01/09/2024
While we’re still in the dawn of 2024, let’s spend some time thinking about what will truly make us happy, satisfied, and fulfilled through the course of this year. When we come to December 31, 2024, and we look back over the happenings of this year, what will cause us to say, “Ah, this was a good year because of ____________”?
My friends, what I suggest to you right now is that if you fill in that blank with anything other than the love and grace of Jesus Christ, you will be sorely remiss. The momentary pleasures of vacations, a salary increase, even the great blessings of marriage and children are all secondary to the primary blessing of the love and grace of Jesus.
What I propose for your consideration is that all blessings flow from the ultimate blessing of Presence—Christ’s presence and dominion in our lives. If our choice to fill in the above blank fails to flow from Christ’s presence, it surely amounts to what Tim Keller defines as “counterfeit gods.” And these are the idols that can rob us of a remarkable year in 2024.
It can be family and children, or career and making money, or achievement and critical acclaim, or saving “face” and social standing. It can be a romantic relationship, peer approval, competence and skill, secure and comfortable circumstances, your beauty or your brains, a great political or social cause, your morality and virtue, or even success in Christian ministry. When your meaning in life is to fix someone else’s life, we may call it “co-dependency” but it is really idolatry. An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts, “If I have that, then I’ll feel my life has meaning, then I’ll know I have value, then I’ll be significant and secure” (Keller, Counterfeit Gods, xviii).
Jesus seems rather pointed in this regard: “Now great crowds were traveling with him. So he turned and said to them, `If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, and even his own life—he cannot be my disciple’” (Luke 14:25-26, CSB).
The Author of love, who charges us to love God and love others (Matthew 22:37-39), teaches us through hyperbole that every grace-filled blessing in life is secondary to His life of grace. All of the “graces” of life ultimately flow from the Source of grace, Jesus Christ.
I encourage you to do a life audit to set the stage for 2024. Peer into your daydreams and observe your daily life by asking these questions:
· What brings me the most satisfaction and security in life?
· What is it that, if I had it, would solve all my problems?
· If I could snap my fingers and make anything reality, what would it be?
· What do I think I can’t live without?
(Dirty God, 119-120.)
The answers you give will reveal the counterfeit idol that threatens you. Make it your commitment in 2024 to fill in the blank above by saying, “Ah, this was a good year because of the love and grace of Jesus Christ.” Anything else will rob you of true joy in 2024 and beyond.
