Guarding Our Love for the Lord
Written by Sarah Ann E.

 

1 John 5:21 says, “Little children, guard yourselves from idols.” An idol in the life of a Christian is anything that substitutes or takes away from God. I want to start out this New Year, the first article of LIW for 2008, dealing with any idols that may be in our lives.

Recently, I had to deal with an idol in my life. The Lord had been pointing it out to me for several years, but I thought that it was just something “little,” so why did I have to worry about that. About a month ago, the Lord really put His finger on that “thing” and seemed to demand that I take it out of my life. Did I give it up willingly without a fuss? You have to be kidding me. I argued with my Lord, trying to explain that it was just a “little” thing and that I needed it. Yet the Lord was persistent with me to give it up to Him. After over an hour of trying to wiggle my way out of it, I told the Lord that I was willing to see it His way. Then the Lord opened my eyes to see all the dangers and sins in that “little” thing. Did that ever hurt. The “little” thing then became a BIG thing in my eyes. I saw that I needed to give it up to my Lord, or I would be living in sin and rebellion to Him. So, I gave it up into the hands of my Lord. Yes, it hurt and it sometimes still hurts. But the Lord has given me abundant joy in giving that “thing” up into His care. If I did not give it up when my Lord strongly pointed it out in my life, then the Lord would make me miserable until I did.

Are you holding back an idol in your life? Are you like me, fighting to keep something because you think it is just a “little” thing? A little thing will turn into a big thing if we leave it unconfessed. We need to start this New Year clean and pure in the sight of our Lord. We need to give Him all the idols in our lives, both little and big. Yes, it will hurt, but I will tell you that it is worth it in the end. Maybe you are holding onto the strong desire to have a husband and family. You do not want to give it up to the Lord, because you are afraid that if you do, you will never get to have them. Maybe you are being selfish with your time each day and spending little or no time with your beloved Lord in the morning. You could be proud in your own way and unwilling to submit to your parents’ authority in your life. It could be that you are in a relationship with a guy that is not pleasing to your parents, or maybe that your parents do not even know about. I am not trying to point out any particular person; I just know that these have been seemingly small idols I have had in the past that were hard to give up. These “little” things are going to keep you from growing in your love for your blessed Lord.

Let us look at what great love our dear Lord has for us. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation [the satisfaction of God’s wrath] for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Our Lord loved us so much that He sent His only Son to died for us, so we may have forgiveness from our sins and live with Him forever in Heaven. “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such are we...” (1 John 3:1). He is willing to call us His children! We who are utterly wicked in His perfect eyes, He desires to call us His children. Now, that is great love. The greatest love the world has ever known. Does our Lord not deserve our consistent love in return for His unconditional love to us?

“We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). We cannot love our Lord or even others if it were not for the love that our Lord demonstrated to us. “This is My commandment that you love one another, just as I have loved you” (John 15:12). Our Lord commands us to love, just as He did. He has set the greatest example of love for us to follow. How great is this command to love our Lord? Is it just something that we say we do? Loving our Lord is the greatest commandment that we must follow. In Matthew 22:36-38 a lawyer asked Jesus, “ ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’ And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment.’ ” Yet, do we all follow this great commandment every moment of every day? Do we constantly keep this commandment in the forefront on our minds? I am sure that if we were all truthful, we would say that our love for the Lord needs to grow greatly.

If we do not love the Lord with all our heart, then we are breaking the greatest commandment that our Lord gave to us. Breaking a commandment of the Lord is sin. So, when we do not love our Lord with all our heart, we are committing sin. When we have sin between our Lord, and us we are forming a barrier between us. “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear” (Isaiah 59:2). Has it seemed that the Lord has not been answering your prayers? Has He seemed far from you? Examine your life and see if there is an idol or idols in the way. If you find an idol hidden away, then pull it out and beg the Lord to help you cast it out of your life. You cannot do it on your own. We cannot do anything without our Lord. If you feel that there is a barrier between you and your Lord, and you do not know what that idol is, then I would encourage you to pray this poem. I often pray back this poem to the Lord when I cannot see the thing that is barring my path between Him and me.

 

Lord, show me the thing that stands in the way,
The stone that is under the wheel,
Reveal the idol to be cast down,
Lord, hear me as I kneel.

And, Lord, if I have not the strength to cut off,
The part that offendeth me,
Nor have I the courage to overthrow
The thing I love more than Thee:

Oh, cripple the limb with the touch of Thy hand!
To bear it give me grace,
And when I awake tomorrow morn
May the idol be on its face.

But more than this I would ask, O Lord,
Grind it to powder fine,
Then fill up my heart with Thy wondrous love,
Making my face to shine.
~Author Unknown~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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