GOD’S WORD FOR FEBRUARY 16

We are reading from a daily devotional  called “Running To Win” written by Erwin Lutzer  and the late, great D.L. Moody.   Erwin Lutzer is a light in our day as D.L. Moody was in his.

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HIDDEN IDOLS

Psalm 139:23-24

“Search me, O God, and know my heart!  Try me and know my thoughts!  And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”

D.L. Moody

If we should all honestly make this prayer once every day, there would be a good deal of change in our lives.  “Search ME!” – not my neighbor.  It is so easy to pray for other people but so hard to get home to ourselves.  I am afraid that we who are busy in the Lord’s work are especially in danger of neglecting our own vineyard.

There is a difference between God searching me and my searching myself.  I may search my heart and pronounce it all right, but when God searches me as with a lighted candle, a good many things will come to light that perhaps I knew nothing about.

ERWIN LUTZER

I have prayed the above prayer often, and I trust you have too.  To what extent are we willing to be obedient to what God asks us to do?  God shows us our cherished sins and exposes our idols when we are in His presence.  Remember how God tested Abraham to see if Isaac had become an idol in his life?  God chooses what is most precious to us to test us.

When David wrote Psalm 139, he began with, “You have searched me and known me.” And yet when he came to the end of the psalm, he prayed, “Lord search me.”  He began by affirming that God had already searched him, and now he prayers for God to show him what he needs to see.

All sins or idols compete with the greatest commandment:  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”  (Matthew 22:37).

PRAYER

Father, only You can expose the idolatries of my heart.  Please search me and lead me to You.

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2 Corinthians 10:5

casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,

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2 Corinthians 6:16

And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them And walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people.”

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Revelation 2:4

Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.

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Matthew 10:37

He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.

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Matthew 10:38

And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.

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Luke 9:60

Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.”

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Luke 9:62

But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

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