Idols and more

Hey Everyone,
First off, I hope that everyone is having a great summer. I have to say, I sure have been!

As promised, here is the list of possible ways to identify your idols that I mentioned with a few more details about them.

1. Look at your imagination. What do you enjoy daydreaming about? Career advancement? A certain relationship? Not just once or twice but habitually.

2. Look out how you spend your money and time. Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there is your heart also” (Matthew 6:21)

3. Examine your reactions to unanswered prayer and frustrated hopes. If you didn’t get what you wanted, do you become sad and disappointed, and then mourn and move on? Or do you respond with explosive anger or deep despair? If it’s the second, then you may have found an idol.

4. Look at your most uncontrollable emotions: anger, fear, despair, and guilt. Ask yourself, am I scared because something in my life is being threatened? These reactions are what we talked about back in vs. 8 (Anger, Malice, etc).

To state this again, I highly encourage you to take some time and study this passage (Colossians 3:1-17). Here are some things that might assist you…

1.  The passage is broken up into 3 sections.
1-4 Discusses the centrality of Christ
5-11 Discusses the earthly things we must set aside
12-17 Discusses the heavenly things we should replace the earthly things with

2. The first section (1-4) is a little more theological and can be more difficult to understand. Reading the first 2 chapters of Colossians can help you understand this first section because they goes a little deeper into this theology and the idea of dying to sin and being raised in Christ. I especially recommend looking at chapter 2:6-15 and 2:20-23.

3. Finally, I would recommended reading Tim Keller’s “Counterfeit Gods”, especially if you are interested in learning more about idolatry and what it looks like. He does a great job going through some of the major idols, and uses both modern and biblical examples to demonstrate these idols.

Lastly, if you are studying this passage or any other and you have questions about the passage or anything else, feel free to shoot me an email (kfurry [at] blackhawkchurch [dot] org). I certainly don’t have all the answers but I would love to help you find them.