Counterfeit Post 4 (Revisited)

 All your needs and some of your wants are available in your journey with God.  Our disappointments, counterfeit gods and idols of them that are the most agonizing have to do with our most cherished, most personal idols. There are always some idols, things that we invest in to get an extra level of joy and fulfillment in our lives. Are those that are attacked, threatened or dissolved? 

 

 When that happens, we can respond in one of two ways. We can wallow in self-pity, despair and bitterness.

 We will feel entitled to wallow in those feelings, saying “I`ve worked all my life to get to this place in my career and now it’s all gone!” or “I’ve worked my whole life to give that woman all my life, and this is how she repays me!” We may feel at liberty to cheat, take revenge or throw away our principles in order to get some relief.  Many, too many break-away to commence another relationship with another person to salvage our ego and our foolish ways.  Or we may live in a permanent, despairing environment.

 

 Or else, like Abraham, you could take a walk up into the mountain that centuries  later was named Calvary. You could lay those idols down and take the necessary steps to align your will with God’s. There lies our solution to our multiple dilemmas.Our cherished counterfeit gods can be made to lie down,if we call upon God.

Forgo personal aggrandisement and see the solution for ourselves.

 You could always see that God may be calling you to live without something you and I never thought we could. But if I have God, I have all I have of wealth and health, love, honour, creativity and security. All I really need and cannot lose is found in God. 

 

  As many have learned and later taught, you don’t realize Jesus is really all you need until Jesus is all you have.

 Many, if not most, of these counterfeit gods can remain in our lives once we have “demoted” them below the level of God. No longer are they able to enthrall or enslave us.  No longer will these counterfeit gods or idols control and bewitch us with pride, anxiety, anger, stress and compulsion. 

 

A heavily edited book excerpt from Timothy Keller’s Counterfeit Gods.