Ideals or Idols - Encouragement Café - Apr 8, 2015
Ideals or Idols
Café Menu for Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Today’s Special is: Ideal Image… Is That an Idol?
Carefully prepared just for you by your friend, Susan B Mead
Main Ingredient:
Of what value is an idol carved by a craftsman? Or an image that teaches lies? For the one who makes it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.
Habakkuk 2:18 NIV
Entrée:
You shall have no idols before Me, for I am a jealous God.
We know that. Yet do we live it?
Did you see that verse above? What value is an image that teaches lies? Oh, that takes my breath away, as I see image after magnificent image… on the TV, in a magazine, under the grocery store headlines… scantily clad, perfect bodies that draw me into their perfect lies... you too?
Have I put these images of others as my ideal image for myself? Have I allowed it to become an idol that I chase? Relentlessly. Have you?
Diet. Exercise. Binge & purge. Procedures done. Surgery (contemplated or done). Is this really how so many of us choose to live today? So focused on US and OUR image of who we are supposed to be and how we are supposed to look that we forget HIM who made US?
Have you seen the Word of God describing what He has prepared just for you and me?
Youwere in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: carnelian, chrysolite and emerald, topaz, onyx and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared.
Ezekiel 28:13 NIV
His Word says you were in the garden of God, adorned with every precious stone. They are already prepared for us. WOW—I had no idea. Someone said recently that men were created in the wilderness and women were created in the Garden. That’s why women are beautiful.
He has made everything beautiful in its time.
Ecclesiastes 3:11a NIV
Did you know that? I knew God created me and knit me in the womb, yet I had no idea He calls me beautiful and adorns me with every precious stone. To be beautiful in His sight. Then AND now.
How ideal is that image? Beautiful in His sight!
Take Out:
What stirring did you feel as you read these words? I feel compelled to put my face in His Book versus FaceBook to see what He says about me. I prefer hearing His words about me, instead of reading what others say about me. That would be IDEAL.
Dessert:
Heavenly Father, thank You for making everything beautiful. Yes, even me. Thank You for Your words to right the wrong images that have taught me to believe lies. Renew my mind to see Your truth as my ideal so I turn from idle lies that have become idols. In Jesus’ name. Amen
© 2015 by Susan B Mead. All rights reserved.
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