idols of the heart

I've been reading through Idols of the Heart by Elyse Fitzpatrick.  It's an easy read, kind of like you're sitting down at a coffee shop with a friend and gabbing.  But it's also a powerful book.  My heart has been convicted many times.  I wanted to share some of the quotes that struck me:

-"The God who knows and loves us completely, more than we can comprehend, also knows all our desires and the place that they occupy in our love"

The Lord knows what my desires are, but He also knows where they rank (so to speak) in my heart-even the desires that I have placed above my love for Him.

-"It's easy to get so frustrate and caught up in serving the Lord that I forget to love and worship Him".

I'm a go get it done kind of girl, so this struck me.  Do I spend my time worshiping, or do I spend my time doing?  In the busy-ness of my life, do I stop and spend time with the Lord?

-"Delighting to do God's will means turning from the deception that joy lies outside obedient fellowship with Him.  We need to consistently disbelieve the imaginations that appear sweeter than God's lovingkindness."

I have to repeat this to myself!  NOTHING is sweeter than God's love and kindness and grace and mercy!  I cannot and will not find happiness outside of His will for me.

These are quotes of sin, and what sin is.  They all were so convicting to me.  They made me really stop and think about my motives.

-"Our choices are predicated upon what we think is "good", what we delight in, what we find most desireable.  The truth about our choices is that we always choose what we believe to be our best good.  We always choose what we believe will bring us the most delight".


-"Sin is always occasioned in us by our belief in its goodness; as...the will never desires evil as evil but as seemingly good".


-"The lie that happiness can be found in something other than God is the fountainhead from which all our idolatry flows."


-"If we are willing to sin to obtain it, it has become an idol".