temptation

"... if the root issue of sin is pride or idolatry, here are the two great temptations that are sure to come your way.

The first temptation is to take something other than God and make it ultimate. Now I don’t know what that thing is. For some it’s cocaine or black tar heroin ...[but] most of us are much more apt to make family ultimate than cocaine. So the first temptation that’s coming for all of us is to take something other than God and make it our ultimate and to pursue it and chase it and own it. This is idolatry. You make your family an idol, you can make your children an idol, you can make making money an idol. You can make anything an idol.

The second temptation that’s sure to come is around the idea of pride, and it works itself out in two ways. We don’t like the God of the Bible, so we make our own. Usually that’s us, we make ourselves god. We don’t talk like that. We don’t introduce ourselves as Yahweh... But there are those who operate like they are god... so they'll say things like " I just can’t believe that God would command that, that God would want that, that God would ask that of me.” ... Do you see what just happened there? They just went, “That God is inadequate for what I want. I’m going this way.” And so the second temptation that is sure to come is to create another god otherthan the one in the Bible. Maybe that’s us, maybe that’s a different version of this God...

These are the two great temptations. They’re coming for all of us."

Matt Chandler, Temptations from within Read the full thing here, download it here, or listen below: