I saw "Return of the King" for the 3rd time tonight (this time with my wife) and I'm just seeing it at different levels. Please withold judgment of my idol worship cuz y'all got 'em, so leave my addiction alone. I can stop anytime I want! (Anybody out there not seen it yet and need somebody to go with you just call me :) )

Anyways, just gets me thinking about the sin that so easily tangles us. The precious that we love and hate at the same time, our idols. We loves 'em ands we's hates 'em. You name it, food, shopping, lust, money, power, stuff, toys, clothes, ambition, self pity, arrogance, ego, pride, self-worth, image, beauty, status, popularity, need to be needed, acceptance, self promotion etc. etc. etc.

Here's where I've seen it lately:
1) Watching MTV reality show "Rich Girls" of a couple of teenage daughters of multi-millionaire parents in the fashion industry. They said they wanted to grow up and be hippies while having a $400 lunch. Its sounds sooo cool to be new-ageish and hippie-like, but don't they see that hippie is about down with corporate America and its excesses? Hippie is about simple living, not $1,500 shoes as one of them bought in the show. Hypocrites and naive. Love our excess and hates our excess.

2) Watching Keyshawn Johnson (ex NFL receiver) talk on a pre-game show about how the league is just trying to make more $$ by fining players for excessive celebrations. He spoke about the "league" as if he had nothing to do with it. This "league" has given Keyshawn his entire life. His house, his cars, his following of women, his jewelry, his identity, his false image etc. etc. Don't go biting the hand that feeds you or you'll end up getting hungry. The "league" is his payday, he isn't separate from it. He hates the precious and yet he needs it.

3) Sunday morning makes for great T.V. preacher watching. I can't get enough, truly more of an obsession to me than Lord of the Rings. Preachers who preach in the name of self-agrandizement, love the center of attention, love the power to hold a microphone where hundreds/thousands have to listen to them and their opinions. I wonder if its possible to teach publicly without looking like a circus act. I have nothing against proclamation, I just don't trust those who sound like their trying to talk me into a great deal on a time-share in Florida. I wonder if their precious is the need to be important, compensating with a stage and captive audience.

4) The only problem with pointing out everybody else's idols is that I have to face my own. Christ following is so inconvenient sometimes. Regardless of what Jesus said, I have managed quite well to see around the plank in my eye to point out the specks in my neighbor :) I am painfully aware of the ugliness that still rages within me. The pull of the "precious" to seek worship of something else and not the Lord God. Something else to take center stage, something else to help form who I am, something else to seek for peace and contentment, the burden of the precious leaves us in misery. Unless we try and destroy it in the fire of self -denial and holy living. Oh that I die to me and become more alive in him. That he burns away the chaff in my innards and grows within me a hunger for right living. That I see the deceit and the lie of the precious and all my idols and that I have the will and the Grace to destroy it when given the chance I'm just honored that as I walk my own journey to destroy the sinful nature within me, I am not alone. Many of you form a faithful fellowship to me, as I to you on your journey. Even though at times hope seems dim, as long as the fellowship stays true, we may yet destroy the precious. Evens though wes loves to hates its.

peace,