The relentless fight for your heart
‘Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.’ — 1 John 5:21
‘An idol is whatever you look at and say in your heart of hearts: ‘If I have that, then I’ll feel my life has meaning, then I’ll know I have value, then I’ll feel significant and secure.’’ — Timothy Keller
Ever since I was around five years old, I’ve rushed from one interest to the next.
Sports, music, fitness, technology—over the years, I’ve given a lot of my time and money to these things, and in general, they’ve all brought me a lot of happiness.
But at times, they’ve become my idols. There have been points when these things have come to dominate my thoughts, desires and spending, so much so that my relationship with God has been compromised.
I’m sure you’ve experienced the same temptation.
Every day, so many things are fighting for our hearts. It’s a relentless struggle, because our hearts are the most important part of us. They define who we are and direct how we live. Proverbs 4:23 urges us: ‘Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.’
Whatever our hearts long for, we live for. Whatever they want, we worship.
Falling into idolatry
God made us out of His infinite love, and He made us to worship Him—to direct our desires towards Him and to spend our lives enjoying His presence and reigning over the world He gave us.
But when we gave in to the enemy’s tempting deception, our desires became misdirected. We became naturally inclined to worship the things God made instead of God Himself.
Our hearts became idolatrous.
Mercifully, despite all the destruction our idolatry had caused to our relationship with Him and His world, God didn’t give up on us. He promised to give us new hearts that would love Him and obey His Word (Ezekiel 36:26–27)—and He fulfilled this promise by sending His Son Jesus to free us from our sin and His Spirit to renew our hearts, so that we can truly worship Him.
The Spirit has begun a miraculous transformation in us. But His work is ongoing, and won’t be complete until Jesus returns. So, for now, we must fight against our old idolatrous nature and put it to death in the power of the Spirit (see Romans 8).
Fighting against idolatry
What makes idols so dangerous is how harmless they can seem. That’s because they are good things—gifts that God delights to give us—but they’re good things that we treat wrongly by looking to them as our ultimate sources of life instead of God.
Most of the time, they aren’t big or obvious. They can be as small as the six-inch screen in your hand, or as subtle as the hobby you spend all your free time pursuing, or as secretive as that thing you can’t stop thinking about buying, experiencing or achieving.
We can only recognise our idols by humbly asking the Holy Spirit to show them to us.
So, I’d encourage you to take some time and reflect on these three questions:
How much do I think about God compared with other things?
What am I spending most of my time and money on at the moment?
Am I prioritising my relationship with God above everything else in my life right now?
One of the best prayers to help us is David’s at the end of Psalm 139:
‘Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.’
Let’s commit to praying this daily, keeping in step with the Spirit, and staying away from anything that threatens to take God’s place in our hearts.
Love,
Theo
