Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully.
Psalm 24:3-4
What consumes your thoughts? How do you spend the majority of your time? Where do you spend your energy?
I must confess that there was a time that my thoughts, my time, my energy were all consumed with weight loss.
My thoughts were focused on what I would eat and when, how uncomfortable I felt in my body, how I compared to everyone else.
I spent my time online consuming the latest fads on how to lose weight. My mental and physical energy was focused on how to lose weight.
Weight loss was an idol in my life.
We don’t like to talk about things like idols. That’s Old Testament stuff. Surely we’ve moved beyond kneeling before little statues. But have we?
Idols aren’t just the stone objects we tend to think of. An idol can be anything that takes our focus off of Jesus.
For me, for many years, it was weight loss. My relationship with my body, however poor that it was, was more important than my relationship with Jesus. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t have a relationship with Jesus. It just means that I allowed this obsessive desire to lose weight keep me from living fully the life God designed for me.
Thinking of this verse in Psalms, it was as if I was hesitating to ascend to the place where God wanted me to live. I was stuck on the side of the hill spending more time with my obsession over my weight than in the presence of the Lord.
Thankfully, that was some time ago, and God freely offered me His forgiveness for wasting so much time outside of His will, and He set me free. He wants to do the same for you.
Action Step
Do you have an idol? Is there something, or even someone, that is consuming you more than Jesus? Is it your relationship with your body and your focus on weight loss? This can be a tough issue to address, but when you do, and when you destroy the idol(s) in your life, I promise you that God will be faithful, and you’ll enjoy a peace you’ve never known before.
