we hope for the most, what we want the most, what we don’t want the most, what we care about the most. Whatever this thing at the forefront of her mind is, we think about it even more than we do about God. This thing takes that number one pedestal position in our minds where only God belongs.
As for me, I like to call these by another name (a name which I also first heard from Pastor Mark Ballenger). And that name would be heart idols.
Heart idols are anything we care about more than God, as I was describing above. These things are our true focus in life, what we’re pursuing. These things represent who we’re really following—the LORD or the world. Because whatever our heart idol is, that’s what we want out of life and that’s what we pursue with all our heart and soul. It’s what we care about.
These heart idols includes greed (wealth), power, fame, and of course sex (lust). As well as many other worldly pursuits and pleasures.
And that’s one defining characteristic that can help us discern a heart idol. Heart idols are all about worldly things that the world encourages us to pursue. The world encourages us to chase after these pointless idols because the world cares nothing for God and the things of the Spirit. The world is for the world, not God. The world is all for short-term satisfaction and momentary, short-lived pleasures. We’re raised in a world that trains and encourages us to pursue these short-term pleasures without any thought to the long-term. The world teaches us to reach for what we want now, consume now and be happy now in the moment, rather than seeking more meaningful happiness in the long-term ….
The world exaggerates the importance of these heart idols and the happiness they bring. The world tries to deceive us with an illusion. For example, “if you have money and power you can rule your world and do anything you want, and that will make you happy.” Or, “if you have lots of sex with lots of women, your life will be filled with pleasure and that will give you happiness. So make sure you pursue sex at every opportunity.”
I won’t lie and tell you that these things aren’t pleasurable—of course they’re pleasurable. but none of the pleasures they offer last for long. Before we know it, the happiness they give is over, and we’re back to square one—or possibly setback even further, depending on what it cost to gain that momentary pleasure. Nothing in this world lasts, good or bad. And nothing in this world that provides pleasure satisfies for long. It wears off, it fades away. And then we either need more of that thing or we need to get on with our life without it. The smart thing to do is to get on with our lives without it and focus on following the LORD, who provides eternal satisfaction and contentment. But most of the time, we continue to follow the heart idol. Sex, power, greed, comfort, and all the rest.
I struggle with this to this day. If you also struggle with a heart idle you’re not alone. If you find it hard to give God your complete and undivided focus and devotion because worldly pleasures and goals distract you, you’re not the only one. That doesn’t excuse our divided focus and lack of Piety. But it’s nice nonetheless to know we’re not alone in this.
But make no mistake: like any other idol, we must throw down every heart idol. These are the things we’re truly pursuing in our lives instead of God. So as long as we have a heart idol, we’re not fully devoted to God. And as long as we continue in that condition, we won’t progress on our Spiritual path and won’t enjoy Spiritual growth.
Remember the quote, “we worship whatever is at the forefront of our mind.” That’s what everything comes down to. God is the only one who deserves to be at the forefront of our minds, the only one who deserves to be in that number one pedestal position. So it’s always a good idea to take a moment and figure out what it is that’s at the forefront of our mind.
Once we do that we can clean house in our own mind. We can cast down every heart idol and refocus our full devotion to God.
Cast Down every Heart Idol
These are the End Times now; Jesus is at the door and the world doesn’t have long left. The heart idols of the world are fleeting and short-lived in the best of times. But in the End Times, when time is so short, these fleeting worldly treasures are more worthless than ever.
I’ll keep it real simple for you: we don’t have any time left to mess around chasing heart idols.
Now is the time to turn back to God and devote ourselves to Him like we never have before!! Because Jesus is close now, He’s almost here. We can see Him finding the one lost sheep and turning the hearts of sinners on a massive worldwide scale right now. He’s opening eyes to His truth and rescuing people from all kinds of sins. And praise the LORD for that—HALLELUJAH!!
But the process of becoming Holy doesn’t stop when we are Saved. That’s only the beginning. As we follow the LORD and study His ways more, He will teach us how we need to worship and follow Him. He will educate us and remove the misconceptions and other mistakes we have in our Spiritual life. And a major mistake we can have in our Spiritual life is a heart idol of any kind.
Remember—as long as we have a heart idol our focus is divided and our devotion to God is not complete. What we’re focused on and pursuing is our heart idol; that’s what we actually want. So we need to search our heart and cast down every heart idol, same as we would any other idol. There is no room for idols of any kind in our Spiritual life.
We all need to think about who or what we have devotion to. It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of having a heart idol; we must not beat ourselves up if we discover we have one. We must have compassion for ourselves and Forgive ourselves, throw down our idol, REPENT!!, and do better in following the LORD. Heart idols happen to the best of us. But they can never be tolerated once they’ve been discovered.
“We worship whatever is at the forefront of our mind.” And what else could possibly deserve to be at the forefront of our minds than God?? Throw down every heart idol, and focus on following the LORD. That’s the only way we can survive these End Times.
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Until next time, be strong and do good!
Your new best friend in Christ,
99:9
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