Creative Challenge: Idolatry?

For my devotional reading this morning, I read the first 10 chapters of Jeremiah. (OKay I typoed in the first edition, there are not 100 chapters in Jeremiah) Don’t think me over spiritual, I was playing catchup after a busy week. In those chapters God is instructing Jeremiah what to say to the already captive Israel and the soon to be captive Judah. As you read you can hear the angry and hurting Father mourning over his chosen nation as they fall away from him and into idolatry. My first thoughts went to our own nation but I kept feeling God drawing me back to me. Is there anything in my lifethat is drawing me away from Him? How about you?

I was listening to Craig Groschel yesterday. In his message he brought up a great point. He said what you worry about most is what you value most. What is it you worry about most? Could that be becoming an idol for you? The next point Groschel made was what you worry about most is the area where you trust God the least. This could be another symptom of an idol manifesting itself.

So what’s the challenge. Search your heart and pray, then create something that expresses your idol or something in danger of becoming an idol in your life. Yes I know it may sound ludicrous to create an image of your idol, but I’m not done. The next thing I want you to do is either ruin it or paint the no sign over it and keep it as a reminder for you not to go there.

Idolatry breaks the heart of God. Let’s live to please Him instead. Keep Him first.
w=267, mw=2, mr=2

Unplugged?

Jesus commanded us to go and make disciples. Basically the word disciple means followers. I believe making disciple is the end purpose of most of the work that we do for the Lord. Of course in order to make a disciple you sort of have to be a disciple, so how do we become fully devoted followers of Christ? Well of course a lot of that is dependent on the Holy Spirit but it is no coincidence that the word disciple and the word discipline are so closely related. There is a lot of discipline involved in being a disciple.

Probably the most important of these disciplines is prayer. The Bible commands us to pray without ceasing. You might say how can I possibly do that? Well that doesn’t mean we spend all day every day on our knees before the Lord. What it does mean is we keep the line of communication open. We go to Him, to praise Him, thank Him, as well as to present our requests and our desires. It also means we take the time to listen to what He has to say. Prayer is a conversation. We need to make sure we are taking the time to listen. If we are not disciplined about prayer, eventually it will get pushed to the side by a multitude of things that seem more pressing. Don’t you believe that. Prayer may well be the most important thing we do. If we want the things we do in this world not to mention our lives to be meaningful and anointed, we really need to bathe them in prayer.

Prayer also helps us keep our priorities straight. It helps us find the right things to do, remember why we’re doing them and Who we’re ultimately doing them for. It helps us to keep Jesus number one. If Jesus isn’t first in our lives and in our churches we’re out of order. I’m not saying this is the problem but I am saying whether it’s personal faith, a church, or a denomination it’s the first thing we need to check. If your car stops working you don’t start tearing the engine apart before you check the gas gauge. If your computer doesn’t work, before you call tech support, you check to make sure it’s plugged in. And if your life and your faith and your church aren’t working, and the fire and the excitement just aren’t quite there, the first thing you need to check is your connection to the source of your power. Is Jesus first in your life and are you connecting to Him on a daily basis?

Jesus is the source of our power. We need Him to get through each day. Are you connecting to Him or are you living life Unplugged?

Bible Reading Guide
An important part of following God is knowing what He wants and a great way to know what He wants is to read His Word. Follow this plan and you will finish reading the Bible in a year.
Leviticus 5,6; John 2; Psalm 100
You can also download your own chart here.

Devotion

I’m posting Genesis 3 from the Abstract Bible this morning. Satan tempts Eve and throws humanity for a loop for all time. I want to focus this morning on how Satan made it happen. Essentially Satan got Eve to question whether or not God meant what He said and then question God’s motivations and goodness. See for yourself.

Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

I did a piece of art earlier on the week about the tree of knowledge. You can see that below. The point is simple. God didn’t want them too eat from the tree not because He is bad but because they would never have had to know evil. He wanted them to live in paradise forever.

Questioning what God meant has become almost a spectator sport in our world, even in the church. This is part of the reason I started doing the Abstract Bible project. It’s a time of personal devotion. It’s not my only time of devotion, but it is something I do to dwell on the scripture and take it to heart. The reason I post it on video and share it is because I want to give you another chance to hear the unfiltered Word of God and share an idea you can use for drawing closer to God through His Word. This is also the reason I post the daily one year Bible reading.

I also posted it because I needed it myself. As a pastor, I spend time in the Bible for part of my living, but there was a problem with that. I found that I was getting into the Word mostly for research, so I’d have something to preach. That’s not really enough. There needed to be some more time where it was just me and God for no other reason than for Him to speak into my life. There were times where I genuinely missed that.

We all need to be in the Word of God. It is our God given weapon against the attacks of the enemy. It is the resource we can use when outside forces try to get us to question God’s Word and His love, whether He means what He says and whether or not He loves us. The Bible is His answer, it’s His love letter to you. A closed Bible is useless, to reap it’s power and wisdom, it has to be opened. Find a devotional practice that works for you and do it every day.This Lord’s day (and every day), get in the Word.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

Bible Reading Guide
An important part of following God is knowing what He wants and a great way to know what He wants is to read His Word. Follow this plan and you will finish reading the Bible in a year.
Genesis 45, Job 21-23, Psalm 13
You can also download your own chart here.

AMOKArts Abstract Bible: Genesis 1

How are you doing with your Bible reading this year? Are you following the chart below? You don’t have to follow the chart but you do need to read and study the Word of God.
Here’s a devotional project you may want to try. I call it The Abstract Bible. The idea is simple, I read a chapter from the Bible, pray about it and create a quick sketch painting based on the passage.

This is going to be helpful to me in a couple of areas. One is I want to get better at creating abstract art. I also want to spend more time in the Word.

Please understand this is not my sole devotional time. I don’t know how many of these I will get done because they take a decent amount of time to put together, but that’s okay, there is no pressure. It’s based off this idea I heard a long time ago, What I hear I forget. What I see I remember. What I do I understand. Doing these paintings gives me more time to dwell on a text and I have a lasting reminder of the passage.

You don’t have to paint, you could draw, sketch, paint or journal, do whatever works for you, just spend time in the Word and in prayer. Speaking of spending time in the Word…

Bible Reading Guide
An important part of following God is knowing what He wants and a great way to know what He wants is to read His Word. Follow this plan and you will finish reading the Bible in a year.
Genesis 20-22, Galatians 2
You can also download your own chart here.