GOD’S WORD FOR SEPTEMBER 15

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.  Besides his many ministries, and many books, Pastor Lutzer was Senior Pastor at Moody Church in Chicago for 36 years and now serves as Pastor Emeritus there.  He is  Chancelor and a former professor at Moody Bible Institute, where he taught Theology and Ministry, and now has numerous radio teachings.

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IDOL FACTORY

That they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.    Acts 17:27

D.L. MOODY

Philosophers are agreed that even the most primitive races of mankind reach out beyond the world of matter to a superior being. It is as natural for man to feel after God as it is for the ivy to feel after support. Hunger and thirst drive him to seek for food, and there is a hunger of the soul that needs satisfying, too. Man does not need to be commanded to worship, as there is not a race so high or so low in the scale of civilization but has some kind of a god. What man needs is to be directed aright in his worship.

ERWIN LUTZER

Most people don’t abandon God, they refashion Him according to their liking. Every time we want to disobey, every time we want to manipulate, every time we want our own way, we reconstruct God to fit our desires. You’re an idol lover, I’m an idol lover, and our default response is to fashion a god according to our liking.

Any god that we construct, any god that we want, wants us to bow down and it will, eventually, own us. Our self-made god wants complete total ownership of our lives. We have the illusion that we are free, but we are owned by whatever god we choose, and we worship at its shrine. Knowing who we should crown number One is really the most basic issue of life.

Let us bow to worship the one and only true God, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). It is Jesus we proclaim to the nations (Acts 17:31).

    PRAYER

    Father, thank you for drawing me to yourself to worship in spirit and truth.

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Romans 1:21–23

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

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Romans 12:21

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

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1 Corinthians 6:9–10

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

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Galatians 4:8–9

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?

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Galatians 5:19–21

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

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Ephesians 6:11

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

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Colossians 3:5

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

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1 Timothy 6:10

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

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