What To Do About Strange Gods In Your Life

My Utmost For His Highest 

If you had known…in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. —Luke 19:42

{CHAMBERS} “Jesus entered Jerusalem triumphantly and the city was stirred to its very foundations, but a strange god was there– the pride of the Pharisees. It was a god that seemed religious and upright, but Jesus compared it to “whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matthew 23:27).  […] Do you have a strange god– not a disgusting monster but perhaps an unholy nature that controls your life? More than once God has brought me face to face with a strange god in my life, and I knew that I should have given it up, but I didn’t do it. […] It is a shocking thing that we can be in the exact place where the Spirit of God should be having His completely unhindered way with us, and yet we only make matters worse, increasing our blame in God’s eyes.[…] because you have never completely yielded your nature to Him.”

{ELGIN}  We all struggle with a “strange god” in our lives.  One or more things that our flesh clings to.  But we don’t want to talk about it and certainly not admit it to other Christians.  At the root of the problem is unbelief.  We believe that we must hold on to those things for our life to be right in our eyes. (leaning on our own “carnal” understanding) All the while knowing that it is those strange gods that keep us from total surrender to the sovereignty of God.  It’s a spiritual battle and you need spiritual strength to overcome it, to cast those gods out, to surrender to God fully.  Unfortunately we can get comfortable with those strange gods.  We can make room for them in our “religious” way of life.  I know the temptation and so do you.  The command to “Love God with all your heart” (Matthew 22:37) is appealing to us but is appalling to our old nature.  The only way you will cast those strange gods out of your life is to not make room for them.  If all you do is cast the god out but do not replace it with submission to God in that area of your life, the god will return (Matthew 12:43-45).