"Why do people choose the substitute over God himself? Probably the most important reason is that it obviates accountability to God. We can meet idols on our own terms because they are our own creations. They are safe, predictable, and controllable; they are, in Jeremiah's colorful language, the 'scarecrows in a cornfield' (10:5). They are portable and completely under the user's control. They offer nothing like the threat of a God who thunders from Sinai and whose providence in this world so often appears to us to be incomprehensible and dangerous . . . [People] need face only themselves. That is the appeal of idolatry."
- David F. Wells
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
"Your danger and mine is not that we become criminals, but rather that we become respectable, decent, commonplace, mediocre Christians. The twentieth-century temptations that really sap our spiritual power are the television, banana cream pie, the easy chair and the credit card. The Christian wins or loses in those seemingly innocent little moments of decision."
-- Raymond C. Ortlund, Sr.
Via my friend Ray Ortlund, Jr.
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Comments on "Those Seemingly Innocent Moments":
3. ruben
- 06/17/2009 11:22 am CDT
I get his point, complacency and comfort are negative influences. However I'm wary of messages like this, some pleasures are given to us by God to enjoy and praise Him for. Taken with the right spirit, these comforts renew and sustain us. Jesus himself was described as a glutton once in the Gospels, so apparently he did not abstain from life's little pleasures...
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Ahh, the lukewarm Christian analogy. I see his point, however this January, I plan on watching the Super Bowl in my easy chair. I'll put all my food on the credit card and I may have to serve up banana cream pie now ;-) I feel completely free in Christ to do so.