MODERN-DAY IDOLATRY

MODERN-DAY IDOLATRY

Truth is important, but to our truth we must add righteousness.

Truth is meaningless if it doesn’t change our behavior. The message of John is this: you can’t go on living in sin, doing what is wrong, lying and stealing, and living in sexual immorality. You must change your way of life. But the gnostics [who believe that matter is evil and spirit is good and that the good human spirit is imprisoned in an evil material body, that the purpose of life is to teach us how to rise above the evil of our bodies and release the good spirit from the material body to achieve a form of nirvana or heaven or spiritual perfection] said in effect, “Look, if spirit is good and matter is evil, then the only thing that counts is the spirit. What you do with your material body doesn’t matter. If you want to indulge your lusts, go ahead. It won’t affect your spiritual standing with God.” John responds to this error: “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.”

Truth and righteousness are difficult to master – yet these first two aspects are relatively easy compared with the third, love. Many can say, “I know the truth and I stand on it. And what’s more, I’ve given up the sins and attitudes of the world. I used to drink and carouse and cheat in my business dealings and read the worst kind of magazines and see the worst kind of movies, but I don’t do those things anymore.” We should never minimize the changes in the life of a person forsaking sinful behavior. But if truth and righteousness are the extent of your testimony, you’ll soon find that most of the people in this world are completely unimpressed by that. Most of the things you don’t do anymore are things people in the world love to do and don’t want to give up, so if your gospel consists of, “I have the truth, and I don’t drink and smoke anymore,” you’ll find that most people shrug and run away. They’ll say, “That’s nice for you, but I like drinking and smoking, so I don’t want your faith.” Truth and righteousness are only two of the three aspects of an authentic life.

The world is not impressed by what you don’t do. That’s negative. The world is impressed by what you do do. That’s positive. And the positive action that impresses the world is our love – a special kind of love that is based on our will, not our emotions. It is a love that is based on a decision to seek the good of others.

John writes: “WE KNOW that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; and the evil one cannot harm him. WE KNOW that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.”

We know, John says, that we are of God, that we possess the very nature of God, and that the whole world is in the power of the evil one. That is why the world cannot engage in love. The world talks about love and hungers for love, but it doesn’t understand love, and it lacks the power to practice love because the world does not know the One who is love personified. God is love. Since we are of God, John writes, He has given us the understanding to know Him and the power to experience eternal life.

What a declaration that is! We live in an age where people claim we cannot know anything for sure, where uncertainty and confusion abound. But WE KNOW. We have been given an understanding, an assurance. We are people who can stand firm and secure in a world that is falling apart.

Here is John’s final word – and at first sight, it may seem irrelevant in our high-tech, sophisticated age: Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

Idolatry is loving anything other than God. The fact is, we are more imperiled by idolatry today than ever before! We so easily give our devotion to things that are lower than God. If you took an hour to go through the register of your check-book and your credit-card statements, you could find out what some of your idols are. What do you spend your money on and what do you save your money for? What do you spend your time on? What do you think about when you wake up in the morning and when you go to bed at night? What is most important to you? Whatever it is, that is your god. If your god is not God Himself, you are practicing idolatry.

For some of us, our god may be Narcissus, the god of self-love, of self-centered ambition, of self-admiration, of obsession with success or self-beautification or self-exaltation, of having others admire us or desire us or envy us for our beautiful possessions. For some of us, our god may be Venus, the goddess of love and sex, or Bacchus, the god of revelry and pleasure, of eating and drinking, of substance abuse and mind-altering, mood-altering drugs – as if fun and pleasure were the only reasons for living. For some of us, our god may be Mars, the god of war and competition, of vanquishing the opposition, of winning at all costs, of cutting the throats of those who oppose us, whether in business or in the church.

Our prayer of deliverance from these forms of idolatry must be, “Lord,  deliver me from these false gods that would rob me of my faith, of my love for humanity.” The danger of idolatry is no less real for us today, and we need to be vigilant against the taint of idolatry in our own lives.

You have found the true God, John says, so keep yourselves from these secondary idols, these substitute gods that demand your attention. Give yourself completely to the One who can fulfill all your heart’s desires.

(From Ray C. Stedman with James D. Denney: “ADVENTURING THROUGH THE BIBLE: A Comprehensive Guide to the Entire Bible”, GLS Publishing, Udyog Bhavan, 250-D, Worli Colony, Mumbai 400030, India; ISBN  81-7820-119-1; 831 pages; Price: Rs. 550.)

I earnestly hope that monogamous God will not reveal His identity; otherwise, millions of loose sexy gals of this loose world will want to have illicit sex with Him which could be an impediment to His peaceful blissful scholarly existence.

Kishalay Sinha [G]

GOD

Almost everything we enjoy today was impossible yesterday.

Deep inside you lives an impossible thought. A dream longing to come true. There's a mission residing in you, put there by your heavenly Father. You see, He specializes in the impossible. That's where He is at His best. He is able to do more than we can ask or think.

Life can be a perpetual barrage of 'things' coming at us. Fear, faith, friends, envy, the past, greed, giving, serving, mistakes, anger, peace, indecision, and love ask for our time and demand our attention. What they can leave is an impression that everything is impossible, or at least very difficult.

The good news is that God wants to do more than we can imagine. He longs to take our impossibilities and turn them into possibilities. In this book I want to introduce you to God's view of our life. When a mistake makes a situation impossible, God can turn it around. When worry wants to paralyse us, God wants to bring us freedom. When confusion seems to be the only answer, God wants to shed light on His path for us.

Perhaps there is no greater truth than that with God all things are possible.

(From JOHN MASON: "The Impossible is Possible", Orient Paperbacks, Rs. 190)

INTERESTING STORY

There's a famous old story about a man who was sleeping at night in his cabin when suddenly his room filled with light, and God appeared. The Lord told the man He had work for him to do, and showed him a large rock in front of the cabin. The Lord explained that the man was to push against the rock with all his might. So the man did, day after day.

For many years he toiled from sunup to sundown, his shoulders set squarely against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing with all of his might. Each night the man returned to his cabin sore and worn-out, feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain.

Since the man was showing discouragement, the adversary (Satan) decided to enter the picture by placing thoughts into his weary mind: 'You've been pushing against that rock for a long time, and it hasn't moved.' Thus, he gave the man the impression that the task was impossible and that he was a failure. These thoughts discouraged and disheartened the man. Satan said, 'Why kill yourself over this? Just put in the minimum effort; that will be good enough.'

That's what the fatigued man planned to do, but he still decided to make it a matter of prayer and take his troubled thoughts to God. 'Lord,' he said, 'I've laboured long and hard in your service, putting all my strength to do what you have asked. Yet after all this time, I have not even budged that rock by half a millimeter. What's wrong? Why am I failing?'

The Lord responded compassionately, 'My friend, when I asked you to serve me and you accepted, I told you that your task was to push against the rock with all of your strength, which you have done. Never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it. Your task was to push.

'And now you come to Me with your strength spent, thinking that you have failed. But is that really so? Look at yourself. Your arms are strong and muscled; your legs have become massive and hard. Through opposition you have grown much, and your abilities now surpass that which you used to have. True, you haven't moved the rock. But your calling was to be obedient and to push and to exercise your faith and trust in My wisdom. That you have done. Now I, my friend, will move that rock.'

(From JOHN MASON: "Imitation is Limitation", Orient Paperbacks, Rs. 195)

[Hitler - Peter - petr - rock]

I bought both of these self-help books today from a local bookshop/bookstore. I had never heard about or seen or read any book by John Mason before but I find that John Mason is a very interesting writer who knows a lot about God.

Kishalay Sinha [G]

In the above extract, I have shortened the original text:

"Look at yourself. Your arms are strong and muscled, your back sinewy and brown; your hands are callused from constant pressure, your legs have become massive and hard."

to:

"Look at yourself. Your arms are strong and muscled; your legs have become massive and hard."

because:

I reasoned that no matter how hard a white or black man worked, his back was not going to turn brown (only a brown man would have a brown back). Also, it seemed to Me that a man getting callused hands due to hard work might give a negative impression about hard work. I wanted to make hard work sound like fun.

Kishalay Sinha [G]