For Christmas, I asked my parents to get me Counterfeit Gods, Tim Keller, Dutton. Please read the following excerpt.
Pastor and write Tim Keller quotes Archbishop William Temple, "Your religion is what you do with your solitude."
Keller explains, "In other words, the true god of your heart is what your thoughts effortlessly go to when there is nothing else demanding your attention. What do you enjoy day-dreaming about? What is it that occupies your mind when you have nothing else to think about? Do you develop potential scenarios about career advancement? Or material goods such as a dream home? Or a relationship with a particular person? One or two day dreams do not indicate idolatry. Ask rather, what do you habitually think about to get joy and comfort in the privacy of your heart?"
For the remedy Keller quotes Colossians 3:1-3. "'Setting the mind and heart on things above' where 'your life is hid with Christ in God' means appreciation, rejoicing, and resting in what Jesus has done for you. It entails joyful worship, a sense of God's reality in prayer. Jesus must become more beautiful to your imagination, more attractive to your heart, than your idol. That is what will replace the idols of your heart. If you uproot the idol and fail to 'plant' the love of Christ in its place, the idol will grow back."
Keller concludes with a quote from John Newton. "If I may speak my own experience, I find that to keep my eye simply on Christ, as my peace and my life, is by far the hardest part of my calling … It seems easier to deny self in a thousand instances of outward conduct, than in its ceaseless endeavors to act as a principle of righteousness and power."
