Ep.248: Thinking about Idols.

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

Ep.347: Idols Then and Now.

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

Ep.346: Eternal Life.

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

Ep.345: The Other Trinity.

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

John says that Jesus came by water and blood (1 John 5:6).

An odd statement. When I ring your doorbell, I don’t come by water and blood. What does that even mean? 

John says further,
    There are three that testify: 
       The Spirit, the water, and the blood;
           and these three are in agreement (1 John 5:7-8). 

Interesting. But in the King James Bible another threesome accompanies the spirit, water, and blood. That Bible says,
      There are three that testify in heaven:
          The Father, the Word, and the Spirit,
                and these three are one (1 John 5:7-8, KJV, paraphrased). 

This is the simplest and clearest statement of the Trinity that has ever appeared in the Bible. But–and yes, there is a significant but. That Trinity verse isn’t found in the earliest and most reliable manuscripts, so most modern scholars reject it. How did it find its way into the Bible? 

Imagine some early scholar thinking about the spirit, water, and blood, which agree in their testimony about Jesus. It’s tantalizingly close to the doctrine of the Trinity, but doesn’t quite get there. So our ancient scholar decides to help out his favorite doctrine by making minor insertion into the text.

Meanwhile, what about the Trinity-hinting phrase–the spirit, water, and blood? It seems to me John uses this to bring his letter full circle. At the beginning he said, We have seen, heard, and touched the Word of Life (1:1-2).  

Now John concludes: the reality of Jesus is supported by two physical elements–water and blood–and one spiritual element, the witness of the spirit. 

Why does he use water and blood as his physical witnesses? I don’t know. But I do know that traces of water and blood followed Jesus all his life. His birth to Mary involved water and blood. He was baptized in a river. His crucifixion was a bloody affair and a Roman spear brought water from his side.

He lived his water-and-blood life by the Spirit. And after the crucifixion, the Spirit raised his dead body to life. 

In this simple picture of water and blood and spirit, John completes the circle of his letter. He started with Jesus as a pure spirit, “that which was from the beginning”, who became a human that John could see and touch and feel.

 Now John concludes with another picture of spirit joined to flesh:
    The Spirit and the water and the blood testify about Jesus, 
        and these three are in agreement. 

Let’s pray. 

O Jesus, in our short lives, 
    We are born in water and blood.
    We are sustained by water and blood. 
    And soon our water and blood will flow into the earth.

But you, Jesus, were with God in the beginning.
    You chose to share our time-bound experience of water and blood,
        to visit us and live with us and save us.  

O Jesus, dwell in our bodies of clay.
  Teach us to live as you lived in this physical world. 

And after our water and blood flow back to the earth
    and our bodies turn to dust,
    raise us in new bodies in a new world to live a new life with you.

 Amen. 

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

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.344: Unburdened.

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

John said,
  This how we love God:
      by keeping his commands.
      And his commands are not burdensome.
            (1 Jn 5:3)

God’s commands not burdensome? Really? The Ten Commandments are a light load? Even after Jesus elaborated them? 

For example, one commandment says, “Don’t commit adultery”. Jesus added, And that includes even fantasizing about sex (Mat 5:27-28).   

Jesus said, Hating your brother, is like murder! (Mat 5:21-22).

He also said, “If your hand offends you, cut it off. If your eye offends you, gouge it out” (Mat 5:29-30).

If I apply Jesus’ standard of amputating body parts to my mind, because of the things I think about, I’d need a frontal lobotomy. Which would solve some of my problems, but create others. 

Bible interpreters say, “Jesus didn’t want a bunch of amputees. He used hyperbole to make a point.” 

Perhaps. But the hyperbole doesn’t make the commands lighter. It adds weight to already weighty commands. So what to do with John’s opinion that Jesus’ commands aren’t burdensome?

Listen to the rest of John’s statement:
    His commands are not burdensome,
    because everyone born of God overcomes the world.
        This is the victory that overcomes the world,
                even our faith (1 Jn 5:3-4).

Strangely enough, my faltering attempts to keep the commands make me believe that yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Somewhere beyond me, and growing within me, is a gift of God that disciplines my mind, reforms my desires, and shifts my values.

The spiritual life isn’t measured by whether God meets my expectations, like the store survey that asks, “Did we exceed your expectations?” Rather, God is like a life coach who asks, “Do you know what you really want?” 

The psalmist said,
  Delight yourself in the Lord
      and he will give you the desires of your heart (Ps 37:4).

I know the desires of my flesh: food and sex and entertainment and comfort. But the desires of the heart are deeper.

In CS Lewis’ novel Queen Orual says, “you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years . . . Till that word can be dug out of us, why should [the gods] hear the babble we think we mean?”  (Till We Have Faces, ch. 4). 

Do you know the speech that lies at the center of your soul? What is your heart’s desire? 

Let’s pray. 

Our father, I still find your commands burdensome. I like my comfortable, middle-class life in a rich country. I am not sure how to leave it all and follow you. But your call rings in my ears and tugs at my heart. It changes my mind and directs my journey. 

I hear people speak of finding their passion. But passion is too shallow a word for the desire of my heart. You are my heart’s desire. I want to please you. To imitate you by loving others. Even to lose my life, if that will help me find life in you.

May your spirit challenge my shallow desires, and draw me to find the riches of my heart’s desire.  

Amen. 

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

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube