Keller's Counterfeit Gods Is Not for the Faint-Hearted

TAKEN THE WAY I BELIEVE it's written, Tim Keller's most recent book Counterfeit Gods on idols found in every human heart---the worship of family and group, children and grandchildren, romance and sex, approval, power, influence, money, power, politics---is not for everyone because it's a panoramic treatise on sin. And reading it begs the question of our willingness to look within to excavate the idols of our hearts.

To review, idols are things---even good things---that we make ultimate things in our hearts and lives. They replace God at the center of our hearts and if we lose them, our loss can shatter and embitter us for the rest of our live.

I would not recommend reading this book to anyone who's not on the spiritual journey in earnest and seeking greater maturity in Christ. That's because taking down idols is only a temporary game at best---in which we get rid of one thing only to replace it with another---and impossible at worst unless it's replaced permanently by God.

Replacing these idols embedded in the deepest layers of our hearts can be a shocking and painful and emotional process and the work of a lifetime. There are no quick fixes in this journey withint. In the end, only the explosive power and love of God can move into those holes of our hearts for restoration and redemption.

Anyone who does therapy, prays and worships in ways that focus primarily on changing others and things outside of ourselves, rather than focusing on what's going on inside probably can't yet understand the stinging relevance of Keller's book. It would be like water rolling off a duck's back.

The immature---and we're all immature to varying degrees---want and demand ourselves and the outside world change to meet and fulfill the idols of our heart. The maturing Christian understands that real change comes first from within as we let the Holy Spirit break down and destroy strongholds so we can begin to live life on God's terms, rather than our own.

That doesn't mean we have to like this process or that it's a quick and easy transformation. Seek ye first the Kingdom and all things will be added, is not a fairy tale, but a bedrock, fundamental Truth of the Bible from beginning to end.

This is not the prosperity gospel.

Keller's book, if used that way I believe it's intended, is a shocking handbook for growth that can be read and worked for the rest of our lives. It's based on Bible stories of people with idols like you and me as it maps the idol-making factory of the human heart and its only and ultimate redemption. There's no escaping the fact that we've all made good things into ultimate things and replaced God as our Center.

The greatest secret in the world is: Try as we might, nothing can or will ever fit into the center of our hearts except the Triune God.

Yet we keep hacking away, trying, hoping to do it our way. Don't our lives and experiences and brokeness finally bear witness to the futility of our incessant attempts to serve our idols, no matter how often we fail? Mine certainly has.

I'll be back in the weeks ahead with more on this book.