Who Wants To Follow Jesus?

The enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were rebuilding a Temple to the LORD, the God of Israel. So they approached Zerubbabel and the other leaders and said, “Let us build with you, for we worship your God just as you do. We have sacrificed to him ever since King Esarhaddon of Assyria brought us here.” But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the other leaders of Israel replied, “You may have no part in this work. We alone will build the Temple for the LORD, the God of Israel, just as King Cyrus of Persia commanded us.” [Ezra 4.1-3] 

Idolatry is all about dilution. Idols are enemies of God, and, as such, all they need to do is infiltrate pure trust in God to taint it rendering it ineffective and powerless.

This dilution with idols is the repeated story of the Bible and it is the very thing Jesus recognized and called His followers to avoid.

“If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. [Matthew 16.24]

"Your own way" is the way of man - the way of idolatry. When man makes for himself something to do for himself what God said He ALONE would do for man, it is an idol. God has a 'zero tolerance' policy toward idolatry:

“I am the LORD your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. “You must not have any other god but me. “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands. [Exodus 20.2-6]

When questioning why the Church today is powerless when compared to the early Church, this important lesson from Ezra 4.1-3 should be considered. The Church has allowed the idols of the world to infiltrate and 'work alongside' its Kingdom work rendering that Kingdom work diluted, powerless, and worldly. 

There is but one solution for the modern Church to return to any form of God's power: get rid of the world's idols! Idols abound today and they are easily identified. All one has to do to identify modern idols in the Church is to simply listen to what the Church justifies as "from God." In other words, what follows the words, "God uses..." will almost certainly be an idol. Instead of decrying the infiltration of idols, the Church today (by and large) fully embraces them making bold statements that "God uses finance (debt)," or "God uses insurance," or "God uses medicine," or "God uses technology."

To be clear, God did not give us finance, insurance, medicine and technology. Man made all these things in his impatience to wait upon God! And, just to drive this point home, if God "gave" these things, then why do we "pay" for them? Furthermore, even if we somehow twist "give" to mean "sell," then, why don't we pay God for them? Who is selling what?

What could it hurt for God's people to be helped by man's industries of finance, insurance, medicine and technology as long as he believes God provides all these things? Let's just back this same question up a few centuries to Ezra 4.1-3: What could it hurt for God's people to be helped by the enemies of Judah and Benjamin as long as they believe God provides that help?

We need to remind ourselves here that man's industries of finance, insurance, medicine and technology lead the way in promoting self-centered lifestyles that make them enemies of God! Just watch their advertisements! Never once do they promote a disciplined, chaste, God-centered lifestyle. Instead, they promote all manner of sin typical to idolatry. And still we insist they are "gifts from God" and should be employed to help us???

The military tactic "divide and conquer" has stood the test of time. Sadly, it has worked effectively on the Church - God's people. There is no need for an indisputable miracle from God when finance, insurance, medicine and technology are considered 'miracles from God.' Again, the issue of paying for these miracles should cause alarm...

What's even worse is that among God's powerless people, there exist those who adamantly preach and teach that God's miracles have "passed away" while insisting that finance, insurance, medicine and technology are today's miracles from God. Just how diluted have we become? And, somehow, in the mix of this dilution, the clearly defined curses of Deuteronomy 28 are no longer seen as curses attached to disobedience at all, but are just "the way of life." The inconsistency of this theology is astounding and even more so when considering that the overwhelming majority of God's people today embrace it so vehemently!

The solution is this: God's people need to recognize that the curses they remedy with man's industries of finance, insurance, medicine and technology are in fact, God's call to repentance for not trusting and worshiping Him ALONE as God. Then, like those in Ezra 4.1-3, God's people today need to reject the world's help - man's way - altogether. Jesus' words could not be more apropos:

“If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. [Matthew 16.24]

Now, who wants to follow Jesus? 

Father, I know I sound like a broken record on the topic of idolatry - kind of like the entire Bible! I realize my own hesitancy to live what I preach is glaring... May I be found giving up my own way, taking up my cross, and following Jesus. That's all. So be it.