If you’ve followed Kindling Truth, then you probably know that I believe in the power to overcome all sin through the promises and power of Jesus Christ.
I continue to struggle with sins, and lately, even those I thought I had been freed from. The troubles I’ve gone through in that regard lately has me asking some questions that I think are very important.
What are the barriers that keep us from being freed from sin and staying free?
The salvation from sin is of grace, given by faith. What are we putting our faith in?
What are we looking to? Are we taking the command to seek FIRST the kingdom seriously enough?
What things do I allow to impede my focus on the Lord so that I can receive the grace I need to overcome?
The answer I’ve come to is this…
Turn away from all idolatry and receive the Lord!
What is Idolatry?
An Idol is anything that we look to instead of Jesus Christ. It is anything that comes before Him in our lives and takes our focus off of the kingdom. Some idols are obvious like money, popularity, and placing too much value on man. Then there are the idols that can be more illusive, like knowledge (even bible knowledge), vanity and pride, minsters or even our own ministry.
It can be easy to deceive ourselves and not recognize something as an idol, so how do we know when something in our life becomes and idol?
It might help if we ask ourselves this question: What in my life is taking the place of Jesus or living according to His righteousness?
What vanities, cares, desires, and general thoughts do we serve instead of the things of God?
What is it that we love most?
- Do we love knowledge of the written word or knowledge of the engrafted word?
- Do we love understanding of prophesy or being one whom the Lord deems worthy of acting/speaking in His name?
- Do we love ministers or do we love the One who ordains ministers?
- Do we love power in this world or power in the Holy Spirit?
- Do we love favor of men or favor of God?
- Do we love lies and our self-deceptions or truth?
- Do we love the things of this world or the things of the kingdom of God?
It can be easy to tell ourselves that we love Jesus most, but do we really?
We know that love covers a multitude of sin. If our love isn’t aligned with Christ but is instead focused on this world or ourselves, then there is something in our life that we are idolizing, and whatever these things are will keep a measure of our focus off of the Lord.
Jesus rewards those who diligently seek him, but we have to remove (or rather ask Him to remove) the other things we are seeking in order to see Him more fully. When we do, we will be rewarded in the kingdom of God – first in this present time by the removing of the strongholds of sin so that we can be walking more fully in the kingdom of the Spirit.
With the Lord Jesus as our ruler and master fully, we have no room for serving sin and the father of it. We will be living in the kingdom of God rather than the kingdom of this world, and when Jesus returns to establish His eternal rule, we will be there with Him. As with all things, this is part of our journey as Christians.
We will discover idols and we will seek Him in freeing us from them. We should repent, but we do not give into the trap (and distraction) of despair. There are many out there who give a similar message, but the ways in which they preach this often uses harsh words, intimidation, and other tactics that are not of God, and they usually set themselves up as idols. Pay them no mind, but instead look to Jesus.
This is not meant to discourage, but encourage you towards a path of peace and freedom from sin. Believe in the mercy, patience, and love of Jesus. He will keep us from all evils in this world so that we can serve Him and the kingdom!
There is a lot more that could be stated about serving idols verses serving the Lord. This might become another blog series after I run from all the idols in my own life.
KindlingTruth 
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