Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

John finishes his epistle with the words, “Dear children, keep yourself from idols” (1 John 5:21). 

Author Timothy Keller says your religion, or your idol, is where your mind goes when you have a moment of leisure (Counterfeit Gods: the Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power). 

“The things we daydream about most readily and instinctively when nothing else is occupying our thoughts reveal what we live for and serve,” he says. (https://twitter.com/timkellernyc/status/1423228037332615168?lang=en)

I ask, Where does my mind go at leisure? Can I get along without my daily fix of daydreams and Facebook and world news? Is social media my religion? 

What do you do for your daily dose of comfort? 

If the places we go to in our minds are idols, how can we get rid of them? 

I’ve tried killing mine. But daydreams aren’t easily snuffed. In the pain of life, my mind needs a source of comfort. Or distraction. 

My friend the fridge is a favorite escape. But my other friend, wisdom, warns against compulsive snacking. I could try drug addiction or work addiction or trashy novels, but  my life and God say, “No!” 

Keller says idols cannot simply be removed, they must be replaced. In Jesus’ parable, the unclean spirit left the man. But when it returned for another look, it found the house unoccupied, swept clean, and back in order. So it moved in again, bringing seven spirits worse than itself (Mat 12:43-35). 

Keep yourself from idols, John says. Drive out the evil desires and dysfunctions in your life. But don’t stop there, or worse will come. Fill the vacancy with a new set of desires and practices. 

Let’s pray. 

Our father, I like easy pictures of the Christian life. Like “born again”, a simple one-time event that changes my inner orientation. And “filled with the spirit”, a moment in which the evil spirit in me is replaced with your Holy Spirit. 

But these spiritual experiences are just beginnings, invitations to new possibilities, the first step on a long journey, the first glimpse of a healthy and holy land where I might settle. 

O  father, I repent again, sweeping clean my inner house, resolving against unhealthy daydreams, compulsive eating, and spiritual addictions. I invite you to light my inner life, to renew my mind, to guide my relationships, to direct my journey.  

Give me grace and discernment to follow Jesus. 

Amen. 

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.  

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

John finishes his epistle with the words, “Dear children, keep yourself from idols” (1 John 5:21). 

Is this for me? Do I have idols?  

Idols represent unseen forces. Through them you communicate with spiritual powers, asking them to manage your life and circumstances. Fertility gods ensure abundant crops and lots of children. The god Jupiter was responsible for Roman life and culture and success in war. The god Minerva oversaw domestic households and craftspeople like stonemasons and carpenters. 

What about my idols in the year 2023, the things I rely on to manage my life? The federal government provides my retirement pension. Alberta provides health care. I bow to the great Internet goddess that provides news and entertainment. My credit card prays to Amazon, the god of  things, who sends messengers to my doorstep. What more do I need for a successful life? 

Timothy Keller’s book Counterfeit Gods: the Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power says: 
“An idol is anything we cannot live without. We must have it. It drives us to break once-honored rules, to harm others and ourselves to get it. Idols are spiritual addictions . . .”

Am I addicted to the stock market? To the internet? To the power and privilege of my rich western identity? Are these my idols? 

The problem of idols would be much easier if I relied on wood-and-silver images. Instead, I must make an imaginative leap to identify untruthful thoughts and beliefs that guide my life. 

Wood-and-silver idols can be thrown in the garbage. But I don’t want to solve my dependency on money by throwing hundred dollar bills in the fire. Nor do I want to solve my food addiction by fasting for 40 days. 

Let’s pray. 

O father, our world and culture promise satisfaction. But you challenge our motives. You critique our hearts. You call us to step away from our culture to a place where you manage our lives. 

Like the children of Israel, we journey through a vast and barren land, looking for freedom from addictions that enslave us. This desert is dangerous and dry, full of alluring idols and lurking serpents. We are hungry and thirsty and lost. 

O God, walk with us on this perilous road. Manage our lives, change our circumstances, lead us to food and water and shelter. And make us new people, in a new land, with new loyalties and habits and desires. 

You made us in your image, O God, but we dishonor and deface that image. Forgive us, cast down our false images, restore us to your true image. 

Amen. 

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.  

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

I used to think of eternal life as future tense. Today I’m here. Tomorrow I die. Then I live forever. Simple. 

John has a different view of eternal life. He says,  
    The life [which was from the beginning] appeared.
      We have seen it and
      we proclaim to you the eternal life,
            which was with the father and has appeared to us (1 Jn 1:1-2).

Here, John identifies Jesus, the hybrid God-man, as “eternal life”. This eternal life is not a “state of being” but a person. That’s weird. 

Later, John says:
  God has given us eternal life and this life is in his son” (1 Jn 5:11). 

This eternal life is a gift God has already given us. But what about death? Is that just a bump in the road where the wheels come off my body, but my inner life continues undisturbed? 

John also says, 
 God the father is the true God and eternal life,
      And we are in him,
              because we are in his Son Jesus Christ (1 John 5:20).

Here, God is eternal life.

I draw two conclusions: 

First, John doesn’t give a rational definition of eternal life. Instead, he looks at Jesus, whom he knew, who was raised from the dead. John says, That kind of life is in our future too.     

Second, John says, That’s not all. It’s not just future tense, it’s in our present. Why? Because Jesus, the one who lives forever, lives in us. 

The true measure of my life is not sickness or health, poverty or wealth. No, its dimensions are set by the source of life that lives in me. Since that source is Jesus,I’m already living my forever life with him. 

Let’s pray. 

Our father, today is a day of our eternal life.
  It is a day for praising you, because we will praise you forever.
  It is a day for listening to your spirit, for your spirit will speak to us forever.
  It is a day for receiving Christ’s blessing, for he will bless us forever.
  It is a day for loving our neighbor, for we will be neighbors forever. 

Today is also a day of struggle.
  This harvest of new life grows side by side with the weeds of the old life.
  This life that dies is a companion to a life that lives forever.
  The war between good and evil still rages in my body and my mind. 

O father, bring quickly that day when your children will be free, when the old life will be  lost, and the new life will live forever. 

Amen. 

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.  

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube