We don’t tend to say this, but I think it is a safe comment for this week so here goes: “You don’t have to come to church this weekend. The message probably isn’t for you.”

I mean, we’re talking about idols after all.  Surely, you don’t have any of those lurking around your heart, do you?  Try as I might, I can’t think of a single-solitary thing I put before my devout love and obedience of God . . .

Okay, so maybe I need to come this week and mark my calendar for the week we cover the ninth commandment.

The fact is I have idols.  But I just don’t have them, either.  No, I love them and care for them and nurture them and horde them and hide them and protect them.  That last might be the scariest, for it causes me, on a week like this when I know church will be about idols, to run the other way from God’s teaching.  Maybe I’ll get sick or find some other way out of confronting these things keeping me from the Lord.

If I do show up–and if you do too–we will hear from God.  We’ll hear about our propensity to worship lackluster gods, deities like sports, hobbies, celebrities, fashion, work, money, family . . . and the list could go woefully on and on.  We take bad things and put them before God and we take good things–things He created and gave us–and sully them unrecognizable from their intended beauty.

We’ll hear about all that and we’ll hear why these things harm us so.  We’ll hear how they leave us empty and searching and unfulfilled.

But, most importantly, we’ll hear hope.

We do not have to bow before tyrannical false gods.  We do not need to wobble in our worship of woebegone things.

So again, “You don’t have to come to church this weekend.”

But if you do, expect God to be there.  Expect to bow before him.  Expect to repent and offer Him–and Him alone–your first fruits.

Trampling idols can be cruel, hard business. But truly is there anything better than a refreshed heart bent in worship to the Almighty God?

We hope to see you this weekend as we allow God to “Write It on Our Hearts.”