GOD IS A JEALOUS GOD!
Dr Creflo Dollar at CGMI, MEGACON tagged 'FOCUS ON CHRIST'
Day Three
Matthew 6:33
God said, I know you have needs. See, God knows your needs before you know them. He said, but seek first the Kingdom. I want to meet your needs, I want to sustain you. I take rejoice in meeting your needs and sustaining you. Everything you need, I want to be your supplier. Everything you want, I want to be your supplier.
God is saying, I will meet your needs, I will add things to your life.
Let's look at coveting:
Coveting is idolatry. When you covet something, you turn your attention from God and you place it on something of lesser value. Church Gist. When I covet something, I take my attention off God and I put it on something that has lesser value than God. Coveting leads us to believing that we can be satisfied in this life apart from God.
Coveting is not just wanting something, it is not just craving something; converting is when I am turning away from God because I believe that there is something better and greater. I am turning away from God because I believe there is something of greater value. I am turning from God and I am turning to education; education is good but we now put value on education greater than what it really is.
Listen to me carefully now; so let me take what coveting is, let me take how God designed us and let me give you, I believe a definition of idolatry and its evidence. Idolatry is the value that you give to a thing more than God. See, the thing may not be wrong until you give it greater value than God. It may not be wrong for you to play golf unless you give golf greater value than God. So the question I want you to consider is; have you given any person or anything greater value than God? Church Gist. Look at your life right now; have I given anything or anyone greater value than God? Because whatever thing in your life or a person in your life that you value more than God, then that thing or that person has become your idol and the value that you are placing on it is idolatry.
I am trying to show you that God is the number One, He is the One we should be looking at and again in Colossians 3:5, idolatry which is covetousness is the foolishness that takes a Christian and makes him grasping for satisfaction in all wrong places. Idolatry is turning away from God and going down the path, trying to gain satisfaction but it is in the wrong place. You are not going to get satisfaction in a job, in the millions, in the validation of other people outside God.
You may be trying to get satisfaction in all wrong places and I see that everywhere today. Church Gist. You may think, well, I am going to go into self preservation mode and through self preservation mode, you are trying to grasp satisfaction - that is a wrong way. That is way that seems right to a man but the end thereof, is destruction and that is what idolatry does and that is why I said you should flee from it. Don't be a part of it because it will lead you down the path trying to gain satisfaction in all the wrong places.
Before I look at the modern day idolatry, there is this modern day idolatry - social media helps to promote modern day idolatry, not wrong but if you give a greater value to it than God. Sex, not wrong in the place of marriage but if you give it a greater value than God. Church Gist. There are just so many things; images, if you give images greater value than God. What are you giving more value to than God?
When you say; 'God, I don't believe in the path that You have provided or You are my way out. I am going to do all the things that I see other people do'. See, the problem is you are thinking that you know what other people are going through but you are not there to see their whole life. Church Gist. People can show you what they want to show you and they can make things look successful as they want to make things look, that's why you have to be careful. What you don't know is that; they can't sleep well at night, their family is broken. What you don't know is how sad they are and what you don't know is how often they have to fight chronic depression - you don't know that because you don't live there and you are not there and so, people can make things look like it is perfect without God. But I can promise you, it can never be right with something or someone occupying God's place.
Now, let's look at some Old Testament views of idolatry. Let's look at Jeremiah 16:20, Jeremiah 16:19-21 (NLT). You got to understand that God is a jealous God. When you proceed to try and crown something else as God, God is determined to let you know that He is the only One. "You think that's your god, I'm gonna show you that I am the Lord."
Exodus 34:14-17 (NLT)
God is jealous about His relationship with you. Don't you know that God is concerned? When you starting giving somethings greater value, you should know that, that thing did not make you or wake you up this morning, that thing did not heal you, that thing did not take care of your provision and you are trying to make it God?. God is a a jealous God. He said I did all that and I need you to give me the glory and the praise for what I did.
Hear God's warning; He said watch out how you relate with people who are saying somethings are God and it is not Me. You must not make any god of molten metal for yourselves. Do not replace Me with anything or anyone. Church Gist. Do not associate yourself with people who have already replaced Me, don't marry people who have already replaced Me. We know that we should not be unequally yoked. You are born again and married somebody that does not know God and you are worried about why it is not working. It is not working because you are married to someone who value something else than God and then you, you value God more than anything else. But when the two come together, it is not working. It is amazing to me how much idolatry the Church has allow to corrupt her thinking by looking at television, showing you the wrong vision. By looking at social media and taking it as if it is the most important thing in the world.
Read your Bible, my grandmother used to say read your Bible and you will come out right. But now, you wake up, the first thing you do is to grab your phone - modern day idols. Jeremiah 51:17-19 (NLT), idols are worthless; they are ridiculous lies. When you replace God, you are replacing Him with a lie.
Deuteronomy 8:19
When you look at your life, as money replaced God. Some people, money motivates you to do God's will quicker. People don't believe in servanthood like they used to, servanthood with selfish ending is hypocrisy. People don't believe in servanthood anymore, they've turned everything about church and servanthood into mammon driven ministry and that is not how it supposed to be. We've replaced God with something else (Deuteronomy 8:19). Now when I read that Scripture, hear what the Lord says to me; you perish without God, you lose without God, your life is in the midst of destruction without God and maybe life has to teach some people this because they don't believe God right now. I think about the amount of years a person waste by not listening to God.
The Church has perfected some ways to preserve the image that has taken God out of place and then the image is important than your God. Now, the image is what they seek after and I am telling you, if you've ever look at the world lately and ask, what is going on? This is what is happening right now, God is being replaced with someone or something and it must not be so with us who are the people of God and we got to be like the Apostle John, we got to scream it out loud, anytime something happen, we got to say; that is my God.
I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I will not diminish my call for the sake of my image. Listen, I have been called to be a preacher but I know people who have been called, they do something else. Instead of saying I am a preacher or a pastor, they will say, I am a motivational speaker, because that sounds better. Don't diminish your anointing for your image, don't replace God with something or someone else. Flee from idolatry.
Let's look at some modern day idols.
1. How people have turned their identity into an idol. Having good identity or image, there is nothing wrong with them until you put more value on them than God. You see, when you don't trust God as your provider, you will steal. In a family, when you don't trust what God said about two becoming one, you gonna look for somebody else. We place more value in who we are rather than placing value in God and in who He has said we are.
So I am not looking at who I am or who people think I am or what folks are saying about me. I am looking at what God is saying about me; God said I am the righteousness of God. So you got to be careful not to allow the shame of other people to cause you to look at yourself based on how they look at you. It becomes very difficult for you to stay focus on the identity that God has given verses the identity that somebody else is trying to give you.
The Church is still trying to give us the identity that we are sinners. I am born again, I am no longer a sinner, I am not going to take that identity because Bishop or Archbishop said that. I am the righteousness of God. The day I got born again, the day I made Jesus the Lord of my life, I am righteous. Well if you are righteous, you will not do that. 'I am righteous anyway'. If I start believing who you say I am, then I will start acting like that. I am not going to be shamed into accepting an identity that does not come from God, I am not going to be condemned into accepting an identity that does not come from God and then, I replace my righteous Identity with the sinful identity. It takes a mature Christian to do this.
Maturity is based solely on who you decided to be your source. Maturity says, no matter what is going on in my life, I will reach for Jesus everytime. Immaturity is when you've made something else or yourself to be your source. When something happen , you don't reach for Jesus. He is my source - that is a mature Christian.
You are not mature because you've been saying it for a long time, you are not mature because you can pretend to be spiritually mature. Hey brother, how are you? 'Hallelujah! I don't care how you act in Church, I want to know when hell breaks out in your life, who do you reach for? Church Gist. When God is your source and you reach for Him; you reach for Him when you are diagnosed with a sickness, you reach for Him when you are broken - that is a sign of a mature Christian.
I am amazed at how much God has done, I am amazed at how much He loves me. I am amazed at the number of times I have to pull myself back. I think my wife was concerned one time, since I told her; I am pretty excited about dieing. She said no! Because I don't see death as a lot of people see it. I see it as: I am about to learn new things I have never thought about, I am about to see my Jesus and when you are delivered from the fear of death, you become so powerful in it. Let's be free. Let's keep God at the centre of our lives and let's keep Him as the Head of our lives and let's not fall victim to modern day idolatry.
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