GOD REMAINS GOD WITHOUT YOU OR ME! 💁💁💁💁💁💁💁💁💁💁💁💁💁💁 IDENTIFYING AND DEALING WITH THE IDOLS OF OUR HEARTS.(EZE14:1-8) [PART TWO] 💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔 Welcome back 🤝! We stopped at our dire need to recognize the serious consequences (God’s silence, judgment) when we have idols in our hearts. And what happens when a person has an idol in his/her heart? We said even though you try to seek God, pray, and inquire of Him. He may not answer you!(Eze.14:3) Basically,here are some things which INDISPUTABLY belong to GOD: RESPECT, LOVE, CONFIDENCE, REVERENCE, and SERVICE. It’s not that we should give no honour, love, etc, to anyone other than God, but that we should not love or serve anyone or anything too much, i.e, MORE THAN GOD. When we veer away from giving God these things, we are in effect committing idolatry in our hearts. We have learnt that if we persist in having idols in our hearts,God is certain to tell us; "What right do we have to seek Him or inquire of Him?(Paraphrase,mine.) He may then speak to us by his silence. And during that time,we are prone to maybe ask, "Where is God? Why does He feel so far away? Where is His Power and Glory in my life?" It isn't like as if,every time that God is silent,it means we’ve sinned against Him...No! It's just that, when we noticed that God is silent, perhaps we need to examine ourselves, and search ourselves for whether we may have an idol in our life. Thus, the first thing we need to do in dealing with idols of the heart is to recognize the reality of idols of our hearts,and its grave consequences. So,how then do we recognize an idol of the heart? Let's consider some ways of knowing; 👉When I’m alone, what do I enjoy daydreaming about? What occupies my mind when I have nothing else to think about? (Eg career advancement? Material goods? A relationship?) 👉Where do I spend my money? (Clothes? Food? Cars? Homes?) Christ Jesus says, *Where your treasure is, there is your heart also* (Matthew 6:21) 👉How do I respond to unanswered prayers and frustrated hopes? When you pray and work for something and you don’t get it and you respond with explosive anger or deep despair, then you may have found your real god. 👉Look at your most uncontrollable emotions (anger, fear, despair, guilt). If you feel that you MUST have something at all costs, you will feel anger if you can’t get it, fear/despair if you lose it. This something has become an idol. 💢Now, it's time to seek out and remove and replace the idols of our hearts; Thankfully, God is a gracious God, and He desires us to restore our relationship with Him through repentance. He doesn’t want us to remain in sin, or remain in a relationship marked by His silence and judgment upon us. We see God’s desire for our repentance in Ezekiel 14:4-6, I will do this to recapture the hearts of the people of Israel, who have all deserted me for their idols. Therefore say to the people of Israel, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Repent! Turn from your idols and renounce all your detestable practices!’ Notice that God’s silence and refusal to answer those who have idols in their hearts is for their good. He does this so that He will “recapture their hearts.” (v5) He wants you to know the seriousness of the sin of idolatry... and He wants you to repent. Repent means you turn away from sin/idols and turn back to God. However, removal of an idol isn’t enough...we need to remove and then replace them. Why? It should be desperately important for us to realize that idols cannot simply be removed. They must be replaced. If you only try to uproot them, they grow back; but they can be supplanted. By what? By God Himself, of course. But by God we do not mean a general belief in His Existence. Most of us have that, yet our souls are riddled with idols. What we need is a living encounter with God. Besides repentance (turning away from idols) we need to turn to something greater... something that can fully satisfy our deepest longings...and that is Christ Jesus. Only Christ Jesus. We remove our idols, and replace that vacuum with Christ Jesus alone. If you uproot the idol and fail to *plant* the love of Christ Jesus in its place, the idol will grow back. Christ Jesus must be everything to you! As Paul says in Col.3:1-4. We are to *SET OUR HEARTS AND MINDS ON THINGS ABOVE* WHERE *OUR LIVES ARE NOW HIDDEN WITH CHRIST IN GOD.*(highlights mine) That means we are to appreciate, rejoice, and rest in who Christ Jesus is and what Christ Jesus has done for us through His Life, Death and Resurrection. See Christ Jesus for Who He is(Son of God),what He has done...His life, His Substitutionary Death on the Cross for our sins, His Sacrificial Love, His Forgiveness, Grace, His Resurrection, and the Hope of Eternal Life. This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ...Who He is and what He has done for us. Only Christ Jesus and the Salvation we have in Him can replace the idols in our lives. We have to deepen our understanding of the Salvation of Christ Jesus, what we have in Him, and then living out the changes that that understanding makes in our hearts...the seat of our mind, will, and emotions. Indeed, the living God, who revealed Himself both at Mount Sinai and on the Cross, is the only Lord who, if we find Him, can truly fulfill us, and, if we fail Him, can truly forgive us. 💢 Conclusively,God, in His Mercy and Grace may be surfacing some idols in your heart and mine. Many idols are good things... family,jobs, relationships,food, fitness exercises to look healthy (eg, women mentally obsessed with the idea of a perfect shape)etc, BUT,they become bad when we elevate them to a POSITION RESERVED FOR GOD ALONE. Good things can become an idol when we attach our meaning, significance and security, safety and fulfillment to these things, instead of God. They harm our intimacy with God, and may result in painful experiences of God’s silence and judgment. But God in His Grace, gives us a solution...He asks that we repent. To remove these idols, and turn back to Him...to replace them with the One Thing that truly satisfies. The Gospel of Christ Jesus and His love for us. See Who He is and what He has done for us. But the decision is in our hands.You know your idols,I know mine...we can accept this rebuke from God in Eze.14:1-8 and give them up or continue in them. It's an individual choice. May the Holy Spirit help us to make the right one, Amen🙇🙏!

GOD REMAINS GOD WITHOUT YOU OR ME! 💁💁💁💁💁💁💁💁💁💁💁💁💁💁 IDENTIFYING AND DEALING WITH THE IDOLS OF OUR HEARTS.(EZE14:1-8) [PART TWO] 💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔 Welcome back 🤝! We stopped at our dire need to recognize the serious consequences (God’s silence, judgment) when we have idols in our hearts. And what happens when a person has an idol in his/her heart? We said even though you try to seek God, pray, and inquire of Him. He may not answer you!(Eze.14:3) Basically,here are some things which INDISPUTABLY belong to GOD: RESPECT, LOVE, CONFIDENCE, REVERENCE, and SERVICE. It’s not that we should give no honour, love, etc, to anyone other than God, but that we should not love or serve anyone or anything too much, i.e, MORE THAN GOD. When we veer away from giving God these things, we are in effect committing idolatry in our hearts. We have learnt that if we persist in having idols in our hearts,God is certain to tell us; "What right do we have to seek Him or inquire of Him?(Paraphrase,mine.) He may then speak to us by his silence. And during that time,we are prone to maybe ask, "Where is God? Why does He feel so far away? Where is His Power and Glory in my life?" It isn't like as if,every time that God is silent,it means we’ve sinned against Him...No! It's just that, when we noticed that God is silent, perhaps we need to examine ourselves, and search ourselves for whether we may have an idol in our life. Thus, the first thing we need to do in dealing with idols of the heart is to recognize the reality of idols of our hearts,and its grave consequences. So,how then do we recognize an idol of the heart? Let's consider some ways of knowing; 👉When I’m alone, what do I enjoy daydreaming about? What occupies my mind when I have nothing else to think about? (Eg career advancement? Material goods? A relationship?) 👉Where do I spend my money? (Clothes? Food? Cars? Homes?) Christ Jesus says, *Where your treasure is, there is your heart also* (Matthew 6:21) 👉How do I respond to unanswered prayers and frustrated hopes? When you pray and work for something and you don’t get it and you respond with explosive anger or deep despair, then you may have found your real god. 👉Look at your most uncontrollable emotions (anger, fear, despair, guilt). If you feel that you MUST have something at all costs, you will feel anger if you can’t get it, fear/despair if you lose it. This something has become an idol. 💢Now, it's time to seek out and remove and replace the idols of our hearts; Thankfully, God is a gracious God, and He desires us to restore our relationship with Him through repentance. He doesn’t want us to remain in sin, or remain in a relationship marked by His silence and judgment upon us. We see God’s desire for our repentance in Ezekiel 14:4-6, I will do this to recapture the hearts of the people of Israel, who have all deserted me for their idols. Therefore say to the people of Israel, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Repent! Turn from your idols and renounce all your detestable practices!’ Notice that God’s silence and refusal to answer those who have idols in their hearts is for their good. He does this so that He will “recapture their hearts.” (v5) He wants you to know the seriousness of the sin of idolatry... and He wants you to repent. Repent means you turn away from sin/idols and turn back to God. However, removal of an idol isn’t enough...we need to remove and then replace them. Why? It should be desperately important for us to realize that idols cannot simply be removed. They must be replaced. If you only try to uproot them, they grow back; but they can be supplanted. By what? By God Himself, of course. But by God we do not mean a general belief in His Existence. Most of us have that, yet our souls are riddled with idols. What we need is a living encounter with God. Besides repentance (turning away from idols) we need to turn to something greater... something that can fully satisfy our deepest longings...and that is Christ Jesus. Only Christ Jesus. We remove our idols, and replace that vacuum with Christ Jesus alone. If you uproot the idol and fail to *plant* the love of Christ Jesus in its place, the idol will grow back. Christ Jesus must be everything to you! As Paul says in Col.3:1-4. We are to *SET OUR HEARTS AND MINDS ON THINGS ABOVE* WHERE *OUR LIVES ARE NOW HIDDEN WITH CHRIST IN GOD.*(highlights mine) That means we are to appreciate, rejoice, and rest in who Christ Jesus is and what Christ Jesus has done for us through His Life, Death and Resurrection. See Christ Jesus for Who He is(Son of God),what He has done...His life, His Substitutionary Death on the Cross for our sins, His Sacrificial Love, His Forgiveness, Grace, His Resurrection, and the Hope of Eternal Life. This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ...Who He is and what He has done for us. Only Christ Jesus and the Salvation we have in Him can replace the idols in our lives. We have to deepen our understanding of the Salvation of Christ Jesus, what we have in Him, and then living out the changes that that understanding makes in our hearts...the seat of our mind, will, and emotions. Indeed, the living God, who revealed Himself both at Mount Sinai and on the Cross, is the only Lord who, if we find Him, can truly fulfill us, and, if we fail Him, can truly forgive us. 💢 Conclusively,God, in His Mercy and Grace may be surfacing some idols in your heart and mine. Many idols are good things... family,jobs, relationships,food, fitness exercises to look healthy (eg, women mentally obsessed with the idea of a perfect shape)etc, BUT,they become bad when we elevate them to a POSITION RESERVED FOR GOD ALONE. Good things can become an idol when we attach our meaning, significance and security, safety and fulfillment to these things, instead of God. They harm our intimacy with God, and may result in painful experiences of God’s silence and judgment. But God in His Grace, gives us a solution...He asks that we repent. To remove these idols, and turn back to Him...to replace them with the One Thing that truly satisfies. The Gospel of Christ Jesus and His love for us. See Who He is and what He has done for us. But the decision is in our hands.You know your idols,I know mine...we can accept this rebuke from God in Eze.14:1-8 and give them up or continue in them. It's an individual choice. May the Holy Spirit help us to make the right one, Amen🙇🙏!

THAT I MAY KNOW HIM!(PHP.3:10) 🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥 THE CONSEQUENCES OF SHUTTING GOD OUT OF OUR LIVES! [PS. 51:11] 💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫 So many of us are do so much take God's Love for us for granted. And one of the fact responsible is wrong following and mentoring by self centered custodians of God's Word. Most of them teach that God Loves us so much that He can't leave us no matter how we wilfully offend Him. But, I tell you now that God does abandon us to our fate,if we consistently disobey and disregard Him. And it's horribly dangerous. In Psalm 51:11, David pleads with God, saying, “Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.” This one-sentence prayer, part of David’s prayer of repentance to God, reveals a sobering spiritual reality we need to understand, namely, it is possible for God to remove His blessed presence from our lives. Let that sink in for a moment. It is possible to no longer experience the intimate relationship, deep friendship, and even family closeness with God that we once knew. And to lose the close fellowship of God’s Spirit is to lose His guidance, empowerment, and the joy of His salvation working mightily within us. No one who once knew God wants to reach a point where they can no longer feel His presence or hear His voice... and, I mean, no one. 👉 WHAT DOES LOSING GOD'S PRESENCE MEAN? To be out of God’s presence means to no longer have His spiritual fellowship and blessing over our lives. It means we have forfeited any intimate communion with Him and can no longer experience the comfort, direction, purpose, and power that comes from His Spirit dwelling richly within us. And it’s a lonely, dark, miserable, and depressing place to be. Certainly so pathetic a situation! Tragically, in the book of Judges, we see this described in Samson’s life. Though freakishly strong, Samson lost the blessing of God’s PRESENCE and POWER to work through him as a leader over Israel because of his lust and sin. And his lack of obedience to God’s standards of holiness, along with his blatant disregard for God’s purpose in his life, resulted in his tragic public downfall. Samson’s sad EXAMPLE WARNS US NOT TO PRESUME UPON GOD'S ABIDING PRESENCE toY ALWAYS BE WITH US, IRRESPECTIVE OF HOW WE CHOOSE TO WALK BEFORE HIM.(Judges 13-16) Remember, sin and disobedience have consequences, both in this life and in the life to come. And our unrepented and persistent sin and rebellion can, and will, easily quench and grieve the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30), putting a great gulf between us and joyful fellowship with God (1 Thess. 5:19). I mean, why should we expect to relish in the joy of His approval and presence when our actions show our complete rejection of His standards and ways? It just doesn’t work that way. 👉 BIBLICAL EXAMPLES OF LOSING GOD'S PRESENCE. Scripture contains several sobering examples of God’s people forfeiting His blessed presence for a season because of their sin and rebellion against Him. 💁Israel’s refusal to enter the Promised Land because of fear and unbelief resulted in 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. 💁King Solomon’s turning to idol worship because of his many foreign wives led to God’s promise to tear the kingdom away from his descendants. And God truly did! 💁Saul’s pride, envy, and independence from God’s word resulted in his losing the kingdom and his reign as king over Israel to David. 💁And even David lost the joy of his salvation after his sin against Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah. Yet He found forgiveness and restoration only after fully repenting, without excuses (Psalm 51). Through these accounts and others, we learn how unchecked, besetting sins can earn God’s discipline and the chastisement of withdrawing His presence from those He loves in order to bring them back into a relationship with Him. 👉 THE CONSEQUENCES OF LOSING GOD'S PRESENCE. To grasp the gravity of this loss of His presence, consider the very first Biblical example: Adam and Eve being banished from Eden and God’s Presence after their sin and rebellion. We see their heartbreaking exile from God’s Presence in Genesis 3:23-24: “Therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.” Now, no longer able to walk with God “in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8), Adam and Eve, and all humanity after them, faced toil, pain, hardship, and death outside of God’s protective presence. Similarly, Cain faced wandering and fear as a “fugitive and vagabond on the earth” after murdering his brother Abel (Gen. 4:12). The loss of the safety and security of God’s intimate presence left him isolated and alone, which was not God’s original plan for them.Not at all. Losing the fellowship of God’s Spirit dramatically affects every area of life. We may struggle with feelings of isolation, anxiety, aimlessness, despair, and debilitating guilt. Without access to God’s wisdom and perspective, we fall victim to poor decision-making, with moral confusion not far behind. Our spiritual vitality evaporates, leaving behind deadness, dryness, and powerlessness in its wake. We become just a living shell of what we once were when we could experience the presence of God in our lives. 💁Indeed, shutting ourselves off from the Source of life has tragic consequences that touch every aspect of our lives. So, we must carefully guard against anything that could earn the removal of such an infinitely precious gift. 👉 RESTORING GOD'S ABIDING PRESENCE. The good news is that Scripture offers hope for restoration through genuine repentance. Just as “weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5), so God promises that if we draw near to Him, He will forgive, forget, and graciously reciprocate and draw near to us once again (James 4:8). No matter how far we have strayed through our disobedience, it is not too far nor too late to reclaim the blessings of His abiding presence. 👉 BUT HOW IS THIS DONE? HOW CAN WE EXPERIENCE GOD'S PRESENCE ONCE AGAIN? By examining the accounts of divine forgiveness and restoration in Scripture, we can uncover some spiritual principles to apply in reclaiming God’s manifest presence: 💁Examine Your Heart Before God: Invite His searching gaze to reveal any areas of offense that may be hindering close fellowship, such as unforgiveness, pride, or secret sins (Psalm 139:23-24). 💁Confess Everything Completely: Hold nothing back from God (like He doesn’t know already?). Agree with Him about the true ugliness of your sins, calling them what Scripture calls them, “Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight” (Psalm 51:4, 1 John 1:9, 1 Samuel 15:23). 💁Repent Thoroughly and Honestly: Turn away from all that offends God and turn wholeheartedly towards Him in submission and obedience to His complete Lordship over every area in your life. Again, hold nothing back from God, give Him everything (John 14:15, Romans 8:13). 💁Walk Accountably: Surround yourself with wise, merciful companions who will help you persevere in living uprightly and fruitfully before God (Hebrews 10:24-25). Don’t try to go it alone. After all, it didn’t work the first time, did it? By applying these Biblical strategies, you can find healing, hope, and restoration in your walk with Christ. And by His astonishing grace (which I still can’t comprehend), He invites us to come freely and find the refreshing rivers of His presence flowing freely once again in the wastelands of our lives. 💁Standing Ready to Welcome Us Home Never forget that we serve an incredibly merciful and compassionate God who stands ready to lavish His presence abundantly upon all who seek Him. He yearns for reconciliation even more than we do. Christ Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son reminds us that the Father is constantly looking expectantly down that road for signs of His wayward child returning home. And when He catches sight of us finally turning back, He runs to embrace us, fully restoring all that was lost in that painful absence (Luke 15:11-32). What wondrous love is this...that our God never gives up on us, regardless of how far we stray? He graciously disciplines those He loves to spur our return to Him freely and wholeheartedly (Revelation 3:19). And understanding both the blessings of walking in God’s presence and the agony of losing that gift, He offers us a powerful motivation to pursue intimate fellowship with God above all else. By His grace, may we fervently guard our hearts against anything that could earn separation from the One who is Life itself...the Loving Lord Christ Jesus. Amen🙇🙏!