Monthly Archives: December 2015

He Did It For Himself

Bible Study, , , ,

HE DID IT FOR HIMSELF

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love, He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will – to the praise of His glorious grace, which He freely gives us in the One He loves (Eph. 1: 3-6).

Today I have the pleasure of directing your attention to something Paul wrote that the church has either largely ignored or forgotten. In a popular Christian magazine published in my country, the editor wrote in her editorial, three reasons for needing Jesus: We need forgiveness, we need a friend and we need a future.

This is a typical symptom of the humanistic Jesus and the humanistic gospel that is prevalent in the church today. God the Father and Jesus the Son have been downgraded to those who are here to meet our needs. Although it is true that God does meet our needs, is that the reason He had such a daring plan in sending His Son into the world?

Church groups and denominational and independent evangelists often visit my town, and prepare their arrival by putting up large, brightly coloured posters announcing their campaigns with words such as “Come and get your miracle”! This may be a “seeker-friendly” way to attract people, but is this the message of the gospel?

By the way, I have also noticed how much of Christian “prayer” treats God like a celestial “slot machine”. Drop your prayer into the slot, push the button and out comes the answer – a practice disguised by the words, “I’m believing God for . . .” What happened to the trust, submission and obedience that are the hallmarks of a son or daughter? Jesus taught us to pray, “Your will be done,” not, “My will be done . . . and I have told you what I want!”

Strangely enough, Paul mentions none of these motives for believing in Jesus in his letter to the Ephesian church. He paints a very different picture for believing in Jesus from the one presented by much of our modern-day evangelism. His outburst of praise flowed from his understanding of God’s heart. Why did God send Jesus? So that we can escape hell and go to heaven? So that God can take away all our problems and give us health and wealth to enjoy this life?

Paul repeatedly incorporated a six-word phrase into his expression of praise, which says it all! God did everything through Christ “to the praise of His glory.” Before Paul’s arrival, Ephesus was a city of paganism, idolatry and witchcraft and the evil practices accompanying these false beliefs. The people worshipped Diana, a many-breasted goddess, through cult prostitution with the priestesses at Diana’s temple.

Paul’s letter to a church in this city is proof enough of the power of the gospel of Jesus to rescue people from the “gates of hell”. Through His power, He changed their lives from idol-worshippers to sons and daughters of the Most High God, whom He had called to be “holy and blameless in His sight.” Wow!

But what did Paul preach? Come to Jesus to have your sins forgiven. He will be your friend and you will have a future in heaven? A thousand times, no! Paul and Peter preached the same message. Paul wrote:

For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ (2 Cor. 4: 5-6).

And on the Day of Pentecost, Peter declared:

Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah (Acts 2: 36).

It was God’s plan from the beginning, not just to take us to heaven when we die, but to transform us from rebel sinners into sons and daughters, recreated in the image of our Creator and refashioned into the image of His Son. His plan was that we should reflect His glory by being replicas of His Son on earth.

For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed (Rom. 8: 19).

Paul stated with great vehemence to the Galatian church:

But even if we or an angel from heaven, should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be under God’s curse (Gal. 1: 8).

Dear reader, beware! Do not fall for a gospel that dethrones Jesus. Jesus died in obedience to the Father so that the Father’s mercy (the glory) could forever be put on display. Anything less than that is not the gospel. It is a lie!

Oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His paths beyond tracing out . . . for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever! Amen (Rom. 11: 33; 36).

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?

 

 

Hello, Ephesian Believers!

Bible Study, , ,

HELLO, EPHESIAN BELIEVERS!

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 1: 1-2).

I wonder if we will even appreciate the significance of these words of greeting or even the letter Paul wrote to this church in Asia Minor.

A Roman writer once called Ephesus Lumen Asiae, The Light of Asia. Ephesus, with a population of 300,000, was the chief commercial city of the province and the centre of the mother goddess worship of western Asia. In the New Testament era, it was the fourth greatest city in the world, after Rome, Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch of Syria . . .

The apostle Paul first visited Ephesus on the return from his missionary journey where he “entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews” (Acts 18:19-21).

On his second journey, Paul came to Ephesus and taught the twelve disciples who knew only the baptism of John (Acts 19:1-7) and “went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God” (Acts 19:8). He later taught in the school of Tryannus for two years, and as a result, “all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 19:9-10).

Ephesus was full of wizards, sorcerers, witches, astrologers, diviners of the entrails of animals and people who could read one’s fortune by the palm of the hand. And yet, after the preaching of Paul, the magicians publicly burned their books, “so the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed” (Acts 19:19-20). Timothy and Erastus were with Paul, but he sent them to Macedonia, while “he himself stayed in Asia for a time” (Acts 19:22) . . .

The disturbance over Diana of the Ephesians is one of the most prominent stories in the book of Acts (Acts 19:23-41). There were 33 temples in the Greco-Roman world where Diana was worshiped. After Paul’s preaching in Ephesus had harmed the local silversmiths who made statues of Diana, Paul’s companions, Gaius and Aristarchus, were dragged into the theatre. The disciples would not allow Paul to go into the assembly . . .

“The goddess who had largely given Ephesus its wealth and importance — so that it was a kind of Lourdes of the ancient world — was at the core of so much human thinking. She derived from those early manifestations of religious belief, the mother-goddess figures to be found from Asia Minor to the Cyclades, and westward to Sicily. The embodiment of the female principle, she represented not only fertility but resurrection in the shape of the new birth, the eternal return of life to the earth and, as found in a number of early carvings, the ‘Tree of Life’. As Isis she bore the divine son, Horus; and as Artemis, she was the Mother of Wild Things, the goddess of all animals. The Isis-Artemis conception embraced everything. It could be taken at any level; from the simple peasant’s conception of the divinity who would ensure that his beasts and land were fruitful, to the intellectual idea of an all-creating mother who sustained the whole universe.” (Ernle Bradford, Paul The Traveler, pp. 194-195).

http://www.biblelandhistory.com/turkey/ephesus.html – retrieved December 2015

Paul challenged Diana worship, not by doing “spiritual warfare” or preaching against her in the city but by declaring the truth about Jesus, despite opposition and personal danger. The outcome was startling. The worship of Diana was in tatters. When the many people who were involved in witchcraft, received Jesus as Lord, they burned their occult paraphernalia. The silversmiths, let by Demetrius, rioted because they had lost their business selling Diana images.

The power of the gospel had broken the evil deception of Diana, just as Jesus had told His disciples it would during their visit to Caesarea Philippi (Matt. 16: 13-19).

How marvellous that Paul could write words like “to God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus,” to a group of people who were once pagan idolaters! They had worshipped the image of a goddess whose history goes back to the time of Nimrod, the rebel king who, together with his wicked wife, Semiramis, led a revolt against Yahweh and set up the first organised false religious system of sun-worship, symbolised by the tower of Babel.

How tragic that the church today, in the name of Jesus, has unwittingly reincorporated so much of the pagan mythology of Diana-worship into the worship of Jesus, especially in the so-called “Christian” festivals of Christmas and Easter. We have swallowed the lies of the Roman Catholic Church by following their deceptive “Christianising” of the worship of the sun-god, Baal, through the incorporation of the many symbols of Baal-worship into our celebrations in the name of the one who expressly forbade the practice.

God has entrusted to His people the rich treasure of His Word. He asked us to preserve it intact and teach it as the truth, not to add or subtract anything. He will hold us accountable for what we do with it because His Word is the embodiment of Himself.

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once of all entrusted to the saints (Jude 1: 3).

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?

 

 

The Origin Of The Legend Of Nimrod

Apologetics, , , ,

THE ORIGIN OF THE LEGEND OF NIMROD

The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan). These were the three sons of Noah, and from them came the people who were scattered over the whole earth (Gen. 9: 18-19).

This is the account of Shem, Ham and Japheth, Noah’s sons, who themselves had sons after the flood . . . the sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put and Canaan . . .Cush was the father of Nimrod, who became a mighty hunter before the Lord; that is why it is said, ‘Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.’ The first centres of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar. From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah – which is the great city (Gen 10: 1; 6-12).

The Bible gives very little information about Nimrod, a significant figure in the evolution of the false religion which infiltrated the nations of the ancient world and still powerfully influences the world today. We have to rely on the findings of archaeology and tradition to build a picture of this man and his contribution to what is called “Babylonian Mystery Religions”.

. . . First, what does the name Nimrod mean? It comes from the Hebrew verb marad, meaning “rebel.” Adding an “n” before the “m”, it becomes an infinitive construct, “Nimrod.” (see Kautzsch 1910: 137 2b, also BDB 1962: 597). The meaning then is “The Rebel.” Thus “Nimrod” may not be the character’s name at all. It is more likely a derisive term of a type, a representative of a system that is epitomized by rebellion against the Creator, the one true God. Rebellion began soon after the Flood as civilizations were restored. At that time, this person became very prominent.

In Genesis 10:8-11 we learn that “Nimrod” established a kingdom. Therefore, one would expect to find also, in the literature of the ancient Near East, a person who was a type, for example, for other people to follow. And there was. It is a well-known tale, common in Sumerian literature, of a man who fits the description. In addition to the Sumerians, the Babylonians wrote about this person; the Assyrians likewise; and the Hittites. Even in Israel, tablets have been found with this man’s name on them. He was obviously the most popular hero in the Ancient Near East.

The Gilgamesh Epic

The person we are referring to, found in extra-Biblical literature was Gilgamesh. The first clay tablets naming him were found among the ruins of the temple library of the god Nabu (Biblical Nebo) and the palace library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh. Many others have been found since in a number of excavations . . . 

How does Gilgamesh compare with “Nimrod?” Ancient historian Josephus says of Nimrod,

Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah – a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it were through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny – seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence upon his own power.

He also said he would be revenged on God if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach! and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers! (Ant. I: iv: 2)

What Josephus says here is precisely what is found in the Gilgamesh epics. Gilgamesh set up tyranny, he opposed YHWH and did his utmost to get people to forsake Him . . .

After the Flood, there was, at some point, a breakaway from YHWH. Only eight people descended from the Ark. Those people worshipped YHWH. But at some point an influential person became opposed to YHWH and gathered others to his side. I suggest that Nimrod is the one who did it. Cain had done similarly before the Flood, founding a new city and religious system.

Our English translation of the Hebrew of Genesis 10: 8-10 is weak. The author of this passage of Scripture will not call Gilgamesh by his name and honor him, but is going to call him by a derisive name, what he really is – a rebel. Therefore, we should translate Genesis 10:8-10 to read,

Cush begat Nimrod; he began to be a tyrant in the Earth. He was a tyrannical hunter in opposition to the Lord. Thus, it is said, ‘Nimrod the tyrannical opponent of YHWH.’

Likewise, Gilgamesh was a man who took control by his own strength. In Genesis 10 Nimrod is presented as a type of him. Nimrod’s descendants were the ones who began building the tower in Babel where the tongues were changed. Gilgamesh is a type of early city founders.

Two of the premiere commentators on the Bible in Hebrew have this to say about Genesis 10:9,

Nimrod was mighty in hunting, and that in opposition to YHWH; not ‘before YHWH’ in the sense of according to the will and purpose of YHWH, still less,… in a simply superlative sense… The name itself, ‘Nimrod’ from marad, ‘We will revolt,’ points to some violent resistance to God… Nimrod as a mighty hunter founded a powerful kingdom; and the founding of this kingdom is shown by the verb with consecutive to have been the consequence or result of his strength in hunting so that hunting was intimately connected with the establishing of the kingdom. Hence, if the expression ‘a mighty hunter’ relates primarily to hunting in the literal sense, we must add to the literal meaning the figurative signification of a ‘hunter of men’ (a trapper of men by stratagem and force); Nimrod the hunter became a tyrant, a powerful hunter of men (Keil and Delitzsch 1975: 165).

“in the face of YHWH” can only mean ‘in defiance of YHWH’ as Josephus and the Targums understand it (op. cit.: 166).

And the proverb must have arisen when other daring and rebellious men followed in Nimrod’s footsteps and must have originated with those who saw in such conduct an act of rebellion against the God of salvation, in other words, with the possessors of the divine promise of grace (loc. cit.).

http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/nimrod.html – retrieved December 2015.

I have included this lengthy quote to set the scene for our investigation of the origins of the false religious system originated by this man we know as Nimrod, and his evil wife, Semiramis.

A variety of legends grew up around Nimrod. He reappeared in the pagan religions of other countries, together with his wife, by different names, but with the same history, myths and beliefs surrounding them.

In Egypt, Semiramis and Nimrod were known as

Isis and Osiris

Ashtaroth and Baal, in Phoenicia,

Aphrodite and Adonis, n Greece,

Venus and Cupid, In Rome.

We shall learn more about these two people and the religion they founded as we continue our study of the pagan origins of Christmas, Easter and Hallowe’en.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?

The Legends Of Christmas And Easter – Truth Or Tradition

Apologetics, ,

THE LEGENDS OF CHRISTMAS AND EASTER

TRUTH OR TRADITION

You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions . . . Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down (Mark 7: 8; 13).

Is it possible to cancel the truth of God’s Word by our traditions?

Jesus had a bone to pick with the Pharisees. They changed God’s instructions to suit themselves, included their alterations in their interpretation of the Torah, and held people accountable for obeying or not obeying what they prescribed as law.

God’s instructed His people to honour their parents. The religious leaders overwrote that instruction with another. They gave the money they should have used to support their parents, to the temple, declaring that it was “corban”, devoted to God, meaning that they were obliged to give it to God. They may have looked “holy”, but they deliberately disobeyed God to impress people. They cancelled God’s command by setting up their own.

Yes, it is possible to override God’s instructions by our tradition, even in the name of our faith in Jesus.

A glaring example of this practice is the way the church copies the world in its celebration of Christmas and Easter, as though God ordered and sanctioned these festivals. How can we find out for ourselves whether these practices are Biblical, and rooted in the truth of Scripture? God commanded His people to:

. . . Hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil (1 Thess. 5: 21).

As God-honouring and Christ-honouring people, it is our duty to test everything we believe and practise since we are Jesus’ chosen witnesses to the truth of what He came to do and to teach. Luke, in the Book of Acts, singled out the Bereans for a word of affirmation:

Now the Bereans were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true (Acts 17: 11).

It is a tragic fact that believers in Jesus rely more on what their denomination or so-called “teachers” tell them than on the truth of the Word of God which they ought to study for themselves. Like the religious leaders in Jesus’s day, we fail to search for the evidence that will prove or disprove whether preachers and teachers are disseminating the truth.

God instructed His people to celebrate seven feasts which He called “appointed feasts” which they were to celebrate at a particular time each year. The feasts presented in picture form what Messiah would do when He came, in order and in two parts.

The first four feasts depicted what He would do when He came the first time – He would deliver them from slavery (Passover), remove sin (Unleavened Bread), rise from the dead as the first-fruits of the resurrection (Firstfruits) and send the Holy Spirit to gather in the harvest (Pentecost).

He will fulfil the last three feasts when He returns – Trumpets (Yom Teruah – the Feast of Trumpets) will precede the Day of Judgment (Yom Kippur) and finally the Feast of Tabernacles when He comes to make us His dwelling place forever.

As Gentile believers in Jesus, God has not commanded us to celebrate the feasts. The Jews rehearsed the work of Messiah each year as they anticipated His coming and work.  However, our faith is rooted in Jesus whom God sent into a Hebrew home, who grew up in Hebrew society and spoke the Hebrew language. We cannot disconnect what He did and taught from its Hebrew roots.

Jesus gave us two ordinances to celebrate and remember His death and resurrection, both of which arise from the Hebrew culture which God taught to His people. We celebrate Jesus’ death by taking part in what we call “The Lord’s Supper”, a communal meal in which His body eats bread and drinks wine to remember His broken body and shed blood for our salvation. The Lord’s Supper fulfils the Feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread.

Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast – as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth (1 Cor. 5: 7-8).  

The ordinance of baptism is a ceremonial washing which identifies the believer with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who were all active in our salvation. Baptism commemorates and identifies us with Jesus’ resurrection and signifies that we have died with Him and risen to a new life.

Don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Jesus Christ were baptised into His death? We were, therefore, buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life (Rom. 6: 3-4).

When we celebrate the Lord’s resurrection through baptism, we recognise that Jesus fulfilled the Feast of Firstfruits. His resurrection guarantees that those who believe in Him will also rise to new life. We have risen from spiritual death to new life now as we live for Him in the power of the Holy Spirit. We will also rise with Him from physical death, never to die again when He returns to establish His kingdom of earth.

Our first consideration, therefore, is that Jesus is the Messiah and that He came to fulfil God’s plan, outlined in the feasts of the Lord in the Old Testament, and not in the traditions which are practised by the world today.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?

 

Keep Yourselves From Idols

Bible Study, , ,

KEEP YOURSELVES FROM IDOLS

We know that we are children of God and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true by being in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Dear children, keep yourselves from idols (1 John 5: 19-21).

John lived in a world full of idols. Both Greek and Roman religion centred in the worship of idols which the people practised through sensual and sexual “pleasures”.

Jesus had taught His disciples that there were two kingdoms, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. Everyone is born into the kingdom of Satan and is under his influence. God supernaturally transfers those who recognise Jesus as the Son of God and give allegiance to Him as Lord from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of light.

God’s kingdom is both among us and within us. Jesus came to restore God’s rule in the earth. He made this possible by paying sin’s debt and removing the barrier which separated us from God. The Holy Spirit brings us back to life so that we can have fellowship with the Father and the Son. The devil no longer has the power to deceive us. He is not Lord; Jesus is, and we have given our allegiance to Him and acknowledge His authority over us.

The Holy Spirit gives us the power to live new lives, and to follow Jesus as our Master. He teaches us to obey God’s Word and to walk in the light of His truth. He has reunited us with Jesus in a union so close that Jesus called it being “in Him” and He “in us”. Just as a branch is connected to the vine and receives its nourishment from the vine, so we are connected to Him by faith and receive His life through the Holy Spirit in us.

Since we are citizens of God’s kingdom and come under His authority, we have nothing to do with the beliefs and practices of Satan’s dominion. He claims worship from those who worship idols because, though idols are nothing, Satan uses images as a shopfront to get unsuspecting people to worship him.

Therefore, dear friends, flee from idolatry . . . the sacrifices or pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons (1 Cor. 10: 14; 20).

Christians can inadvertently worship idols in many different ways without offering sacrifices to pagan gods, or bowing down to idols. Perhaps one of the most subtle forms of idolatry is the god we have created in our imagination from our experience of our earthly fathers.

The Book of Hebrews contains a profound statement, the meaning of which we often miss:

And without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him (Heb. 11: 6).

“. . . Must believe that He exists” has to ask the question, “Who is this who exists?” We must not look for the answer in our imagination, or from our experience of our human fathers but from the Bible. Who is the God to whom we pray? He is, first of all, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. If the Father to whom we pray is not identical to the Son who came to reveal the Father, we have created an idol in our imagination.

Unfortunately, many of God’s children have developed a distorted picture of God the Father, because their human fathers have represented a god who is harsh, abusive, uncaring or even absent.

John urged his readers to stay away from the pagan gods around them because these were the shopfront for demons. Whoever worshipped these evil creations became like them in character and behaviour. Believers were tempted to pay homage to them so that they could buy and sell in the market to survive. John said, “Don’t do it, even if you are forbidden access to the markets for food.”

Many of us in the western world are not tempted to worship idols, but what about the “things” to which we give allegiance by putting our trust in them, for example, our money, our assets, our investments, our income, our spouse, our families, even our church or our pastor. We give time to unimportant things which reveals what we value more than our fellowship with God.

We need John’s encouragement just as much as his readers in the first century. Keep yourselves from idols. There is not higher calling in life than to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbour as ourselves.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?