Quotes from the devotional guide:
Sin is the result of disordered love, perversion and evil arise because we love other things more than we love God…Sin is a quest for autonomy, to decide for ourselves what is good. It is a decision to choose our own way instead of the way God has built into creation.
I have chosen many gods to worship in my life. At school, it was my grades. At work, it is my salary and the career ladder. In life, it was, for a while, my ex, and it’s now my family and friends. The one true God turns out to be only one of the gods I worship, and pretty low on the list if it’s ranked by how much time I spend with each god. If I really rank these gods by time spent per god, it would be in the order of work, sleep, entertainment, family/friends, body (exercises), food, hobbies, and, on the bottom of the list, God. I could spend 2 hours at night exercising, but I had not spent even 1o minute reading His words or talking to Him. I joke about how a toilet run can take easily more than 10 minutes, then why is it so hard for me to spend 10 minutes with God?
When I feel insecure about my body, I go to the gym. When I feel insecure about my job, I work long hours. But what I really should feel insecure about is my spiritual well-being. I’m very much losing and yielding to Satan’s temptations each day. It’s like what the devil Screwtape said to his nephew devil in C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. To tempt someone away from God, it’s easier to distract them from God using these disordered loves like food or comfort than to challenge them with arguments. Even as I am typing out this devotional, I have already been distracted multiple times by text messages and work issues. If I say I love God, yet I don’t spend any time with Him, do I really love Him? If my worth only comes from God, why then do I go to all kinds of other gods for comfort when I feel insecure?
God, please help me to learn this truth not just by brain but also by heart. Please help me to internalize the fact that you are the source of what is true and what is good and my value depends only on You. Please allow me to truly love you above all things.
