Sometimes a book comes along that lines up perfectly with what God has been whispering to your soul. In fact, you almost wonder if the author spied on your innermost thoughts, took notes, and then transcribed them to the page. But she didn’t. What she did do was allow God to search her own heart and reveal the idols holding her captive. She believed His promise of something better, took the keys He offered to unlock her cage, and walked free.
She could have stopped there, reveling in sweet deliverance. She could have pretended those idols never existed, because who wants to admit sin and selfishness? But she knew there were lots of other people locked in the same cage, and God had showed her the way out. So she swallowed her pride, gathered her courage, and stepped bravely into the light.
That’s how Love Idol was born.
If you struggle with a constant need for approval, then please read Jennifer Lee’s wonderful, honest, liberating book. Read it, and believe what God has declared about you. Because the truth is, we really are pre-approved by God. We’re adopted, cherished, known, and loved — His works of art created for His pleasure and glory.
But that’s not all. We’re also called to serve and build each other up in love, and as long as we’re spending all our time and energy trying to build ourselves up by feeding an insatiable desire for other people’s approval, we’ll never be free to love others well.
This is the thing God has been laying on my heart over the past few months. And now Jennifer’s new book has landed on it all like a big, fat exclamation mark.
We live in two kingdoms. We’re in this world, but not of it. We’re citizens of earth, but we’re called to live here as citizens of God’s upside-down kingdom, and the two operate on opposing principles and laws. We may know what God’s Word says about us — that we’re created in His image, covered by the shadow of His wing, held in the palm of His hand, fearfully and wonderfully made, and chosen in Him before the foundation of the world — but thanks to mass media, we’re constantly bombarded with the world’s ideas about what our life should look like.
God always looks at the heart. If we’re motivated by culturally dictated lifestyle goals, we’ll be much too busy trying to achieve them to pursue the kingdom of God. We need to recognize that our culture is selling us lies. Even though many of the world’s values and trinkets are not necessarily sinful, none of them will bring peace, satisfaction, or purpose.
The pursuit of personal success is a birthright in the western world. But compassion is the law of the upside-down kingdom, and when it’s real, it’s knocks the teeth out of selfish ambition. Collaboration is the law of the upside-down kingdom, and when the body functions as a body, the work of the kingdom is accomplished. On the other hand, when we’re all competing for the spotlight, nothing of eternal value gets done.
And then there’s comparison.
Comparison either says God short-changed me or God short-changed you, and neither of those is the truth. God created women in all shapes and sizes with all sorts of personalities and talents, and in every single case, He knit them in their mothers’ wombs and knows their thoughts and numbers their days. In every case, He looks not at the external things but at the heart.
Comparison by its nature takes our eyes off of Jesus and puts them on each other, not for the purpose of loving and serving, or learning and imitating, but for the purpose of elevating or demeaning. As long as we’re measuring others and striving to measure up ourselves, we’ll never love well. But when we ask God to open our eyes to the beauty of diversity, and we choose to look for His creativity in others instead of comparing ourselves to them, we’ll be free to embrace our own gifts and purposes and to celebrate His glorious design for others. And what’s more, when we learn to see as He sees, we’ll start looking beyond the externals to the heart, and we’ll realize that, in the things that matter most, we’re more alike than we ever imagined.
The more we die to ourselves, the more we live to God, and the more we live to God, the more joy, peace, satisfaction, and true contentment we find. Yes, it’s upside-down. And it’s glorious. God pre-approves sinners. He adopts rebels. He redeems us while we’re His enemies and renames us His friends. And He gives us the beautiful gift of genuine friendship with each other — a gift we miss all too often because we can’t get our eyes off the mirror.
So, what if we really believed the truth? That we’re loved? That we matter? That no one else can fill the shoes He created just for us to fill?
What if we smashed our idols, and walked out of our prisons, and made it our one aim to love Christ and each other well?
We’d turn the world upside-down. And I can’t think of a single thing the world needs more than that.
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Top reviews from other countries
MarniGal
and Jennifer Dukes Lee does a beautiful job of pointing the way to Him
Reviewed in Canada on June 26, 2014
Joy Lenton
Are you ready to live pre-approved?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 14, 2014
