"For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His." 2 Chronicles 16:9 NASB
I have read this verse countless times before, but recently had to read it in a Bible study I am slowly working my way through, and it just jumped off the page at me. The part that grabbed my attention was "strongly supports". I don't know about you, but I want the strong support of the LORD! And He gives it to those whose hearts are completely His... so the question is, are our hearts completely His, are do we only give Him a portion of our hearts?
The Bible study I have been working on, No Other Gods, Confronting Our Modern Day Idols, by Kelly Minter, is focusing on modern day idols, those things, or even ideals in our lives, that we allow to have a portion of our hearts, if not all of our hearts. This leaves us with a heart that does not have room for our LORD, who so desperately wants to abide there. Now today just about everyone would say that they do not worship idols, but the idols of today do not look like the idols from biblical times. Here are a couple of definitions she gives to help point out our idols of today:
"Most of us think of an idol as a statue of wood, stone, or metal worshiped by pagan people... In biblical terms, it is something other than God that we set our heart on (Luke 12:29; 1 Cor. 10:19) that motivates us (1 Cor. 4:5), that masters and rules us (Ps. 119:133; Eph. 5:5) or that we trust, fear, or serve (Isa. 42:17; Matt. 6:24, Luke 12:4-5). ... An idol can also be referred to as a 'false god' or a 'functional god'".
"An idol is something within creation that is inflated to function as a substitute for God. All sorts of things are potential idols, depending only on our attitudes and actions toward them... Idolatry may not involve explicit denials of God's existence or character. It may well come in the form of an overattachment to something that is, in itself, perfectly good... An idol can be a physical object, a property, a person , an activity, a role, an institution, a hope, an image, an idea, a pleasure, a hero - anything that can substitute for God."
So join me in searching our hearts, allowing God to shine His spotlight and reveal any idols that have been set up and are preventing Him from having our whole heart. For nothing in this world satisfies like our Lord Jesus can, and I want no substitutes attempting to take His place in my heart. I want my heart to be totally and completely His... how about you?
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3 comments:
That is awesome, Tricia! I have been wanting to read that book too. When I get through the two that I have already started, I am going to read it! LOL I am almost finished with one and the other one is my Wednesday night Bible study.
The quiet time I did today was along those same lines; I am going to post about it tomorrow!
Love you! And thank you for praying for us!
Krista
Love that verse. Strongly supports. Good stuff.
I have not finished the kelly Mentor study - need to pull it back out. :)
Blessings,
Ah yes! idols of our hearts...I think this is an area we often over look because we do not understand in what form idols can come. The enemy has done his job well. A few years ago I began praying that God would reveal the idols of my heart. It wasn't very pretty as He showed me some of the "good" in my life that I had allowed to become idols.
A good reminder Tricia!
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