HIDDEN IDOLS…

Since we have just come out of the Lenten and Easter season, I myself have to ask the Holy Spirit to search my heart, and reveal and REMOVE all the things that are in my heart and thoughts that are not of HIM.  I not only do this on Easter, but in my daily prayer. Whenever I start to put something, or someone on the “throne of my heart”, I have just moved into idolatry.  GOD HATES IDOLATRY!  Our GOD is a “jealous” God, as we read in the scriptures…

Exodus 34:14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

So in my continued “sanctification” process…I am asking myself and you my friends…DO WE KNOW WHERE the IDOLS are in OUR OWN HEART?  Are we willing to “lay them down” and put JESUS CHRIST FIRST and foremost ABOVE ALL that exalts itself on the throne of our heart?

1 Corinthians 10:14 Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.

Idolatry begins when we lose sight or take our FOCUS OFF of Jesus Christ, and the real purpose of WHY he came, and WHY he chose to DIE for you and for me!

If we start to FOCUS on SELF…SELF has become an IDOL!  If we think that Jesus came to… help you live your best life, make you a 6-figure income, start YOUR own ministry, movement, church organization complete with YOUR own articles of faith, to earn your own salvation by works, to make YOU a GOD, to make you equal to Jesus, to give you a philosophy or vain imaginations to teach people OUTSIDE of HIS WORD on how to live a happy victorious life, to prophesy to others OUTSIDE of the Bible and to “add to Bible” prophecy and what it already tells us, to SELL the GOSPEL for your own gain, to CONTROL men and women to make them followers of you a man, to point others to YOU or YOUR CHURCH and NOT to JESUS CHRIST so they know that they already ARE the CHURCH, HIS BODY…YOU have allowed yourself to become an IDOL unto others and unto yourSELF!

I am not trying to be harsh, but being in ministry myself for a while, I have seen so much apostasy, heresy, error, and vain imaginations my heart is grieved over it. As your sister in CHRIST I am EXTREMELY concerned of that those that call themselves Christians are heading down a road of no return… and literally walking or turning away from JESUS!

If we are seeking security and meaning in something or someone other than GOD, that is idolatry.  If we start to worship the GIFTS over the GIVER, that is IDOLATRY! If we start to listen to man’s words versus GOD’s HOLY WORD, THE BIBLE, that is IDOLATRY. If we value our own existential experience over and ABOVE GOD’s TRUTH in HIS WORD, that is IDOLATRY.

I believe we need to be in a very serious season of SELF-reflection and it is time to REPENT for all the things that we have compromised and allowed all in the name of “not offending” other brothers and sisters in Christ.  I believe it is time to start wanting to be a GOD-pleaser versus a man-pleaser, and really love our brothers and sisters enough to tell them the truth…to walk in courageous love!

We all know the pretty obvious things in our life that can become idols:  money, sports, careers, homes, cars, pleasure, fun, clothes, outward appearances, but what about some of the “not so obvious” things, the “HIDDEN IDOLS”?

However, when we start to read other Christian ministry books, blogs, or listen to their you tube videos or podcasts MORE than we read or listen to GOD’s WORD…we have put those things first…they are an IDOL!  The danger in doing this today is that so many have their own “vain” teachings about what THEY consider to be right, or be wrong that are NOT TRUTH.  There are so many that are teaching in error outside of the CONTEXT of what the BIBLE actually says. GOD gave us HIS WORD and the law so that we could without a doubt KNOW what is right or wrong. This means it is not up to you within your own mind to determine it.  Do you sometimes just “receive” a prophecy or something someone tells you without actually sitting down to rightly divide all the words they have spoken and compare it to what GOD’s word actually says?  IDOLATRY!  Do you re-post other things that even Christian ministers or his leaders say without discerning truth? IDOLATRY!  Do you just BURY your HEAD in the SAND when you hear so called worship leaders that GOD has blessed with a gift and a worldwide stage that are adults who do not even have the courage to stand up and defend HIS WORD, but instead call evil good because they may lose followers, and thus lose money? IDOLATRY!

NOW is the TIME to really DECIDE whom this day you will SERVE?

Will you SERVE GOD…or IDOLS?

Will you be a GOD-pleaser… or a MAN-pleaser?

You may hear a sober warning in my words, and my words may even sound harsh, and I take them for myself personally.  When I start to seek after the approval of man versus the approval of God, I have to check my OWN HEART… and RE-PRIORITIZE the things I have aligned my heart to!  I have to get back to ABIDING in JESUS…HE is the TRUE VINE!

John 15:2-5-² Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. ³ Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. ⁴ Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.⁵ I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

God will allow every BRANCH (that is YOU and I) to be chastened, and pruned of all the idols of SELF that we have allowed to attach itself to our hearts and lives.

STOP all the tired ECHOES of man, STOP compromising the WORD…STOP BUILDING KINGDOMS unto SELF!

Isaiah 2:8 Their land is full of idols;they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their fingers have made.

Pray… and ask GOD to reveal to you the places of IDOLATRY in your heart.  HE is full of grace and mercy…HE won’t leave you stuck!

Psalm 139: ²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: ²⁴ And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

God loves you and I enough to… DIE FOR US!  Do we LOVE HIM enough to… DIE to SELF?