2026 Lenten Season - Day 22 - The Love and Grace of Warnings

We continue the tradition of 40 days of Lent-related devotionals (46 counting the Sundays).
Sharing "Journey to the Cross" by Paul David Tripp.
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On this side of eternity, it is easy to love the gift more than the giver.

Parents instinctively know that issuing warnings is an important part of true love. Parents who love their children spend a lot of time over the years warning them. From the early warnings about things that are hot, sharp, dirty, or poisonous, to the later warnings about the temptations of a fallen world, one of the ways that parents regularly express love for their children is by warning them of the dangers ahead. I have two granddaughters, and when I am with them, I find myself doing this all the time. Sometimes those warnings are attached to the rules that children have been taught and asked to obey. These warnings carry with them the threat of consequences or judgment. But warnings are not the same as judgment. If all I wanted to do was judge you, I wouldn’t warn you. I warn you because I love you, and I don’t want you to have to experience the consequences of your disobedience. When you are warned, you are being loved. To be warned is to receive grace.

Scripture warns us about a subtle kind of idolatry that masquerades as the worship of God but is really driven by the love of things. The war between worship of God and worship of things is not always as apparent to us as we think.

A seminary professor of mine told of a moment in his church when his brothers and sisters were enjoying a time of public praise. One woman stood up and shared how she had been facing bills that she could not pay, that she had prayed, and that God had supplied the money necessary to pay them all. Then she said, “I am just so thankful to God for his faithfulness.” It seems that everything was right in this moment of praise, except my professor kept thinking, “What if he hadn’t?" What if God, for his eternal glory and her spiritual good, had allowed her to face the stress of the even greater financial consequences of those bills being unpaid? Would she have still stood up and thanked God for his faithfulness?

Now, it may seem like a judgmental way of hearing this woman’s gratitude, but the professor’s observation points us to how subtle and deceptive the war for our hearts can be. Could it be that we are most excited about God’s presence in our lives when he has met a physical need or delivered to us something that we want? Could it be that there are ways in which God has been reduced from the one that we love to the deliverer of the thing that we love? Could it be that love of the world masquerades in our hearts as the worship of God? After we get what we want and we thank God for it, we think we are worshiping him, but perhaps, in reality, what has captured our hearts is not God but the thing.

The world around us is filled with sight, sound, touch, and taste attractions. We also find delights that are not physical, like affection, success, position, respect, power, and control. All of these created things, both material and immaterial, appear to give us life. They seem to have the power to produce joy and satisfaction or, when absent, sadness and discontent. So it is quite tempting to reach for them,  hoping they will do for us what they were never intended to do. It is tempting for all of us to look around and say, “If only I had _____ then my life would be ______.” Whatever sits on the other side of your “if only” is the thing you are living for at that moment and the thing that you think will give you the peace of life that you think is missing. Consider these heart-revealing questions.

When does God excite me most?
When do I shout the loudest, “God loves me!”?
When am I most thankful that I am one of God’s children and the object of his fathering care?
When does my relationship with God provide me the most joy?
What does God need to do for me in order for me to be content?
When do I tend to question God’s love?
When do I struggle the most to believe that God is faithful?
When am I tempted to envy others or to think God has favorites?
When does my praise of the Lord feel empty?
What causes me to feel that my prayers go unheard?
What would God have to do to produce real joy in me?

I don’t know about you, but I find these questions to be uncomfortable and revealing. I don’t think of myself as one who loves the gift more than the giver, but perhaps there are ways in which I do. Do I really believe that God is good, does what is good, and gives what is good to all his children all the time? Is it really true of me that because of the joy and satisfaction of knowing him and being loved by him, I am able to live with plenty or live with want? Does the withholding of what seems good cause me to question if he is good? Can I stand next to someone who has what I think I need and still love my Lord and rest in his love for me? Are there things that I have set my heart on, the absence of which will cause my faith to waver and my praise to be silenced? Where does my heart still live under the rulership of the gift rather than the righteous and loving rule of the giver?

During this season when you are letting go of the things of the world, confessing areas of sin and weakness, and running to your Savior for rescue and help, perhaps you should also confess one of the subtlest forms of idolatry. Perhaps it would be good to confess that what appears as worship may not be worship at all. It may be worship of the thing that reduces God to the delivery system for what your heart really craves. And remember, God sent his Son not only to forgive our sins, but also to liberate our hearts from the bondage to anything but him. He is not shocked or disgusted by your struggle. He will turn not away from you, but toward you with love and grace.

So today, hear this loving warning. Could it be that the confession of ongoing struggles of idolatry, no matter how subtle, is the first step toward a heart that is consumed by the worship of God alone?

GOING DEEPER
Reflection Questions

1. When have you found yourself closest to God? When have you been tempted to love him for the gifts he has given rather than for himself?

2. How can you grow in satisfaction in God himself while still being thankful for the gifts he gives?

3. What do you need to confess as an area where “what appears as worship may not be worship at all”?

Read Psalm 50:8–15, and hear God’s heart of love that longs for relationship, not empty sacrifice.

Psalm 50:8–15

I have no complaint about your sacrifices or the burnt offerings you constantly offer. But I do not need the bulls from your barns or the goats from your pens. For all the animals of the forest are mine, and I own the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird on the mountains, and all the animals of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for all the world is mine and everything in it. Do I eat the meat of bulls? Do I drink the blood of goats? 

Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High. Then call on me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory.

2026 Lenten Season - Day 15 - Your Spiritual War

We continue the tradition of 40 days of Lent-related devotionals (46 counting the Sundays).
Sharing "Journey to the Cross" by Paul David Tripp.
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The core enemy in our struggle with sin is not wrong behavior, but the idolatry behind the behavior.

The God of grace has given us an interesting passage in the book of Ezekiel so that we would have a clearer understanding of the nature of our daily battle with sin. Because I’m convinced that on this side of eternity, life is one big spiritual war, I have gone back to this passage again and again. Spiritual war is what makes marriage and parenting difficult. Spiritual war is what messes up our friendships and causes us to get ourselves into hopeless debt. Spiritual war causes us to eat too much and to go to places on the internet we should not go. Spiritual war makes it easy for us to blow three hours binge-watching a series on Netflix, while the same amount of time spent studying God’s word seems so hard. Spiritual war causes us to be materialistic, entitled, and demanding, never quite satisfied and never truly happy. Spiritual war is at the root of endless human disappointment and heartache. We are all in a war, whether we know it or not.

If you want to understand your spiritual battles, you need to know and understand Ezekiel 14:1–5: [Then certain of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me. And the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? Therefore, speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Any one of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols, that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols."]

In order to understand this convicting and illuminating passage, we must understand two terms. The first is stumbling block. In the Bible, a stumbling block is anything or anyone that leads you to desire to do something that is wrong in the eyes of God (sin). The second term is idol. The biblical teaching on idolatry goes way beyond the sphere of formal religious idolatry. It’s possible that you can have no formal religious idols in your life and yet be serving idols every day. Here’s how the Bible defines idolatry: an idol is any person, place, or thing that exercises control over the thoughts and desires of your heart that only God should have.

At first look, this passage is about the right people doing the right thing. The elders of Israel, who are the nation’s spiritual leaders, are coming to God’s prophet to hear a word from the Lord. But the message that came back was not at all what they expected to hear. God essentially says, “These men have idols in their hearts that will put a wicked stumbling block before their faces, and because this is true, it is the only thing that I am interested in talking about.” God is saying that whatever rules your heart will exercise inescapable control over your behavior. Whatever captures your thoughts and desires will then direct the things that you do and say. God knew that if he did not deal with the deeper issue of their idolatry, whatever he told them would be twisted by or used in the service of their idols. Notice that God is not talking about statues of false gods, but something that had taken residence in and control over the hearts of these men.

You can be theologically aware and biblically literate and still be serving idols in your daily life. You can be faithful in personal daily worship and still have actions, reactions, and responses at street level that are shaped by idols. You can be involved with ministry and have areas in your life that are under the active and functional control of something other than God. It could be the love or respect of another person, it could be the desire for control, it could be a position of power and influence, it could be the desire for a certain experience, it could be the need to be right, or the quest to be successful, or the love of theological knowledge, or the desire for material possessions. It could be hatred or bitterness against another person, it could be physical strength or beauty, it could be anything in creation that replaces the rightful rule of the Creator in your heart. Anything this side of God can become an idol.

This is where the spiritual war rages. It always rages at the level of the thoughts and desires of your heart. It is always deeper than behavior. It is fought at the point of the thing that controls your behavior, that is, the thoughts and motives of your heart. And this war rages on in the most mundane moments of our everyday lives. It also needs to be said that idolatry is not just the desire for what God says is evil. Desire for even a good thing becomes a bad thing when that desire becomes a ruling thing. Theological knowledge is a good thing, but if being knowledgeable becomes more important than loving the one that is the object of that knowledge, theological knowledge has become an idol and will cause you to make bad choices in thought, word, and deed.

I am afraid that because of my biblical literacy, my theological knowledge, and my ministry commitments, I have sometimes thought I was spiritually safe when I was not safe, because some desire in my heart was increasingly taking control of my thoughts and shaping my words and actions.

What about you? Do you tend to think that spiritual warfare doesn’t include you? Have you fallen into thinking that because of your involvement in the body of Christ and its ministries that there could be no idols in your life? Have you assumed a level of personal spiritual safety that may not be true? During this season of Lent, how about confessing to a wandering heart? How about asking your Lord to reveal to you where your heart may be under the control of something other than God? How about examining

what you really crave or what you really want for your life? How about looking for that person, place, or thing that has become too important to you? And how about crying out for the rescuing grace that Jesus died to give you?

May sorrow over the idolatry that still plagues you drive you into a deeper dependency on the rescuing and forgiving grace of your Savior and into a deeper celebration of the freedom that he promises you now and even more completely in the forever with him that is to come.

GOING DEEPER
Reflection Questions

1. What are the stumbling blocks in your life—those things that tempt you to sin?

2. What are the idols in your life—things that control your thoughts and desires or that you crave in an unhealthy way?

3. What are you doing to remove the stumbling blocks and idols from your heart?

Read Ephesians 6:10–18, and resolve to fight the spiritual battle for your heart with the weapons God has provided.

Ephesians 6:10-18  New Living Translation

The Whole Armor of God

10 A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. 12 For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.

13 Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then, after the battle, you will still be standing firm. 14 Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness. 15 For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared. 16 In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil. 17 Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

18 Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.