Thursday, November 5, 2009

Keller's Counterfeit Gods

I just recently began reading Tim Keller’s latest book, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power and the Only Hope That Matters. I am only 1/3 of the way through the book, but I can tell it is going to be one that I will highly recommend. As everyone of us struggles with some type(s) of idol, the book holds something for everyone. Here is one excellent excerpt:

Commenting on God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac: “From this perspective we see that God’s extremely rough treatment of Abraham was actually merciful. Isaac was a wonderful gift to Abraham, but he was not safe to have and hold until Abraham was willing to put God first. As long as Abraham never had to choose between his son and obedience to God, he could not see that his love was becoming idolatrous. In a similar way, we may not realize how idolatrous our career has become to us, until we are faced with a situation in which telling the truth or acting with integrity would mean a serious blow to our professional advancement. If we are not willing to hurt our career in order to do God’s will, our job will become a counterfeit god.”

1 comment:

  1. I think I need to read this book. I want to love the Lord above everything but it can be easy to allow people or things to get in the way and ...become idols. I don't want that.

    Thanks for the reminder.

    Blessings,
    Debbie

    ReplyDelete

Search

Pages

About Me

I am a husband to Eva, father of 4, pastor, and most of all passionate follower of Jesus Christ. The focus of my life is to make the most of every opportunity God gives me to bring glory to Him. Outside of the time spent in my role as a pastor, I spend most of my time with my family -- a good deal of that coaching various sports teams that my children are involved with. Every fall and winter you will find me rushing to the woods of Indiana and West Virginia in search of a monster whitetail buck.