idolatry on Beauty

Recently, when I was in London, I went to the National Gallery. It was a weekday, but it was still crowded with people wearing headsets, staring at famous paintings, listening to a narrator explain th...

Each of us, Lord, has failed to fully observe your beauty. We fall in love with our own image and are left disappointed and alone. Please be faithful to us, Jesus, even when we turn from You. We...

In a world where sex, wealth, power, and beauty are the dominant idols, these idols will flood our dominant media.

In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the ...

Leader: Sing to the Lord a new song! Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord! Bless his name! Proclaim his salvation from day to day! Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works...

Joy’s trick is to supply  Dry lips with what can cool and slake,  Leaving them dumbstruck also with an  ache Nothing can satisfy.

What people revere, they resemble, either for ruin or restoration.

A possession ought to belong to the possessor, not the possessor to the possession.

We are masters at creating an image, but we are novices at recognizing and repenting of the image we have created.

Man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.

Preaching Commentary Preaching Angle: The God Who Transforms As the Lectionary readings traverse from last week’s readings in Acts 7 (Stephen’s sermon and martyrdom) into this week’s reading of Pau...

Almighty God, You created us in your image, each of us in your likeness. Help us to worship You alone, Lord, and never bow to any created thing. We see your handiwork in every one of your works, b...

Great needs grow from great possessions.

O God, you are indeed worthy of our praise and worship. Yet we turn away and worship other gods. We find ourselves at the altar of our careers, our financial security, our self-image, our status. We t...

There was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he ...

What each one honors before all else, what before all things he admires and loves, this for him is God.

The heart clings to collected treasure. Stored-up possessions get between me and God. Where my treasure is, there is my trust, my security, my comfort, my God. Treasure means idolatry.

Your grace, O God, has appeared for the salvation of all, calling us to renounce false gods and irresponsible love. In the midst of our sin, Christ has appeared as a sign of our hope, redeeming us and...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Prophetic Struggles The job of a prophet does not appear to have been pleasant. Jeremiah struggles with the message he is entrusted to ...

We are complicit and we do not even realize it, O Holy God. Every day we participate in systems of idolatry, and we promote the captivity of a nation to gods. We have bought the subtle lies of our cul...

In Easter Everywhere: A Memoir, Darcey Steinke recounts how she, the daughter of a Lutheran minister, left her Christian profession. Moving to New York City she entered a life of club hopping and se...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Prophetic Struggles The job of a prophet does not appear to have been pleasant. Jeremiah struggles with the message he is entrusted to ...

God of the common and of the uncommon. You meet us in the ordinary routines of life–when we play and when we rest, while we work and while we worship. And You reveal yourself in the extraordinary, too...

Preaching Commentary Different Levels of Maturity? There is an interesting dynamic I have noticed that often occurs as people begin to mature into adults. In my life it was a stage that took place ...

In his excellent book, The Magnificent Story , James Bryan Smith shares this short little anecdote from the world of bumper stickers. While funny, it also brings up the commonplace idolatry that ...

Two golden rules at the heart of spirituality. You become like what you worship. When you gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character o...

Earthly goods are given to be used, not to be collected.... Hoarding is idolatry.

There are more idols in the world than there are realities.

Tony Reinke does a great job capturing the deep ambivalence many of us feel about our smartphones in this short excerpt: This blasted smartphone! Pesk of productivity. Tenfold plague of beeps and ...

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Which Interpretative Lens Should You Use? I have a general rule of thumb when studying a text. If I can read the early...