Identify Your Idols

Identify your Idols

I love the story of King Josiah in 2 Kings.  A young king at age 26 decides to reform his country and in the process uncovers God's Word which had been long forgotten.  Immediately they gathered all the people and read the scripture as a nation (wow!) and King Josiah stands along with his nation to make this covenant in 2 Kings 23:3 "And the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people joined in the covenant."  

As a result of this covenant Josiah re-institutes the Passover and immediately destroys all the idols his people and his forefathers had established.    

2 Kings 23:24-25 Moreover, Josiah put away the mediums and the necromancers and the household gods and the idols and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might establish the words of the law that were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD.  Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him.

Recently I came across 11 diagnostic questions that David Powlison asks in his book Seeing with New Eyes to help people identify idols in their lives.  Take a moment to seriously consider these questions.  As you do, be honest with yourself.  Our hearts have done a great job of sneaking these idols past our brains and have allowed them to set up shop in our lives.  Like Josiah and the people of Judah, we must quickly remove these idols from our lives and resolve to walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all our heart and all our soul, to be obedient all things He has revealed in Scripture.

Here are the questions:

1.  What do I worry about most?
2.  What, if I failed or lost it, would cause me to feel that I did not even want to live?
3.  What do I use to comfort myself when things go bad or get difficult?
4.  What do I do to cope? What are my release valves? What do I do to feel better?
5.  What preoccupies me? What do I daydream about?
6.  What makes me feel the most self-worth? Of what am I the proudest? For what do I want to be known?
7.  What do I lead with in conversations?
8.  Early on what do I want to make sure that people know about me?
9.  What prayer, unanswered, would make me seriously think about turning away from God?
10.  What do I really want and expect out of life? What would really make me happy?
11.  What is my hope for the future?

My prayer for you this week is that you would repent of your idols and reestablish Jesus as your First Love; that you would love Him with all your heart and all your soul and all your might.

Blessings,

Patrick