Finishing strong

I enjoy mountain biking, but I hate being unfit (as I am). The other day, cycling with a friend, I had to stop half way through a route to get off my bike and sit down!

Steve Farrar wrote a very good book for men called: “Finishing Strong - Going the distance for your family”. Farrar points out the danger to men of messing up and not finishing the Christian life as faithful men, or as Paul described, as being “disqualified for the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:27).

We all want to finish strong as Christians. We all want to be effective, productive Christians. We don’t want to slip into sin and addiction. We don’t want to fall in the wilderness as the majority of Israelites did after the Exodus. As Christians, we can’t loose our salvation because God is faithful, but we can live in disobedience and suffer God’s discipline and withdrawal of blessing.

The Bible says that the Israelites all shared the same spiritual privileges, but still the majority did not enter the Promised Land and finish strong (1 Corinthians 10:1-5). Similarly, you may have enjoyed many spiritual blessings, been a member of a good church and even attended a great bible study, yet you may be in danger of slipping up half way. How do we prevent this from happening? The Bible uses the Israelites example as a warning to us to flee from idolatry (1 Corinthians 10:7,14). Idolatry is the root cause of all sin. Idolatry is putting a created thing before the creator. Idolatry is the default position of our hearts. If you want to finish the Christian race strong, guard your heart against idolatry. We can idolize anything: food, sport, marriage, sex, status, money, and ourselves. Idolatry leads you to take your allegiance and worship away from Jesus, and to worship at the altar of a foreign god. If you worship the sex god, you will end up an adulterer or pornographer. If you worship the food good, you will end up obese.

What are you tempted to worship? Jesus, or something or someone else? The Bible goes on to say that God will not permit us to be tempted beyond what we can endure and God will provide a way through the trial in order that we, through persistent trust and obedience, may finish strong (1 Corinthians 10:12-13.)

My idol factory

Growing up I never took seriously the Bible’s warnings against idolatry as I thought there were not that relevant. Maybe in Thailand where bus drivers take their hands off the wheel to say a silent prayer at every Buddha shrine they drive past! Very few of us have private shrines in our homes to other gods. How wrong I was. Idolatry is, according to Roman 1, the underlying sin of our age as people have “worshipped and served created things rather than the creator”. Our hearts are idol factories.

Ten Commandments

Have no other Gods before me, is the first commandment. The Bible is not politically correct and the competition commission would certainly not be happy. But God demands that we treasure him alone for he is the only God. This means turning from rebellion towards God and trusting in Jesus.

Have no idols, the second command, clarifies the first. To have other gods before God is idolatry. An idol can be ANYTHING that takes the place of God in your life. ANYTHING that demands your devotion and where you seek your security and significance. ANYTHING you treasure instead of God.

It could be the sex idol. You know you’re serving this god when you demand sex - when you want it, how you want it and you’re angry when you don’t get it. You’re even willing to hire an escort, watch porno or swing with someone else’s wife.

The work idol demands that we spend all our daylight hours in the office and only see our children on weekends

The money idol demands that your happiness is caught up with the JSE.

The leisure idol allows you to worship Jesus at church only when the weather on Sundays is too windy to go the beach or not wet enough to stay in bed.

The worship of the acceptance idol calls for your Facebook status to be changed every hour and it is also because of the worship of this idol that girlfriends allow boyfriends to take naked photos of them.
Of course there are also religious idols like my right-doctrine idol or my moral-record idol, and even my ministry-achievement idol.

The media calls you to worship these and other idols by “worship-calling”, known also as advertising.

So, do you worship Jesus alone, or some other idol? Do you strive to keep the first two commandments?

Capetonian idols

The bible regularly condemns idolatry, yet many Christians do not think it is an issue in the 21st century. Cape Town contains no shrines to Baal, Molech, Artemis or Caesar. How are we to understand idolatry?

In Acts 17 Paul visits one of the cultural centres of the known world with its unparalleled architecture, art and philosophy. Rather than being over-awed by the Athens’ beauty, Paul is provoked to anger by the fact that the city is submerged in idols.

Anger, by the way, is a very Christian emotion as God and Jesus were provoked to anger by the golden calf and the phony worship in Jerusalem’s temple. Ephesians 4:26 tells us to be angry (at the things God is angry with), but not to sin in that anger.

If Paul had walked around our city, he would have the same reaction. Here are some of our idols that are worshipped as gods:

The money god
We have built magnificent alters to this god for when he finally visits our country in June/ July. We call the alters “stadiums” and believe that when this great god comes to bless our country all will be well. All gods (even false ones) demand sacrifice, and we have sacrificed the basic needs of the poor.

The sex god
The alters are called Teasers and Mavericks. This god is also worshipped in hundreds of brothels, hotel rooms and private studies on the internet. Men sacrifice their families, and their emotional and physical health.

The children god
In DSM4 a new mental disorder is diagnosed: Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Young people are growing up thinking there are god and life revolves around them. Being a celebrity is a major goal of most teenagers. The biggest cause of this disorder is parents over-praising their offspring and always giving them what they want. Parents bring gifts of Playstation and iphones and the child god blesses them with a few hours of peace. Parents sacrifice the long term good of all involved.

The lifestyle god
Work is the alter of this god, and the great hope is lifestyle maintenance. This god demands a big house, two new cars, fashionable clothes and children at snobby schools. We sacrifice family relationship and spiritual growth as there is little time for either.

The comfort god
Comfort and wellbeing of devotees are this god’s great promise. This god may demand that followers move to a “safe” country to be better worshipped. Devotees are happy to sacrifice a good church, extended family, support structures and their Christian witness. Devotees are prone to ignore Acts 17:26 that says the true God has determined the exact places where we should live.

Other miscellaneous gods
Of course, there is the wife god, the husband god, the fame god, the status god, the sport god, the beer god, the TV god, the food god (his name is DEFY), the recreation god and the my possessions god, to name a few.

We, like Paul, should be provoked to anger at these false gods in our city and in our own hearts. Our city is indeed submerged with idols and needs to be confronted with the one true God – Jesus – who is creator, sustainer, ruler, father and judge.


ps. Lets support Bafana without putting our hope and confidence the FIFA world cup to transform and revive our country!