Where Are Your Affections Focused? (NIV)

As God’s creation, we were made to love God (Isaiah 54:5). It is only by giving our lives to Jesus that we can have ultimate satisfaction. But so many of us will never be satisfied because we practice idolatry—we may not bow our knees to an image of a “god,” but we bow our hearts and lives to things which draw us away from the true God. Martin Luther wrote that first three of the ten commandments make it clear that we are not to be participating in idolatry. A seventeenth-century English minister named David Clarkson expressed that the human heart is a factory that mass produces idols. God may let you have your idol, and this is a terrible thing (Romans 1:24). Our heart fashions desires into idols. Every human being lives for something. Something must take hold of our imagination, and the most fundamental allegiance and hope of our hearts. Without the Holy Spirit, that object will never be God himself.1 Idolatry is not just a failure to obey God; it is the heart deciding upon something besides God. This cannot be remedied by only realizing that you have an idol, or using willpower to live better. Turning from your idols is only done in the power of a new God-given life, and involves setting the mind and heart on things above where your life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians: 3:1-3).2 An investment banker said that he has come to see work in a different light. He learned that were created in the image of God, and we were made to find joy and fulfillment in our work, as God does in his great works. But, through the Fall of man, caused by disordered loves and the idols we have created in the place of God, work has been corrupted. The Good news is that God has done what is necessary to redeem us through the work of Jesus Christ.3 Jesus not only wants to save our souls, He wants to change and reconstruct our lives. God knows that the idols we look to do not truly satisfy. In the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15), the younger son learns that the whole world cannot give us what God can give us. Once we have Jesus in our life, he will give us the “spiritual glasses” to see our spiritual bankruptcy and how Jesus alone can satisfy our deepest longings. This pamphlet is a plea for you to know Jesus. God says that you are more flawed than you think, but the gift of Jesus Christ, who died for your sins and mine, is proof that God loves you to the skies. When Jesus died on the cross and rose again, he opened the way for us to come to God. What we must do is turn to God and trust Jesus as our savior. In Revelation 3:20, Jesus states, “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” Psalm 16:2 states that in his presence there is fullness of joy. Jesus Christ has to be more beautiful than your idol. Have you seen the beauty of the Son of God? Have you turned to Him? 1 Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller, Penguin Group 2009/Dutton Publishing, p.3 2 Counterfeit Gods, p.171 3 From Redeemer Report- (August 2012) which is a publication of the Redeemer Presbyterian Church