IF WE MAKE IT TO THE EPILOGUE of Tim Keller's mighty little book, Counterfeit Gods, and are not yet convicted of our idols----good things things we put ahead of God and make the ultimate, controlling desires/ goals of our hearts---then perhaps we need to put the book away and come back another time. We may not be ready to tackle the tough sledding ahead. Maybe we just haven't suffered enough in our attempts to do things our way rather than God's way.
For those of us who do get it, it's a good time to ask, So what? What now? How can I change?
We recall that idols distort not only our thinking but our feelings to unwarranted and disproportionate degrees. And our idolatrous beliefs often magnify ordinary disappointments and failures into life-shattering experiences. When we live under hidden idols, therapy and medication can often help to manage our depression and anxiety but unless we get to the root of our malaise, real change continues to elude us as we continue to believe we must have certain things to give our lives meaning and validation or else we can become despondent enough to die.
It is only when we begin to discover and believe the Gospel--that we are truly saved by Grace alone and not our own best efforts at anything we hope to achieve---that we begin to get relief from our idolatrous neediness and guilt for failures and start to find true peace and consolation
Keller writes in the final chapter The End of Counterfeit Gods:
The human heart is indeed a factory that mass-produces idols.
Is there any hope? Yes, if we begin to realize that idols cannot simply be removed. They must be replaced. If you only try to uproot them, they grow back; but they can be supplanted. By what? By God himself, of course. But by God we do not mean a general belief in His existence. Most people have that, yet their souls are riddled with idols. What we need is a living encounter with God.
Jacob, whom we met in Chapter Two of this book certainly believed in God, but he needed something more to defeat the counterfeit gods---of romantic love, family entanglements and independence---that enslaved him. In Genesis 32 he found them as he struggles with the Angel of God all night and is finally wounded and blessed by God. This is one of the most powerful and dramatic narratives in the Bible. It is also one of the most mysterious, but clearly stands as the centerpiece of Jacob's life......
This example clearly highlights the certain reality that the Lord cannot be added to a life as one more hedge against failure. He is not one more resource to use to help us achieve our agenda. When He comes into a life, He is the whole agenda.....
Have you sensed, through the Holy Spirit, god speaking to you? The blessing he wants to bestow through His Spirit that is our through Christ's work on the Cross and Resurrection--is what Jacob received, and is the only remedy against our own idolatry. It often takes an experience of crippling weakness for us to finally discover .
It is only then we let God into first place in our hearts. Until that point we may know about God with our heads but not truly in our hearts. Keller continues,
How can we put the Gospel truths on video in our lives so they become real and shape everything we feel and do?
Keller goes on to say the remedy for idols is a life-long process involving the spiritual disciples of worship, private prayer and meditation, corporate worship, and Bible study.
You cannot simply get relief by figuring out your idols intellectually. You have to get the peace that Jesus gives, and that only comes as you worship and by praying them in to your heart. It takes time and it often takes the rest of our lives.
He ends the book with a quote from the great pastor and former slave trader, 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 endeavours to act as to act as a principle of righteousness and power.
Keller adds, The man or woman who knows the difference that Newton refers to---the difference between obeying rules of outward conduct rather than setting your whole heart on Christ as your peace and your life--is on the road to freedom from the counterfeit gods that control us.
I consider this book my permanent handbook and constant reminder to the lifelong process and sometimes struggle of letting God be God in my life. As I've said before, this is not the prosperity gospel but rather a sometimes difficult journey into the unknown---but with an Eternal perspective and certain destination. I thank Tim Keller for the work he's done in helping me connect the dots that assist me in surrendering to God more each day. It's an important book that if you feel you're drawn to, I hope you'll avail yourself of.
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