I remember how horrified I was the first time I read about King Manasseh, who burned his sons on an altar as a sacrifice to false gods. (2 Chronicles 33:5) I thought, “How could anyone be so depraved?” But God has a really good reason for us to read what happened in the Old Testament times! In this case, He reminded me of how I sacrificed my own children to false gods. While I never put their physical bodies in a fire, for many years my life manifested a worship of our cultural gods and this worship was at the cost of compromising their spiritual well-being.
Much of my “Christian” life, I passionately worshiped the gods of money, success, acceptance, career, and materialism. My worship was manifested in what I was passionate about. Guess what—those are the gods I taught my children to worship! I lived by the rules of hurry, worry, complain, plan, and fight! Most of my time and my most precious gifts—my children—were sacrificed on the altars of these lesser gods. God entrusted me to teach them to love Him and instead—I thrust them onto a fiery altar of hypocrisy.
I taught them to follow the rules instead of building a relationship with God because—the relationship required the surrender of my heart and—it was too much in love with the lesser gods.
My children rarely saw me in love with God, rather—they saw me passionately in love with everything else. So how could they EVER think that loving God was desirable if mamma didn’t think God was worth loving? I can’t undo the past, but I can surely do the future differently! God’s love is unmistakable and when we have it—people know it. When we live it—it has a remarkably powerful effect on those around us!
We have an entire multi-generational population of young people who are languishing and dying from the inside out because their souls have been burned and starved by a culture devoid of God. These children wonder if anyone really loves them for who they are, because, deep down, they know they will never be enough to satisfy the roaring fires of these blood-thirsty gods of success, beauty, pleasure, athleticism, etc. These false gods are never satiated and they never satisfy us. We all know this—because God created us with the knowledge that we need Him.
Only the God who created us and loves us more than we love ourselves—can satisfy us and make us whole.
When we fall in love with God, we enter into the experience of God’s love, and we give our children the best chance of knowing His enduring love. Knowing God makes us feel completely loved, and it gives our children this experience too!
God’s LOVE within us—allows us to give our children a sense of their true worth and the ONLY true love that will eternally satisfy their soul! We must plant God’s Word in our heart so He can heal us. We must develop the marvelous mind of Christ. As parents, we are given the timeless truth of God:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
Deuteronomy 6:5-7
My friend, don’t sacrifice yourself to idols. Don’t sacrifice your children or grandchildren. Those idols of gold, success, materialism, athleticism, and popularity can NEVER give you what God can give you. God created you to be a masterpiece and He has a magnificent plan for you. God has a plan for your children too and—it is greater than we can imagine!
We would love to hear your thoughts about this devotional. Did God speak to you or challenge your daily walk with him? Or is there a topic that you would like Kimberly to cover or expound on? Please share with us in the comments below.
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