This morning while biking in I listen to a C. J. Mahaney sermon on idols of the heart. He paraphrased John Calvin:
The evil in our desires usually does not lie in what we want but that we want it too much.
Often what we want is a gift from God (leisure, food, marriage, relationships, sex, pleasure, etc.) but we want it too much and in the wrong way. It becomes a sinful craving (and an idol) when we want it more than God Himself.
Romans 1:21-25 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (22) Claiming to be wise, they became fools, (23) and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (24) Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, (25) because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
1 comment:
Daniel,
John Piper has a book out - A Hunger for God and it's about fasting and his premise is similiar to what you are saying - in the sense of we don't want God because we are so full of the good things he has given us that we lose our appetite for Him. It's a "fresh" look/eyes on fasting and really sound.
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