You know what that is, right?  Idolatry.  Plain and simple.  Flocking to an image of a water stain on a concrete wall, stacking candles, incense and flowers all around, and then PRAYING TO THE IMAGE is idolatry.  I happen to think that praying to anyone but God is idolatry.  Praying to the Virgin Mary, praying to “the saints”, praying to your dear departed Uncle Chuck, all of these are putting someONE or someTHING before God.

God’s word clearly states: 

Exodus 20:3-4, “You shall have no other gods before Me.  You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. “

Judges 10:13,  Yet you have forsaken Me and served other gods; therefore I will no longer deliver you.

2 Kings 17:12, “They served idols, concerning which the LORD had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.”

Praying to the Mother of Jesus and asking for her help or intercession is making her as God (”Mediatrix”).  Praying to Saint Peter or Saint Theresa or Saint Bob is putting a PERSON in the place where JESUS belongs.  And it is therefore idolatry.

And the question I have is….why?  Why pray to anyone but God?  The way has been opened for you, “the veil of the Tabernacle was torn in two” so that ALL might approach the throne of God! 

For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a {mere} copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; …Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer {any} offering for sin.  Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh,  (Heb 9-10)

Jesus tells us quite clearly in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. “  Not through Mary.  Not through Peter.  Only through CHRIST.

The again in John 14:13-14, Jesus tells us, “”Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do {it.}  ”

Jesus quite clearly not only gives us permission to go directly to Him, but requires us to go to Him and ONLY Him.  If you are praying to anyone, or anything else, you are praying to a false god.  An idol.  A substitution of the real thing.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.  For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as {we are, yet} without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.  (Hbr 4:13-16 NASB)

And here’s there other thing.  Our God is an AWESOME God.  Our God is the one who spun together the entire universe.  Psalm 104 talks about his kind of God: 

“Covering Yourself with light as with a cloak, Stretching out heaven like a {tent} curtain.  He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters; He makes the clouds His chariot; He walks upon the wings of the wind;  He makes the winds His messengers, Flaming fire His ministers. ”

Does this sound like the kind of God who would be content to manifest himself as a mildew stain an a basement wall, some calcification under a runoff spout, or an odd shape of woodgrain on a toilet door?!  Come ON. Seriously.  I think it’s safe to say that an image seen in some dusty, shadowy dampness in a culvert is NOT OF GOD.  Which really leaves only two other options, doesn’t it?  Either you are trying waaaay too hard to see something that’s not there, or, the image comes from somewhere else.  Somewhere, or someone.  Someone who would love nothing better than for you to be distracted, entranced, and preoccupied with all manner of flashy, showy spiritualistic other things than focusing exclusively on the one, true God.

I remember hearing a story once of some missionaries in, I believe it was Ethiopia, who were shown what was believed to be one of the original stones used in the ephod of Aaron as commanded by God, described in Exodus Chapt. 28:

And the stones shall be with the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their names, [like] the engravings of a signet; every one with his name shall they be according to the twelve tribes.

 I had always pictured some kind of art class project with a name etched into the top like a pet rock or a paperweight.  However, the stone the pastor described was transparent, a deep blue color, and the stone had an image of a lion, for the tribe of Judah.  They were able to x-ray the stone, and came to discover that the image of the lion itself had a three-dimensional quality and was actually made up of Hebrew words, almost like a hologram!  This seems to jibe with the description given in Exodus.  The stones were made by “Aholiab, son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, an engraver, and a cunning workman.”  Cunning indeed!

Now, I admit I heard the story second or third hand, and I can’t find anything on the ol’ Internets to back it up, but that story has always really resonated with me.  If this is the kind of amazing detail that God’s people put into carving individual stones,  I can only imagine what God did when he “carved” out the 10 Commandments: 

But if the ministration of death, written [and] engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which [glory] was to be done away:  (2 Cor. 3:7)

I can’t imagine they were really just a couple of rough-hewn stone slabs with chisel marks.   They were so magnificent that they imbued power to the very countenance of Moses!  I suspect that these may very well have been what gave the ark of the Covenant its power once they were placed inside.  What I wouldn’t give to see those tablets, maybe get them in front of an MRI or mass-spectomoter!  When I look at Revelation 2:17 in light of the above story, it takes on a much greater level of significance:

and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.’

Imagine God creating a stone which only you can read.  Each stone unique, different, magnificent, and waaaaay high-tech.

So with all that in mind, how is it that so many people allow themselves to be mystified by a patch of frost, a discoloration of some concrete, or a scuff mark on a linoleum floor?  Folks, when God wants you to know that He’s there, trust me, you’ll know.  There’ll be no squinting, and turning your head this way and that, and if you shine the light just so, it sort of maybe kinda might look like Jesus when he’s asleep underwater…

“Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.  (Matt. 24:30-31)

Doesn’t say anything about toast or mildew.  God does not do things halfway.  He is not a tame lion.   He’s got a flair for the dramatic.   He’s a God of burning pillars and parted seas, not potato chips and grilled cheese.

More even that the aspects of idolatry, and of diminishing the majesty of God, chasing after images and totems can lead you down a dangerous path, one which is based on deception.  If you are so quick to find solace in every “religious” icon you stumble across, if you are so ready and willing to believe that spirits are speaking to you through these manifestations, you set yourself up to be easily deceived by those claiming to speak for God, or AS God, but who are really agents of deception and betrayal.

“For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many…Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many.” (Matt. 24)

Putting your faith in anyone, or anything except the Lord Jesus Christ denies the sovereignty of God and results in you serving and worshipping a creation, not the Creator.  Do not be misled!  Trust that God wants you to talk to HIM, revere and worship HIM, not a grease spot or a paint smear.

Yeah.

So, now, despite an every-increasingly busy schedule, I am trying, TRYING to find make time to clack away at a few keys and see where the Spirit leads me.  And by “leads me,”  I mean, upon which areas of my life will the Spirit be focusing His inescapable spotlight of attention, thereby bringing me into the kind of awareness (and hopefully repentance) such that I can share these lessons with you.  Regardless of how humbling or deprecating they may be.

Cuz, it’s what I do.

Coming soon, A Patchwork Penitience will be getting it’s own domain!  Stay tuned for updates.

What happens when the stumble becomes a fall?  When the magazine comes home hidden in the briefcase, when that website you accidentally stumbled across while Googling ends up in the Bookmarks, and you find yourself going back again and again?

You don’t just stumble…you face plant. You hit so hard, and have stayed down for so long, that now you’re not sure if you can’t get yourself back up.  You’ve nursed that hurt, that anger for so long that it’s taken on a life of its own.  It slowly poisons your mood, your attitude, your spiritual walk, creeping its way into every aspect of your life and damaging all of your relationships, not just the one with whom you are so angry. 

You can’t forgive them.  Or, you can’t forgive yourself.  What do you do?

It’s not what you do.  It’s where you go.  You go back to God.  You drop your pride, you unclench your fists, you shine a light on the lie that says that you can do this all yourself. 

The magazine, the Internet, the self-righteous anger, or the carefully nursed hurts are all symptoms of the same disease.  The name of the disease?

Selfishness.

You addiction to pornography?  It has its root in the fact that you want what you want, and that you’re willing to sacrifice your walk with God, healthy relationships, your job, even your health to see and feel what you want to, when you want to.  Even though everybody says it’s wrong, you know what you want, and you’ll do what you have to do to get it.  Selfishness.

That anger?  That clenched fist and bitter root of unforgiveness?  At its core is a selfish desire for the other person to admit that they are wrong…FIRST.  You will only forgive once they repent.  You will only reconnect once they agree to see the error of their ways.  Naturally, this is so much easier than first having to face the error of your ways.  You want what you want, and you want it like you want it, and you’re just going to stay mad until you get it!  Selfishness.

We want what we want.  It is human nature.  That’s why God’s Word tells us to set aside earthly things.  Matthew 5:23-24 tells us,

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you,leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.

How do we, with a straight face, come before God to ask for his blessing, when we are ourselves unwilling to give a blessing to others?  When we harden our hearts against someone, in anger, in hurt, in self-righteous indignation or judgemental condemnation, we close our hearts to the blessing of the Lord.  FIRST go and be reconciled.  THEN offer your gift.   We have to give up whatever it is we are harboring in our heart, before there can be room for God to move in.

If sometimes it seems like we can’t get back up, when we try and try to forgive, or abstain, or accept the apology, but fail, the root cause of the problem may very well lie in the fact that we are still so much more interested in getting our way, than in living the Lord’s way.

The two are incompatible.  We need to make a choice.  Is living God’s Word more important than winning the argument?  Is coming to our knees before God, more important than forcing someone else to their knees before us?

In Luke 18:22, Jesus tells the rich man,

When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

Not because Jesus was interested in the man’s money, but because Jesus knew that the man was chosing money over God.  He was being selfish…and THAT was the root at which Jesus was trying to get.  He forced the man to make a choice….take this thing to which you are clinging, take this thing with which you are replacing ME…and give it up.

For some of us it isn’t money.  For some of us it’s shopping, or gambling, or drugs, or anger, jealousy, pornography or our own carefully nurtured martyr complex.   Regardless, they are all taking the place of God in our lives.  And Jesus is calling us to make that choice — it’s them or me, because you can’t have both.

So if you’ve fallen, and you can’t seem to get back on your feet, maybe you first need to take a hard look at what it is in your life that is tying your hands, weighing you down, and coming between you and God.  James 3:16-17 tells us,

For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.  But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.

When you finally let go of whatever it is you are holding on to, you’ll find that you suddenly have a free hand to reach out for God to reach down and help you back up.

Now technology has evolved, and instead of websites we have blogs, and instead of email subscription lists we have RSS feeds.  So, I’m feeling the desire to revitalize this effort, and begin getting back into the devotional/Bible study business.  Very likely sprinkled with a bit of social commentary, but at it’s core, examining the Bible and its application to our lives, hopefully put into terms that are easy to understand and apply in your daily walk.

I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.