Accept No Substitutes

So what was I doing while I was gone? Well, I did get some time off, but much of the time while I was away, I was speaking around the country. I spoke here in California and up in Oregon. And most recently I got back from Branson, Missouri. Now Branson is a fascinating place. How many of you have ever been to Branson? Can I see a show of hands? Okay, so some of you know what I mean when I say that this is right in the Ozark Mountains. They call it Hillbilly Vegas. That's not what I call it. That's what they call it. They're sort of proud of all their associations with the Hillbillies of the Ozark. There's all kinds of signs all over the place tying in to the fact that they're Hillbilly Central.

And this family camp that I spoke at, they're in the hills just outside of Branson, Missouri. On the last night, they have a tie-in to this theme. They have a Hillbilly costume contest. You've got to dress up and act like a Hillbilly. They want you to come up with a Hillbilly name for yourself and a whole Hillbilly backstory. And if you do it right, you just might win the contest. Our family is extremely competitive. And so my wife, Lori, goes out to the Goodwill the night before in town and she gets these outfits for her and for me and for our 13-year-old son. Overalls, sleeveless t-shirts, long beards for both of us, the hat. In fact, I brought along some elements of these costumes just to kind of show you what these were like.

You kind of start with kind of the Moses beard here, you know, just kind of like this. But it ceases to become the Moses beard when you put on the Hillbilly hat like this. And so we all dressed up like this. It was absolutely a complete costume. I actually thought of just showing up like this in church my first Sunday back and just saying, "I relaxed a lot on vacation." I didn't shave, as you can see. But all three of us went around in character as Hillbillies that night wanting to win the contest.

For example, when I introduced my wife, I said, "This here's Lurlaine. She's my first wife and my first cousin." "Dear, dear, dear, little, dear, dear, dear." That was kind of my rimshot, a little banjo dance like that, you know, kind of like, "How do you know they invented the toothbrush in Arkansas? Because anywhere else they would have called it a teethbrush. Dear, dear, dear, little, dear, dear, dear." You know. I'm happy to announce that your senior pastor's family won the Hillbilly Look-A-Life Contest. Thank you. I'm so proud.

But this got me into a little bit of trouble because I got so into this character and I was getting so much positive reinforcement for this that I just kept talking this way even outside of camp, which is not necessarily a good idea. Like that afternoon I went to the guy at the gas station, "Hey, how do you get a Hillbilly out of the bathtub? You throwin' a bar of soap. Dear, dear, dear, little, dear, dear, dear." Let me just say I got a long stare from him, you know. And I said, "I can see not everyone here in Branson appreciates the subtlety and nuance of my humor." You know.

But it also led to some unexpected complications at camp, at dinner that night. I was wearing this beard and this hat looking just like this, eating my grub, when suddenly I feel this tug on my sleeve. And I look behind me and I see a line of about five little kids, ages four to six years old. And I say, "Yes?" And the second kid in line kind of leans out like this and says, "Are you Sandy Claus?" And I looked at these kids just wide-eyed with hope and wonder and I said, "Yes, yes I am." I said, "Sandy Claus relaxes in Branson in the off-season with his other ancient friends, Andy Williams and the Oak Ridge Boys." You know.

And I thought that would get a little laugh and then they'd move on. But as soon as I say that, the first kid in line hops into my lap like this, just kind of hops into my... Without my invitation, he looks up at me and says, "I want a puppy and a Nerf gun and a Lego set." And what am I going to say at that point? I looked down, didn't want to disappoint him. I said, "Okay." You know. And sealed my fate, rest of the night, a never-ending parade of kids. I kid you not. In fact, I got proof. My wife got some cell phone pictures. Here we are with the first little kid that just jumped onto my lap because of course my wife's just dying at this point. There was one kid after another all dinner long.

And the thing is, I could not say no to the request because saying yes is so fun. I found myself saying things like, "Yes, yes you can have a pony." An iPad, why not I say? You know. I didn't realize until I was about a half an hour into this that it might not be a good idea. In fact, I'm just glad I'm not going to see those Arkansas living rooms this Christmas. "But the camp Santa told me I'd get a pony." "Curse, you bearded Yankee. You know, I'm going to cause another Civil War." Look at that picture. Now it's cute when little kids do this, right? But what's not so cute is when grown-ups basically do the same thing and call it religion.

Now follow me here. A lot of us, our concept of God is not much bigger than hillbilly Santa Claus. I mean think about it. A lot of people picture God, first of all, what's the one similarity is they picture somebody who's very old with a long white beard, right? That's sort of ingrained in our heads. I kind of blame Michelangelo because you've seen him on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, a beard a lot like that one. And when's the only time you talk to a Santa God when you need something and he knows if you've been sleeping, he knows if you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good. So what? Be good for goodness sake.

And a lot of Americans, our whole religion boils down to be good. Try harder for Santa God. And the thing is God knows that we tend to slip into this, this reductionistic view of God, and he challenges it again and again in the Bible for our own good. So this morning let's get ready to meet the real God. Grab your message notes. Prepare to meet your maker. These are in the middle of the bulletins that you got when you came in. Prepare to meet your maker. This is not a series about dying. This is a series about really living, about literally preparing yourself to meet your maker every day.

How'd you like to walk through your day and know you're going to be meeting the God who knocks your socks off? The God who has real power. The God who blows your mind. The God who can make you wide-eyed and wonder and amazement. The God who can meet your every need. Prepare to meet your maker. Listen, do you ever feel like you're in a spiritual slump? Ever feel like there's a distance between you and God? Maybe you feel like that and you've been coming to church your whole life, your religion's gotten cold. Or maybe you're coming back to church after years away, you couldn't have picked a better topic. Go beyond that Santa God image to the real God.

The core biblical teaching on this is in Exodus 20. And let me set the scene for you here. It's the middle of the desert. About 3,400 years ago. And God, the true, powerful, mind-blowing God meets with Moses. The maker meets with man and gives him the Ten Commandments. And then Moses comes down from Mount Sinai and reveals the commandments to the people. And check this out. Of all the things that God could have given instruction about, right? I've got to get the rest of the beard off my face here. But of all the things that God could have given instruction about to the people. Of all the things in life, of all the basic life matters that he could have talked to people about in the Ten Commandments. Of all the things he could have said, here are his first two.

The first two of the Ten Commandments. The most important thing for God to say to us. First Exodus 20:3, "You must not have any other God but me." And then he expands on it in the Second Commandment. "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." I've got a question for you. What do you think is the most frequently repeated command in the Bible? The most frequently repeated command in the Bible? It's this one. Again, of all the things that you think God could have emphasized in the Bible, this is the one that's most frequently repeated by a mile. Do not have idols.

Why? Because God's saying the basic human problem is idolatry. Let me repeat that. The basic human problem is idolatry. Not worshiping the God who really is. Like one of my favorite writers, A.W. Tozer said, "Left to ourselves we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms." That's idolatry. We put God in a box. We limit God by imagining him as just a supersized version of something on earth. So I've got a question for you. Are you an idolater? You say, "No way." Well, if this command is so important to God that he repeats it more than any other command in the Bible, I want to know if I've fallen into this. And so this morning I want to give you very quickly a little idolatry self quiz. Three questions to ask yourself. Are you ready? Jot these down.

Number one, do I have a false image of God? Do I have a false image of God? Another way to put it is, do I believe in the God who really is or the God I make? You see, again, if you're like me, you hear the word idolatry and probably excuse yourself, right? You think of ancient idols you've seen in some museum. They thought of their gods as superpowered versions of things in their world. Like God is a super king or God is a smiling fertile woman. And you think, "Of course I don't believe in those idols." But another way to put it is, is your God too small? I think we all carve little mental figurines that reduce God and make him into an idol.

What am I talking about? Well, I thought of a few common false images of God. You might want to jot these down in the box on page one of your notes. First, the one we started with, Santa God, right? I talked about this one already. God's the old guy with a beard that I ask for stuff. Or how about this next idol? God is a cosmic cop. Always lurking with his sin radar gun, just waiting to bust me. God is anti-fun. Are you having fun, sir? Then it's wrong. You know that feeling you get when you see a cop in your rearview mirror? Does that ever happen to you where you're just driving along happy as ever and suddenly you're aware that there's a policeman on the road right behind you and you get this chill and your hair stands up on the back of your neck and you check everything you're doing. You know, did I fix that tail light in my car? Am I going to speed limit? Maybe that's the feeling you get when you think of God.

Maybe that's something like the feeling you get when you think of church because to you God's a cosmic cop. Or maybe this one's your little mental image of God. The giant judge. Always judging me. Always grading me. God is up there in heaven always analyzing every single thing I do. And at the end of every day, at the end of every action, I get a little report card from God. I was pleased with you today. Or I am very disappointed. The giant judge. And then there's one I see a lot in Santa Cruz, frankly. I call it the Big Blur. God is blurry, fuzzy, unknowable, sort of like the force in Star Wars. He's not really a personal God. He might exist, but it's presumptuous to say you can get to know him and he doesn't really have any standards except for kind of a vague, fuzzy, lovey doviness.

Now what's the problem with all of these? Santa God or the cosmic cop or the galactic judge or the Big Blur? Well the problem is not that they might not contain some element of truth. Actually all of these contain some element of truth. The problem is that they limit God to that picture. They put God in a box. I love this quote from Eugene Peterson. Look at this. "Will we let God be as he is, majestic and holy, vast and wondrous, or will we always be trying to whittle him down to the size of our small minds, confining him within the boundaries we're comfortable with? But then we're not dealing with the God of creation and the Christ of the cross, but with a dime-store reproduction of something made in our image." That's good, isn't it?

So, but why shouldn't I have one of these images? Why not think of God as just a giant judge or just a Big Blur? What's so wrong with that? Why not have idols? Well I said that this is the most often repeated command in the Bible. I mean you see it all through the Old Testament and the New Testament as well. And almost every single time this command is repeated, "Don't have idols," there's a reason given for why you should not have idols in your life. And from God's perspective, there's a lot of reasons. Why not have idols? Why not think of them as Santa God or a cop or a Blur? Well first, idols will disillusion me. Idols will disillusion me.

Look at Jeremiah 10:14. This is a fascinating verse and I'd love for us to read this out loud together. It's on the screen. It's in your notes too. Jeremiah 10:14. Let me hear you. "Those who make idols are disillusioned because the gods they make are false and lifeless." Often when people tell me, "I don't believe in God," they find out I'm a pastor. "I don't believe in God." I say, "Tell me about the God you don't believe in." And I find that nine times out of ten, I don't believe in that God either. Because they think of God as the cosmic cop, the giant judge, or the big blur, or something else. Or they believe in God as a genie and they're upset that they didn't get their wish. But that's not God. It's an idol and an idol is going to disappoint, disillusion me.

And worse, idols dominate me. They dominate and enslave me. In the New Testament, Galatians 4:8, the Apostle Paul says to the Galatians, "When you didn't know God, you were slaves to things which really aren't gods at all." Now follow me here. In context, Paul is talking about the Galatian church, right? Before they were Christians, he's saying, the Galatians were slaves to their idols. Now how are you enslaved to something that doesn't really exist? How are you enslaved to an idea? Well because they believe that they had to keep making the right kinds of sacrifices, to the right gods in the right way, the right time of year, in order to get the fertility or the prosperity or the blessing that they were seeking. They were constantly enslaved to this process.

I've got to do more. I've got to do better. I've got to try to please the unpleasable gods out there. They're so capricious, I can't figure out what they want. Now in this next verse, I'm not going to put it on screen, but in the next verse here in Galatians 4, Paul says, "Don't you see that you Galatians are now worshiping Jesus, the true God, the same exact way?" Like if I only pray the right way and do the right things, then I'll get what I want. And Paul says, "But that's an idol just as much as the false idols that you worshiped when you were pagans." And that particular legalistic idol will dominate you and enslave you.

Listen, as a pastor, when I see a lifeless Christian, lifeless, somebody with no spark, no joy, many times this is the problem, idolatry. They're praying to you, they're worshiping a God who is a false image of God. I've told you my story. For years, I thought that every single decision that I made, and I mean down to what shirt I choose to wear that day, or what route I chose to drive to work, or what food I chose to order from a restaurant menu, every single decision was getting a thumbs up or a thumbs down from God. Every action I took, God was up there grading me.

And so every single choice I made, I was almost paralyzed because I prayed for a leading. I would pass my hand over my shirt and my pants in the closet every morning. "God, please direct me. What do you want me to wear today?" Every menu I'd look at wouldn't be like, "What am I hungry for?" It would be, "God, let me choose the right thing." Because I thought God was grading me on every single thing, I'd either please Him or disappoint Him with every single step. That is an idolatrous image of God. God is the giant judge because the Bible reveals this about God. God loves you and me unconditionally.

It says His mercies are new every morning. It says He loves to lavish His grace on the undeserving, but an idol will dominate my life. And by the way, before we leave this point, this is the same kind of thing that you see happening when you make people your God. You may have never realized this, but when you allow a person in your life to so control your life by their approval or disapproval, to the point where you always control your actions based on whether they approve or not, even if they're not with you, you're thinking, "Would this person approve or not of what I'm doing right now? I just want to gain their approval." That's not just called codependency, that's called idolatry.

You're making that person in the place of a God in your life, and the best way to break the back of codependency is to repent of your idolatry and give your total devotion to God to live for an audience of one. And finally, idols deform me. They begin to change you. They'll warp you. This is a fascinating verse, Psalm 115:8. I want us to read this together, too. Let me hear you. "Those who make idols," what? "end up like them. So does everyone who trusts in them." We shape the idol, then the idol ends up shaping me. Stay on this page for just a second here before you flip over to the second, because the way I think of God changes me.

Let me ask you a question. Christians who believe of God think of God as a giant judge. How does that change them? What happens to those Christians? They become what? Judgmental. Christians who think of God as a cosmic cop, how does that change them? How do they become like that God? They become what? Yeah, behavior cops, right? Christians who think of God as a big blur become very blurry. They end up taking no stands on anything. You become like the God that you serve. So what's the cure for this? What's the cure for the common idol? Well, if you would, flip your notes over and look at the box in the middle of page 2 in your notes. We're starting a whole new series you've been hearing a little bit about this fall here at TLC called God Is.

Now, this is not something we're picking up from some publisher, not something we're buying from some other church. This is something we've written just from the ground up here. In fact, much of the time I've been away. Thank you for letting me be away that long because we were writing the book and the small group curriculum and filming, as Jessica said, the seven DVD intro videos that go with the series God Is. But the point is, how do you finish this sentence? God is. God is what? What is God to you? It's so important to answer this question in an accurate way. Now, of course, I'm not saying that we need to put God in a box to find everything God is. No, this study is about seeing how God blows our little mental boxes away.

This study will expand your view of God. This study will enrich your spiritual life. And I believe that this can be such a spiritually powerful October and November here at Twin Lakes Church that we need to get ready spiritually for this study. And that's really the motivation behind this September series, Prepare to Meet Your Maker. Because during this month, what I want us to be doing is preparing ourselves spiritually for meeting God during the God Is series. And what I'm doing this morning is showing you how important this is to God. The most important command to God is, do not have idols.

And so we need to find out if our concept of God is idolatrous or if it resonates with how God reveals himself through Scripture and through nature. And by the way, if you're an early adopter, you want to sign up for a small group, you can do it starting today online at www.tlc.org. But as a church, prayerfully get ready, prepare to meet your maker and to really devote yourself for, you know, 50 days. Devote yourself to a pursuit of God. Because go back to the top of page two. There's a second question to ask yourself, and it's this. Who or what am I really devoted to?

Now a lot of things in life clamor for your devotion. But look at this next verse. "You must not bow down to them or worship them." Bow down. We don't bow down a lot, right, in our culture to people. But this was written to people who bowed down, not just to their idols, but they bowed down to, you know, their local lords. They bowed down to the king. They bowed down to anybody who was superior to them in society. So this is an image that they would have been familiar with. The closest thing we've got in our culture to this is raising your hands during a stick-up. Kind of this means, "I surrender to you. I give up my rights to you. Bow down." He's saying, "Don't bow down to them or worship them."

To worship, we tend to view this word in exclusively religious terms, but worship means literally to give my highest love and devotion. So now let me ask you a question. With these definitions in mind, what in our culture besides God do people surrender to? What in our culture besides God do people give their devotion to? You know, it's interesting. Three of the false gods that are mentioned in the Bible, these were actual false gods in that culture thousands of years ago, were Ashteroth. These aren't the only ones that are mentioned in the Bible, but these are three that are mentioned a lot. There was Ashteroth, who was a god of sex, of fertility. There was Molech, who was apparently a bloodthirsty god of conquest and power. People would literally sacrifice, horrifying sacrifices, their live children to this god so that they could have power and could win wars and so on. And Jesus talks about Mammon, the god of money.

Now look at this, sex, power, and money. Is anything different today? Do people still surrender to and devote themselves to the pursuit of these gods? Absolutely they do. We're basically a culture that worships these gods. But what about you? I don't want the application at this point to be about all those bad people out there in the culture. You know, what about you and what about me? You might say, "I don't worship those things, obviously not, I'm in church here." Let me get real blunt. Are you sacrificing to any of these gods? What about to pleasure? Very blunt pornography was a huge part of the worship of Ashteroth and of Baal, her consort, back in those days. In fact, you can go to archaeological sites in the Middle East and see it. Very graphic sexual imagery.

Maybe you're sacrificing your sleep. Maybe you're sacrificing your time, your most precious commodity. You waste an hour, you could never get it back. Maybe you're sacrificing your money to that god. Your pleasure has become what you bow down to. You're in denial, but if you're honest about it, you're a devotee to worshiping this god. Your problem isn't primarily that you've got a porn problem. Your problem is idolatry. Or what about power? Maybe you're literally making sacrifices at that temple. "I'll sacrifice time with my kids. I'll sacrifice time spent on my marriage to the altar of that god." Or what about possessions? Money. Somebody said, "In America, we buy things we don't need, with money we don't have, to impress people we don't even like." Right?

What's the problem with these things? The problem... Now watch this here. I don't want you to misunderstand me. The problem is not with sex or power or money. Sex or power or money can all actually be a part of God's blessing on your life. Those actually can all be components of a blessed life. The problem is when those things become idols. The problem becomes... And how do you know that they're becoming idols in your life? It's when you're looking to those things for something only God can provide. When you're... Honestly, you're looking to those things for satisfaction. You know, don't blame your sex life if you're not satisfied. That's not your sex life's responsibility. Don't blame your job if you're not satisfied. That's not your job's job. Don't blame your new car if you're not happy. It's not your car's job to make you happy. Don't blame your house if you're not satisfied. Or your kids or your spouse either. The problem may be that you are putting those things in the role of God in your life.

You're looking to them for satisfaction. When the truth is that the hole in your heart that you're longing to fill can't be filled by them. What you're looking for is God. You know, this is a very emotional issue. And not just for us humans. This is an emotional issue for God. I want you to check this out. In the very next phrase in verse 5, God says, "For I, the Lord your God," Emma what? Emma what? Jealous God? Has that ever bothered anybody? The Times and the Bible when he says, "I'm a jealous God." Has that ever hit you the wrong way? There's a song we sing here with the first line, "He is jealous for me." I love that song, but honestly, that word "jealous" can strike me as odd.

Because in the English language today, we usually associate the word "jealousy" with "pettyness," right? With "junior high." With your mom saying, "Oh, the kids are just making fun of you because you're jealous." They're jealous and you're not believing a word of that, right? But this kind of jealousy is different. This is the heartbroken jealousy of a woman in my office weeping because her husband's having an affair. Or a man in my office weeping because his wife's having an affair. Somebody like that's not being petty. Somebody like that's not being superficial. That kind of jealousy, in quotes, comes from a very deep place. They just long to be loved by the person that they have given everything to.

Well, that's the emotion here from God. Imagine God is coming from a deeply passionate place when he says, "Have no other gods." Don't hear this like it's just about correct doctrine. Be careful your doctrine's right. Watch your theology. You have no other gods. No, his motivation is he loves you so much and he longs to be loved by you. Isn't that amazing? God has a fierce love for you and he wants you to know that. That's the emotion behind the verse that we started with here when he says, "You must not have any other god but me." And so the final question to ask is really in my life, "Do I let God be God?"

Do I let God be God or do I try to put him in a box? See, follow me here. If the motive behind idolatry is really to limit God, right? Then to not be idolatrous means I refuse to put limits on God. The man named Bob Pierce was the founder of World Vision and I want to show you something. There's a prayer he often prayed, "Lord, I give you the right to change my agenda at any time you like without informing me in advance." I love that. And that's what I mean by letting God be God in your life. He's God. Have no other gods before you. Not your will, not your agenda. He's God. He can do whatever he wants in your life without your prior permission. And you know that he loves you and so he's going to work it all out for good. That brings so much peace.

Let me show you what it looks like to be a person who really lives like this. I started with a vacation story so I'm going to end with one too. When we were in the Ozarks, we went to my wife's grandma's 101st birthday party. She is 101 years old and still going strong. Here's the birthday girl and she is still so sharp and so happy. Get this, this woman rides a stationary bike 20 minutes a day at 101 years old. I kid you not. She lifts weights every day at 101 years old. Lifts weights at 101. It's just an amazing life she lives. This is the woman, she's got such a great perspective.

This is the woman who last year when she was turning a mere 100, was walking into a Walmart there in Arkansas, which is also Walmart Central. That's where they started. And the greeter, who was a very old gent himself, starts flirting with her. The greeter at Walmart starts flirting with her and she says, "What did you just say?" And she says, "Well, what are you doing later today?" And she goes, "Are you asking me on a date?" And he says, "Yes, I am." And she says to him, "How old are you?" He says, "84." And she answers, "Date you, I should adopt you." That's this woman. That's who I'm talking about here, right?

Well, turning 101 is a very big deal anywhere and so a news crew actually showed up to cover the event a couple of weeks ago. Northwest Arkansas News. Now, this is not admittedly the biggest news operation in the world. They also covered our victory in the Hillbilly costume contest. No, not really. They didn't do that. But they were there at her birthday and I want to show you a little bit of the way they reported it. Watch this.

Well, Fayet the Woman celebrates a triple digit birthday. Grace Edinger is 101 years old today. Grace's family and friends gathered at Catherine's Place Nursing Home in Fayetteville for her birthday party. Born in 1910, she's seen everything from the days of horse and buggies to space. So we asked her, "What's her secret to long life?" I have trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not to your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him. And that has took me through 101 years. Isn't that awesome? That's what took her through 101 years.

Now, I want to just leave that image up there for just a second, if you will, because look at this woman. Don't take it from me that it's a benefit to worship the only true God. Take it from her. This is a woman who through her 101 years has been through a lot of ups and downs. This is a woman who's been through the Great Depression. This is a woman who has been through two world wars and countless other wars. This is a woman who has lived through the untimely deaths of two of her own children. This is a woman who saw her own husband receive a severe brain injury in an industrial accident and then lived through the death of her own husband.

And she's seen a lot of blessing in her life too. This is a woman who's seen a lot of ups and downs. And maybe you walked in this morning and you're going through something like that. You just got the test results back and it's cancer. Or you're going through the loss of a loved one yourself. Or you're on the verge of divorce today, if you're honest. Or your kids are in trouble. Or you're so discouraged. Grandma Grace would look you in the eye if she could right now. And her biggest piece of advice would be, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not to your own understanding. Don't try to figure God out or put Him in a box or tell Him what He should do. In all your ways, submit to Him and He will make your paths straight.

That means He'll guide you through it. That means He'll orient you through it. You see, that's quite a promise when it comes to worshipping the true God. With every command in the Bible there's a promise. And the promise here is this, your life will be better when you worship the true God. Not in the sense that nothing will ever go wrong, but in the sense that you'll be oriented. When you go through those deep places, you're literally centered on the center of the universe, on the true North Star, and He gives you a purpose and a plan and a destiny.

And so here's what I want to do right now. I want to invite you to take some time right now to get oriented. Reoriented perhaps for you or oriented for the first time on God. I want to invite you to spend some time with God and say, "God, I just am so tired of false gods in my life. I'm so tired of idols. I don't want to put you in a box or limit you in any way, any more. I want to let you be God in my life." And I want to give you time to do that during communion this morning. Because where do I go for an accurate view of God? Jesus.

The Bible says the Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being. That means when I look at Jesus, I see God. I see God's character. I see God's priorities. I see God's love. I see God's plan. So let's spend some time during communion looking at Jesus right now. Would you bow your heads in a word of prayer with me? I want to invite you to pray a prayer in your heart right now. Very simple prayer of turning to God. Say something like, "God, I want to turn from the false gods in my life and let you be God in my life." I want to turn from the idols I make and the false gods that I sometimes serve and I want to turn back to you, back to the real God.

And as I take communion right now, I want to thank you very specifically for revealing yourself to me through Jesus Christ and being the payment for my sin so that I can have knowledge of you and a relationship with you. And I pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.